Anime Weekly: LOVE UNSEEN BENEATH THE CLEAR NIGHT SKY, Romance and Disability
"I want to see fireworks someday," says the blind university student.
Love Unseen Beneath the Clear Night Sky
The first six episodes are now streaming on Crunchyroll. Subsequent episodes will debut every Monday. I've seen the first six episodes.
As a site, we are primarily interested in genre films and TV shows, which Love Unseen Beneath the Clear Night Sky is definitely not.
It's kind, sweet, and romantically-inclined, but no fights break out and no one kills anyone else. The show is set in the modern day and features no time travel or alien invasions.
However ...
Since I suffered a stroke in 2020, which has limited my mobility ever since, requiring the use of a cane, I find myself far more sensitive to disability issues, and how seldom they are addressed in movies and television shows. (To be clear: I am only partially-disabled.)
Thus, when I sampled Love Unseen, I was struck by how accurate it felt in its depiction of a blind university student named Koharu Fuyutsuki and her effect upon a sighted university student named Kakeru Sorano, who is the protagonist, which means the narrative unfolds and is narrated from his point of view.
The show, then, is not about Kakeru, but about Koharu, and how he is affected by and learns from the blind girl. In that aspect, Kakeru is very much a stereotypical "manic pixie dream girl," except that Kakeru's personality is quiet and modest.
Still, through the first six episodes, she is a fantasy character, without any evident faults, and is constantly praised by others. She exists mostly to draw the extremely shy Koharu out of his shell, and to prompt him to start thinking of other people and their needs, rather than remain fixed exclusively on himself.
Throughout the first five episodes, Koharu slowly gets to know Kakeru, and his admiration for her plucky, joyful nature leads him to develop romantic feelings for her. He invites her on a date, in which she tries to give him a sense of what it's like for her as a blind person: Rather than darkness all the time, it feels to her that she's enveloped in an off-white atmosphere all the time. (See clip below.)
At the conclusion of the sixth episode, Koharu confesses his feelings to his best friends, who encourage him to tell Kakeru. When one of them sends Koharu's video confession to Kakeru, however, she does not respond right away, concluding the episode with a cliffhanger.
The series is inspired by a Japanese romantic drama light novel series written by Nanigashi Shima and illustrated by Raemz, which began publication in August 2023. The anime series, produced by Makaria, is the first disability-themed anime show since the past Winter Season, when The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be Wife and Kunan the Sorcerer Can See debuted.
Love Unseen Beneath the Clear Night Sky is beautifully-animated and quite colorful. It's one of the few romance-themed shows I've continued watching this season, mostly for its depiction of a disability that is rarely explored. I am certainly no expert on issues of blindness and related disabilities, but I appreciate the honesty of showing characters who don't fully understand the issues either, yet are trying to learn how to act with respect toward people who are just like you and me, except they can't see.
Official synopsis: "Kakeru Sorano, a quiet university freshman who avoids others, meets Koharu Fuyutsuki, a blind girl who faces the world with quiet brightness. When she says, "I want to see fireworks someday," something in Kakeru shifts. As they grow closer through small moments and shared loneliness, he searches for a way to make her wish come true."
Photo credit: Copyright Nanigashi Shima - SB Creative Corp. / Kakekoi Partners.
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