michi speaks: Winter Cicada

Type: 3-part anime OVA
Directed by: Yoshihisa Matsumoto
Status: Finished Airing
Producers: VENET
Licensed by: Media Blasters
Genres: Historical, Drama, Romance, Mature, Yaoi

Synopsis:
During the late Tokugawa period, tensions between the bakufu and Choshu clan are rising due to arguments over how to deal with foreigners in Japan. However, unlike the rest of the Choshu clan members, Kusaka Touma wants Japan to develop good relations with foreign nations. To achieve this, he attempts to learn English behind his clan's back. A man named Akizuki Keiichirou decides to become Kusaka's teacher, but their relationship soon grows into something stronger, despite the fact that Akizuki works for Kusaka's clan's enemy, the Tokugawa bakufu.

- from www.animenewsnetwork.com


Winter Cicada (or Winter's Cicada/Fuyu no Semi) is part of Youka Nitta's manga series Embracing Love (Haru wo Daiteita).


My Take:
I had seen the last two parts of the OVA almost two years ago and I vaguely understood the story, without even reading its manga version. Lately, I managed to watch all the three parts. I've come to a point where I finally realized that that the plot was obvious and partly similar to Romeo-and-Juliet type of story. The two main characters made noble acts for each of their respective sides. But only their clan's different political stance for Japan hinder them to be together.

Somehow, I sense the connection of the title of this anime, Winter Cicada, through the end of the story. Although it's fuzzy to understand my point, this is how I see it. Cicada, as we all know, is an insect and the one that produces familiar buzzy sound every time we heard them in an anime or any television series in Japan that signifies summer time. Yes, the average temperature for their natural habitat is somwhere in spring, summer, or fall. So naturaly, they don't survive during winter season. In addition, the Japanese believe that cicada symbolizes re-birth or reincarnation because of the fact that it molts as well. The idea of death and reincarnation is what Akizuki Keiichirou had in mind for Kusaka and him. They lived in a time where their clan had opposing ideals and a warring period in Japan, did not really permitted them to have a close relationship. If they were on an age where no politics or no criticisms regarding their relatioship, then they could reincarnate and be free to be together. That is why both of them committed seppuku.

I admit, I didn't cry in the end as mostly of those who had viewed this had done so and I was not able to fully grasp the sense of the story the first time I watched it. Now I've completed it, I expected nothing. For a three-part OVA, I did not expect for a very complicated plots. For the story, it was good. For the art, it was good as well. In totality, it is recommendable to watch. ^^