House of Five Leaves

I legit couldn't tell you why I never read Natsume Ono's manga when her signature style, both aesthetically and storytelling wise is so appealing to me, but House of Five Leaves is the second anime I watched that she's the original creator of. I'm about to go on a manga binging spree of hers after this. Maybe. I haven't felt like reading manga too much these days.

The story centers around a samurai, Masa, who can't seem to hold a job because of his timid and clumsy personality that makes him unreliable despite his skilled swordsmanship. Masa catches the eye of Yaichi, a man who happens to need a bodyguard for one night, after which he ends up wanting Masa to join his group Five Leaves, a gang that specializes in kidnapping.

I don't want to spoil anything about the story or characters yet so I'll talk about some marginal stuff first.

To begin with, never have I seen a work capture the feeling of "joining an x place one the party is almost over". I feel like I've been in that situation a couple of times in my life, and there's always a certain feeling of wistful fomo this creates in you as the newcomer. There's so many scenes in this anime that evoke that exact feeling in me lmao

The way characters develop and the story unravels is really phenomenal. Nothing is overstated and the anime doesn't bother explaining things in the usual overly complex infodumping manner, leaving you to piece the parts together by yourself and understand things from context and the general mood - because conversations often go unfinished and things are left unsaid and implied. When trying to find some threads comparing the anime and manga I noticed some people struggled with the way the anime handled flashbacks and they couldn't keep track of the names, so keep that in mind if you choose to watch it. I honestly didn't feel it was confusing bar the first 5 minutes of the first episode, after which I sort of got the gist of how this anime will flow.

I loved each member of Five Leaves, but I especially loved them as a group. Their dynamic is so great and comfy. One thing that I'll say is unrealistic but welcomed, is that all of the characters in this anime are mature, perceptive and clever. It was so nice to pretend this is the world we live in for as long as the anime lasted lmao. One other great thing about the characters were their goals and motivations, which weren't grand or overblown and this definitely plays with one's expectations while watching the anime - surprising you positively in the process.

Spoilers here; I talk about the whole ending

I want to add onto this thing regarding character motivations because why not, I loved this anime so much I want to write about it more.
I'll begin with one of the side characters, Yagi. Yagi is a mysterious guy who lends a supportive hand to Masa around the time Masa begins joining Five Leaves; a time when inner conflict begins to arise in Masa, because he wants to improve himself as a person and this is a great opportunity while being drawn in by the interesting people in Five Leaves, but also because he is put off by the illegal work they do. As the story progresses we learn Yagi is a cop and Yaichi doesn't like him snooping around Masa - which instantly makes anyone suspect that he might have ulterior motives, especially considering the line of work Five Leaves deal in. This is a great red herring though, as soon enough we also learn Yagi knew Yaichi during his childhood and was best friends with Yaichi's servant - whose name Yaichi assumed - his real name being Senoshin. It seems Yagi only wanted to get closure regarding his old friend, and confirm that Yaichi is indeed Senoshin, the young master who assumed his servants name.

And then this moment where the two talk propels us into the story's closure. Yaichi learns that his servant was killed because he likely found out about the family's plot to kidnap Yaichi (then Senoshin) and to kill him off in order to have his younger brother assume his place as the future head of the family. Yaichi blindly believed the kidnappers lie that it was his servant who arranged his kidnapping, which bring us to the irony of it all... The kidnapper lied to Yaichi to keep him alive; had Yaichi been told the truth, he likely would have ran back to his servant, and to his family, only to be killed. Instead, when Yaichi was told his servant and his only friend abandoned him, he knew he had no place to go to and so he joined the kidnappers gang.

In the end Yaichi formed Five Leaves, a group that kidnaps people within Edo's upper class, mostly as a way to relive his trauma again and again, only this time as the one doing the traumatizing. MWAH! What a tragic story... But ultimately we get a pretty happy ending, that circled back to the beginning of the story, mirroring the scene in which Yaichi helps Masa off the ground, now Masa is the one doing the helping, thus also completing Masa's arc of becoming someone more reliable and confident. It's almost too good!! And what a blush worthy ending too...