#OPINION: TONIKAWA’s First Episode Is Weird, Wild, and Breaks Tradition

“#OPINION: TONIKAWA’s First Episode Is Weird, Wild, and Breaks Tradition”

TONIKAWA

Stop me if you’ve heard this kind of set up for a romance story before. Boy meets girl. Boy gets run over by a truck and breaks his legs and begins bleeding profusely when he’s convinced he needs to talk to girl. Girl saves boy’s life and then agrees to marry him as he’s bleeding everywhere. Oh, that’s not the normal way romance stories tend to go? I guess you won’t have to stop me then. TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You’s first episode takes a genre most people have an understanding of and decides to flip it on its head. Immediately, your preconceived notions about what traditionally makes a romance story are out the window, and instead you’re left wondering where the drama will be and how this couple will work out after already being married.

Now, there’s a reason you won’t often see these kinds of shows break away from what works. The old adage of “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” has definitely applied to romance and romantic comedy series for centuries. It’s a formula that works and will continue to work because people pine to see the development of a relationship and two characters’ chase toward getting together. They want to see a pairing’s journey and how they’re able to navigate the ups and downs that come with any relationship.

TONIKAWA

If you take a look through the romance tag here on Crunchyroll, most of the titles you’ll see feature couples that get together at the end of the series or fans are still waiting to see that happen for a variety of reasons. From traditional romance series such as Tsukigakirei, Orange, or given to romantic comedies like Lovely Complex and Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, they all refuse to break from this traditional style of storytelling. MY love STORY!! comes the closest out of the shows I’ve watched, but even then, it still waits for a handful of episodes and isn’t as immediate as TONIKAWA is.

Since it’s obvious TONIKAWA is doing something different early in its first episode, how does that change the relationship that people who usually watch this genre have with a show that subverts expectations? Since Nasa and Tsukasa are married by the end of the episode, the journey I talked about earlier is not exactly gone completely, but altered. You won’t be able to see how they eventually come together after weeks of watching. Instead, their journey is something different as they still have to get to know one another, and that’s a process in and of itself.

TONIKAWA

With Nasa’s more straightforward approach, combined with Tsukasa’s mysteriousness, that will become the cause for some goofy shenanigans. When you add on top of that the fact that they have to immediately start living together and learn about each other’s nuances, it creates a recipe for comedy and drama as the two of them aren’t going to be synced up on everything right off the bat. Usually, it’d be easy to iron out those kinds of wrinkles in a relationship, but more often than not, you move in with someone after you’ve had an established amount of time knowing each other.

When you add in other people the two of them will know who could stir up trouble, that becomes another issue that can be hard to overcome, especially in a relationship as new as Nasa and Tsukasa’s. So, while the drama here is going to be different than what you normally see in the romance/romantic comedy genre, it’s still a prevalent factor that will crop up even though TONIKAWA has switched up how it delivers the comedy and drama to its viewers. Instead of the will-they-won't-they question constantly being whether or not they’ll eventually end up together, it now becomes will they be able to stay together for the long haul?

TONIKAWA

Given the way TONIKAWA kicks things off by being different from the norm, it brings a freshness to the genre that can sometimes feel the same with shows continuously utilizing the same formula. That has its benefits and drawbacks. Some people will relish the idea that the romance genre is doing something different with how this series is presented. It’ll make them more interested to see what TONIKAWA does next to try and subvert their expectations. However, it can have an adverse effect as well, where some people who want that slow burn type of story will be put off by having that ripped away from them straight away. That could be enough for someone to immediately look the other way and try to find something else.

Even though this series does take the way romance stories are presented and flips it on its head, I still think you’ll be able to get that slow burn if that’s what you’re looking for. Nasa and Tsukasa still have to learn about each other, they’ve got to figure out how to become closer and understand how to be a husband and wife. That’s where the slow burn will reignite and take hold. Romance is romance, after all. Even if different kinds of media will give you a lot of the same kinds of stories in regard to that, not everyone’s story is the exact same, nor should they be.

TONIKAWA

There is, of course, another aspect that TONIKAWA brings that makes things different, and that’s the mystery of Tsukasa. Nasa alludes to her being similar to the legend of Princess Kaguya in the first episode, but as of now, there’s a whole lot we just don’t know about her. What’s her motivation for agreeing to marry Nasa and then following up on that years later? What kind of person is she? What’s her backstory? You could rattle off numerous questions that would be relevant here, but it adds another element to this story that while Nasa was very quick to agree to everything, everyone else is still left in the dark as to what’s going on with Tsukasa and how the answers to a lot of these questions will have on their relationship and the story as a whole.

TONIKAWA does a good job of changing how romance stories can be approached early on in a way that feels fresh. It allows you to see that there are other avenues for drama or comedy to come from that aren’t the typical ways the genre is known for. It’s certainly not a deconstruction of the genre that goes in a completely different direction, but it’s still a change of pace that allows for any new or experienced viewer to understand that what they’re watching is a little bit unusual, and that can make for a fun story. Whether or not TONIKAWA continues to switch things up remains to be seen, however, its first episode certainly does its job in making you want to see where Nasa and Tsukasa’s relationship will end up.

Do you think TONIKAWA will continue to change up the romance story formula and how do you think Nasa and Tsukasa's relationship will work? Let us know down in the comments below!

Jared Clemons is a writer and podcaster for Seasonal Anime Checkup and author of One Shining Moment: A Critical Analysis of Love Live! Sunshine!!. He can be found on Twitter @ragbag.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!