I Finished Trapeze

…and it felt good.

The distinct arthouse style got old quick. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think this unique aesthetic is one of the show’s strengths. But you’ll get used to it in an episode or two. Trapeze is very straightforward (unlike its crazier older cousin, Mononoke), and the real meat of the show is in the characters.

Irabu is an excellent lead. He may be creepy with the injections bit, but his quirky personality is rounded off by his continual interactions with patients. In fact, he gets something out of them in return, opting to dabble in his patient’s fields (baseball, acting), or adapting some new technology (cellphones!) with their help.

Mayumi is not just a one-trick pony–she has a lot of charming moments that shape her into someone more than an obligatory hawt nurse. Her injection scenes are now as dear to me as stock mecha gattai scenes.

While the patient-of-the-week format is never broken, the patients live so differently from one another that I can enjoy each episode by itself. These patients may only take the spotlight in one episode, but we are invested enough to care about how they will get “cured”. Irabu’s treatment methodology isn’t anything particularly special–it’s the patients who bring themselves to their cure, but the Eureka moment often has this sweet, sublime feeling to it. Add that kickass Denki Groove song revving up and we have ourselves a satisfying end.

Another interesting thing is that Irabu juggles his patients at roughly the same timeframe. Everyone’s interconnected, one way or another! This is deceptively hard to pull off, but Trapeze does it to great effect.

And I thought this would be some deep show that would difficult to get into (I watched Mononoke as a primer!). Nothing can be farther than the truth–sure it looks weird for an anime, but it doesn’t put on airs. It doesn’t try to repulse you with its subject matter, and keeps things simple and easy to understand from start to finish.

A second season is fine, too.