June 12th, 2018 
Charles Solomon 
In the first episode of the 2017 broadcast series Tsuki-ga kirei (in Japanese Tsuki-ga kirei means “As the moon, so beautiful”), Kotaro Azumi (Stephen Sanders), a 9th grader at Kawagoe City Daisan Junior High, quotes Osamu Dazai: “How excruciating, arduous and unbearable it is to live.” Kotaro adds, “He must have been talking about middle school.”
Kotaro dreams of becoming a novelist, and his favorite writer is Dazai, the author of “No Longer Human,” a study in alienation that remains one of the all-time best-sellers in Japan. It’s a appropriate choice for the character, just as a bright American junior high student would venerate J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” Kotaro is shy, talented and likable, but he neglects his studies to work on his fiction. He’s more surprised than anyone when a school project brings him into contact with his classmate Akane Mizuno (Apphia Yu) and sparks fly.
Akane is pretty, a top student and the star of the track club. But she’s also shy and insecure; when she gets nervous she plays with a squeeze-toy of a cartoon potato plant. She’s certainly not looking for a boyfriend, but as she spends more time—and swaps more texts—with him, she realizes the gentle Kotaro makes her feel safe and cared about.
The course of true love never runs smoothly, especially for teen-agers. Akane has to train for interscholastic races; Kotaro rehearses a complicated dance for an upcoming Shinto festival. But the dance around each other’s feeling is even more complex. Kotaro has to sneak into Akane’s last track meet: If she knew he was watching, she’d be self-conscious. When their friends learn that Akane and Kotaro are dating, they launch a barrage of teasing that isn’t meant maliciously, but is still hard to deal with.
Handsome Takumi Hira (Daman Mills), the president of track club, wants to go out with Akane; Akane’s friend Chinatsu (Nishio Megan Shipman) nurtures a crush on Kotaro. Although Kotaro and Akane are interested only in each other, jealousies and misunderstandings inevitably arise. Akane has trouble confiding in anyone, even her special group of girlfriends. Kotaro seeks advise from the sympathetic Daisuke Tachibana (Ian Sinclair) the proprietor of a small bookstore and the lead percussionist for the temple festival musicians. Kotaro’s mother scolds him for not studying harder; Akane’s older sister attempts to kibitz her budding relationship.
At the same time, both partners have to face exams, cram school and, an arduous rite of passage for Japanese students, applying to an appropriate high school. Further complications ensue when Akane’s father announces he’s being transferred and the family will move closer to Tokyo. Akane’s excellent grades win her a place at prestigious Koumei High in Chiba, but it’s nearly two hours by train from Kawagoe City!
Yuuko Kakihara’s script captures the ordinariness of life at Daisan Junior High: the awkward silences, the mini-crises that threaten to escalate into traumas, the general uncertainty of teen-age life. She also avoids facile solutions that would weaken the story: Akane does move away. Despite a frantic period of intense studying, Kotaro fails to win a place at Koumei High. Kawagoe City is a real place, and the filmmakers give the viewers a sense of everyday life in a town that’s no backwater, but still small enough for everyone to know everyone else’s business.
Director Seiji Kishi keeps the characters appelaing and believable. Akane and Kotaro are good kids, but they’re not superstars. Akane is a promising runner, but not an Olympic prospect; when Kotaro enters a magazine’s new talent contest, an editor meets with him—but urges him to focus on something simpler, like light novels.
The result is a modest but disarming romance that’s refreshingly free of both melodramatic excess and snarky cynicism. Its tone may remind Western viewers of an early John Hughes movie.
Tsukigakire: The Complete Series
Crunchyroll/Funimation: $64.98 4 discs, DVD and Blu-ray
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