Broadcast season: Summer 2024
Number of episodes: 12
Viewed on: Crunchyroll
Translator: ?
Genre: Romance
Thoughts: Luckily, the anime industry has started to diversify its titles a bit in recent years, releasing about one BL and two to three shoujo and/or josei anime adaptations a season and Twilight Out of Focus is the BL title of Summer 2024. The anime quickly went viral on social media, largely due to its poster featuring two male leads that looked suspiciously similar to Ash and Eiji of Banana Fish fame. . As a big fan of Banana Fish, the similarities between the main characters only piqued my curiosity. What I didn't expect to find out, however, was that I'm not suited to stories that focus solely on romance.
Twilight Out of Focus advertised two main characters, Hisashi and Mao, but the series is actually a collection of three different relationships: Hisashi and Mao, Jin and Giichi, and Rei and Shion. They are all students at an all-boys boarding school and are members of or affiliated with a film club. Each couple gets three to four episodes to tell their story, with the series eventually ending up focusing on Hisashi and Mao, the first couple introduced.
This setup has both strengths and weaknesses. Its most obvious flaw is that by focusing on three different couples, the story moves too quickly. Unlike other shows where all the relationships are explored in twelve parallel episodes, Twilight Out of Focus pushes the boundaries. As a result, it forces all three couples to fall in love and get together in a much shorter period of time, making their emotions and development feel forced rather than natural. I understand why the series chose to do this. By focusing exclusively on each couple's story in certain episodes, none of the three feel like “background” couples, which is often the case in most anime. However, even knowing that, since the series only has romance without any additional exploration of themes and relationships, it feels like their romance developed naturally. should be very important and Twilight Out of Focus missed that mark.
One of three couples
On the other hand, having three couples whose relationships are all equally important adds flavor to the story. These three couples are distinct in their character designs, personalities, and motivations. As a result, the series almost guarantees that audiences will find at least one couple to love and enjoy, or if one is more of a romance enthusiast, be satisfied with the variety on offer. . I personally benefit from this variety because I personally like Jin and Giichi's relationship the most out of the three and always enjoy seeing the two of them together on screen.
This dichotomy of strengths and weaknesses is what I experienced with this film. series in general. For example, the animation leaves a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, bad anime has become much more the norm in the last few years, and none suffer from this curse as much as BL anime. The characters barely move, regardless of the scene, and watching can quickly become a chore when the visual medium becomes a PowerPoint presentation.
Has visual direction
However, despite the lack of animation, the series has good storytelling direction. The film creatively integrates the couples' shared movie club experience into its visual storytelling. With Hisashi and Mao, when they share emotional and passionate moments, the window becomes widescreen, combined with black bars, making their relationship resemble big-screen movies. With Jin and Giichi, as their feelings for each other change, the lighting of the scene generally goes from bright to edgy, shining light on them the same way films shine on their actors. This direction becomes even more impressive because for each couple, the film brings a different cinematic quality to their romantic moments. The final couple has a particularly subtle effect through the explosion of music and emphasis on sounds like shoes running on the ground.
The story gives me similar hot and cold patterns. Nothing else happens in the series other than romance. Even though all the characters have friends, their friendships take such a backseat in the story that I can't even name any of the characters other than the couples. That's why I quickly got bored. Unfortunately, over the years I've learned that I'm not a fan of stories that focus solely on romantic relationships without any additional themes to explore, and Twilight Out of Focus is one of those anime. In fact, watching this movie has made me officially conclude that I don't like romance anime. Rather, I like anime with romantic elements.
However, even so, I have to praise some elements of the story. One of my biggest gripes with anime is its tendency to confirm problematic relationships, and this isn't just a BL issue. The student-teacher relationship is one of the most common relationship dynamics in anime, and for the first time, I've found an anime that not only portrays this relationship as toxic, but as criminal. In Twilight Out of Focus, Hisashi directly calls out his teacher, with whom he had a relationship, as someone who groomed him, who took advantage of his youth and poor family situation, and ultimately is someone who deserves to be called a criminal. I was also very impressed with Shion's writing. Unlike most BL characters where sexuality is not discussed or where the characters assume they are straight until they meet that special someone, Shion is a gay character who already knows she is has been gay since he was a child and has proudly come out since middle school.
Clearly calls for grooming
Because of the factors discussed above, Twilight Out of Focus is a difficult anime for me to summarize my thoughts on. I eventually got bored with this series, even though the characters were charming. Since there's nothing extra beyond its relationships, this is not an anime I would watch again. However, its strengths should not be underestimated, especially when viewers have fought hard to get more diverse anime available to stream. I think if you're a fan of the romance genre, you'll enjoy Twilight Out of Focus despite any concerns I have with it.
Rating
Plot: 5 (Multiplier 3)
Characters: 6 (Coefficient 3)
Art/Animation: 4 (Coefficient 2)
Voice acting: 6
Soundtrack: 6
FINAL SCORE: 53