The Spring 2024 Anime Preview Guide

Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night

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The young artist Yoru Kurage has been on hiatus ever since a certain incident. In reality, her name is Mahiru Kōzuki. She became traumatized by the pressure of being "

special" and instead decided to live a normal, standard high school life. However, things change when she meets former idol Kano Yamanōchi. The strong-minded Kano "graduated" from center position in the Sunflower Dolls idol group, where she was known as Nonoka Tachibana. Along with VTuber Kiwi Watase and talented musician Mei Kim Anouk Takanashi, the girls come together to create art again.

Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night is an original anime project by JELEE. The anime series is streaming on HIDIVE on Saturdays.

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Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

One of the worst feelings in the world is when someone tells you that something you love about yourself isn't good enough. Mahiru has been dealing with that for years: she won a contest to design a mural in Shibuya in elementary school, but then her friends all laughed at it and said that they ought to graffiti it, which was the end of her being proud of her artwork. It's a short, painful scene that overshadows everything about Mahiru. Now in high school, she sees herself as "ordinary," which she defines as "not worth anything." One moment redefined her sense of self, and she's been carrying that pain ever since.

It's a solid moment of realism in an otherwise largely symbolic episode. The bulk of the runtime is meandering conversations playing out over highly symbolic images, such as Mahiru hesitating between the devil and angel costumes, which we can read as her being unsure of herself and her place in the world; she defaults to the angel after Kano runs off with the last devil outfit, showing how she feels forced to follow the dictates of so-called normalcy. (Kano's quick choice indicates that she rejects that, with her bleached hair backing it up.) Fanservice images of Mahiru as seen from her sister's camera lens viewpoint back up the idea Kaho puts out about teenage girls being commodities for internet likes and followers, and both Mahiru and Kano's meanderings around nighttime Shibuya show how lost they both feel, hiding their art forms from sight. Even the concert that they twice interrupt shows the difference between performative displays of art for popular consumption versus art for art's sake, although Oscar Wilde would, of course, be quick to assure us that all art is quite useless.

While this level of symbolism can be a little wearying, the final moment of triumph at the end of the episode makes it all worth it. Alone, Mahiru and Kano are just girls struggling to find a place. Together, they're Yoru and Cleopatra, and their art enhances each other. I'm not sure that this could work as a consistently symbol-heavy series. Still, I also want to see Mahiru rediscover her joy in art and herself, and I like the relationship between the girls. I'm here to see where the story goes.

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Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

Neither anime nor music are strangers to blunt metaphors. Often, that's part of the charm. Sometimes, an artist or writer or musician has big, powerful emotions they need to get out, and subtlety would only get in the way, so it's best to bring out a sledgehammer with [EMOTIONALLY RESONANT METAPHOR] painted on its face to smash through the computer screen. That's the realm this show operates in, exploring some big and meaningful emotions with all the stumbling artistry of a teenager writing their first real stab at poetry.

At least, that's where we're at on the scripting side. This episode introduces our first two heroines by constantly and directly reiterating their central problems to the point where it gets a little tiresome. Yes, show, we understand that Mahiru is painfully self-conscious and desperate to express herself through her art but paralyzed by the negative scrutiny it can attract. We get that she's inspired by Kano's resolve to forge her own identity. It is obvious this is a story about finding confidence and defining your own identity through art. You don't need to literally spell that out by having a character point to their online avatar and say, "This character is a part of my identity to express who I am." Or reiterate the jellyfish metaphor multiple times. You're playing with pretty universal and self-evident themes here, and they're good ones! Please trust us, your audience, to get the point without having it hammered into our skull.

Thankfully, the visual artistry is a whole lot more confident, even if it's no less on the nose. The character designs are striking and very appealing and move with the elastic vibrancy you love seeing from the best of Doga Kobo's projects. The neon-lit streets of Shibuya at night make for beautiful backgrounds for these characters, a perfect stage for young kids trying to find themselves amid a busy and chaotic modern world. I love how the world outside our characters is rendered, too, with cuts to random people skating or hanging out at the margins of the story to make the city feel lived-in. The direction can get a little too aggressive at times – Kano's acoustic street performance isn't really bombastic enough to warrant the sweeping camera movement and dramatic cuts – but I won't look too harshly on well-meaning over-exuberance. The show looks great and perfectly captures the emotions the script sometimes fumbles with.

That scripting does leave me with some hangups, but the overall package is endearing and joyful enough that I can put those aside for now. Jellyfish is playing with ideas and themes that I love and clearly has the artistic ambition to make the journey a pleasant one. I can forgive a few fumbles when a show is this earnest and delightful.

What I can't forgive is HiDive's failure to translate the in-universe songs. Come on, guys. You're localizing a show about music. The lyrics are going to be important. Get it together.