Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night – Ep. 11

So, not only is JELEE more or less back together, they remain as famous as ever. This is thanks to Mei’s outburst, which has apparently garnered 2.2 million views, making it one of JELEE’s most viewed videos, if not #1. Now that she’s calmed down, Mei is of course embarrassed over her big moment but the video stays since it’s free publicity for JELEE and most of the comments appear to be positive. This is a minor bit of praise but between the recent livestream and cursed video way back in Episode 5, I really like how the girls sometimes get fame in the most unintentional ways. It feels pretty realistic to me.

Anyway, Kano decides to work on the unfinished song some more so that she can get back in the groove and avoid falling behind Mahiru in terms of effort. As Mei notes however, Kano’s singing currently lacks passion, as if she doesn’t know who she’s singing for. Mahiru has a similar dilemma as her art fails to meet Yukine’s expectations. It gets to a point that Yukine demands that she redo all of it in a completely different style. As easy as it is to antagonize Yukine here, she does have a point: Mahiru isn’t enamored with her own work and whatever spark Mahiru had before is missing.

The parallel struggles here is presumably a product of the “breakup” at the end of Episode 9. Now Mahiru and Kano are working separately and with things awkward between them, they’re banking less on each other to motivate their craft. Without that motivator, they’re each suffering a creative block. I imagine that this conflict will inevitably sort itself out the second these two rekindle their friendship(?) but I do have some reservations about that. I’d be happy to see these two together again but would either Mahiru or Kano really be a jellyfish that can swim on its own if their feelings toward each other is still their biggest inspiration? That would undermine Mahiru wanting to work on art outside of JELEE and Kano’s recent reevaluation of their relationship. It would just feel repetitive. Like, haven’t these two already found their reason to draw/sing a couple times already? It’s starting to feel like this show is stuck in a loop.

This episode sort of provides an alternate muse for each other. Mahiru decides to revisit her old art at her childhood school with Kiui to figure out what made her want to draw in the first place. Really though, what remotivates her is Kiui standing up for herself (more on that in a bit). That works fine for me. Kiui has always been an inspiration to Mahiru. I believe Kano’s alternative is her mother; when she tells Mei she’s found a reason to sing, the show immediately cuts to Yukine. That scares me, to be frank. Even if Kano and Yukine do reconcile and Yukine somehow beats Shizue as Mother of the Year, I don’t think it’s healthy for Kano to still obsess over making her mother notice her.

Mero gets some attention this episode. In one scene, she and Mahiru have to carpool together. Oddly enough, I think Mero is the most interesting character these days. I figured she’d be antagonistic for the entire show but she has proven to be more sympathetic than she lets on. Mahiru doesn’t bother asking Mero about the big scandal. At this point, the viewer knows everything about it and Mahiru doesn’t need more information to accept Kano for who she is now. Rather, we have Mero asking Mahiru about the LookIdiot account, without giving away that both it and her are the same person. Although Mahiru disapproves of LookIdiot’s actions, she reckons that they were using the account because they couldn’t be true to themselves and they needed an outlet to vent, something which Mahiru can relate with. Mero doesn’t give a strong reaction but she does seem a bit taken back at Mahiru’s empathy. I’m very curious what Mero will do next. The fact that she asks about LookIdiot suggests that she’s thinking of coming clean. At the very least, I hope Mahiru’s words will help her move on.

Going in, I thought this episode was going to revolve around Kiui and it kind of is about her. As set up in the previous episode, Kiui has been exposed as the real identity of Nox. This naturally becomes the main topic in her stream’s chat and her DMs. At first, Kiui tries to run away from the discourse, banning her real name from the chat and blocking any person that’s bothering her. It kind of like how she stopped attending school altogether once she got ostracized. The big difference however is that Kiui no longer has an outlet she can use as a scapegoat. She can’t escape to her online persona because the internet is where everyone is harassing her. This comes to a head when Kiui and Mahiru run into some old “friends” after checking out their old art. The group mocks Kiui and her Nox persona, leading her to finally confront the problem head-on. She tells her friends to piss of and saying how much Nox means to her.

Probably the detail that’ll stand out the most about this scene is Kiui’s friends disliking that she acts as the more masculine Nox online. That then suggests that this scene is meant to be a discussion on gender identity. It can certainly come across that way in the ensuing dialogue. Kiui’s friends tell her that she should be normal. In response, Kiui tells them that they don’t know what’s it like to be different and how hard it was for her to love herself again. She created Nox to overcome her self-loathing so the last thing she wants is to have people deny this part of her.

Now look, if you relate with Kiui’s background and this scene resonates with you, then more power to you. And whatever the intent of this scene may be, Kiui standing up for herself is great. But I don’t know, this all feels last minute to me. There have been hints here and there in past episodes. Kiui uses masculine pronouns when she streams as Nox. She tends to wear baggy clothes and she doesn’t like talking about her body, going as far as obscure the size of her breasts. In hindsight, there were indeed some signs. But that’s really all we got before this episode. No one in JELEE remarked on the fact that Kiui acts as a guy online, let alone talked to her about it, and Kiui herself never explicitly acknowledged this part about herself until now. It’s not even mentioned in Episode 3, the episode where we learn Kiui’s entire backstory. You could argue that the show was being subtle but if that’s the case, it was way too subtle. It was so subtle that you could miss it. I wouldn’t want the show to spell it out but if gender identity is part of Kiui’s character, it should’ve committed to it more.

At the end of the episode, Mahiru hands over her finished artworks, revealing that she stuck with her usual art style. While Yukine is displeased at Mahiru’s defiance, she is still impressed with the final product so she accepts it. As if that isn’t gutsy enough, Mahiru proposes that JELEE perform alongside the Sunflower Dolls in the upcoming event. The funny thing is that I can see Yukine agreeing to the idea. Kano isn’t canceled anymore and JELEE is doing really well. A reunion between Kano and her old idol group and riding off of the popularity of JELEE would be a great publicity boost. More importantly, this is clearly a way for the show to address all of the loose ends in one swoop. Not only would this reunite Kano with Mahiru, it would also give her a chance to reconcile with Mero and prove herself to Yukine. I can’t speak to the execution just yet but at least on paper, this is an ingenious setup for the final episode.

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