©じゃのめ・講談社／ 「黄昏アウトフォーカス」製作委員会
It's easy to get sucked into the fantasy genre, and we've probably all been there. Whether it's jumping off a shed roof with an umbrella and hoping to float away, chasing the slightest glimpse of a white deer into the woods, or repeatedly going into closets in search of fantasy lands, the allure of our favorite novels is hard to resist. For Yoshino, the protagonist of the third installment of Twilight Out of Focus, the genre that draws him in is the shoujo romance. As the first openly gay character (most of Hisashi is in the closet, while the other three are both unabashed and uncommunicative), Yoshino is eager to make his high school debut at an all-boys school in order to earn a hot boyfriend he can brag about to his middle school friends. But he doesn't want just any guy; Yoshino's dreams are scripted by the shoujo romances he experienced in middle school, and he is faced with the uncomfortable reality that things rarely turn out that way in real life.
He's probably the most open character we've ever seen. by far. While Ichikawa doesn't necessarily hide his passions, he also has two separate personalities, but Yoshino always lets it all out. Or at least, he learns to—his first three attempts at finding a boyfriend landed him in sports clubs, all of which he's ridiculously talented at, but none of the members like him romantically; they're more interested in his amazing athletic skills than his good looks. Eventually, after complaining about his failed attempts to his roommates, the Goth suggests he join the film club. After all, it's full of attractive young men.
What’s interesting about this arc is that it’s different from the previous two. Yoshino isn’t apologetic, and when he gets to the film club, he’s no longer hiding his desires. He and Rei (a third-year with glasses and a “Things” cap) start dating quickly because Rei is morbidly infatuated with Yoshino and he’s hot enough to suit Yoshino’s tastes. But their drama comes from their different personalities; Rei’s third-year friends aren’t afraid to call him trash because he has the people skills of a block of cheese, while Yoshino puts himself out there. If we have friends turned into lovers, then enemies turned into lovers, then this new relationship is probably best described as opposites attract. Rei starts by telling Yoshino that he'll never find a boyfriend, then moves on to kissing him like nothing happened after Yoshino sobs outlining her shoujo manga dream scenario. He distances himself from the whole situation, while Yoshino immediately snaps into focus, eagerly calling her middle school friends and completely unaware of what she's letting herself into.
In some ways, this dynamic makes this the most interesting of all the romances. There’s more surface-level tension, and if Yoshino is a hot mess, he’s a hot mess, and he handles Rei well. The scene where Yoshino takes off Rei’s glasses to discover he’s a hot shoujo manga character is great – Yoshino exclaims, while Rei quietly demands his glasses back because he can’t see anything. In short, this is their relationship, and it’s not only markedly different from the other two (a real strength of this pseudo-anthology series), but it also has a much more manic energy. Even their unnatural hair colors show us that this is a very different story than we’ve had before. Yoshino can be annoying, and Rei is even more at risk of being an unwitting player than Hisashi. Still, there's nothing wrong with a series trying something new, and this third romance shows us that Twilight Out of Focus is committed to that angle.
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Twilight Out of Focus is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
