Sparks of Tomorrow ‒ Episode 9
Ostensibly focusing on Kihachi and company (Suzu and Kate just kind of show up out of nowhere) chasing after Inako so he can give the electrical catalogue to Yosuke Mizoe so Inako doesn't have to marry him, this episode FINALLY gives us more of a distinct sense of Seiroku, Yosuke, Kengo, and Noriko's relationship. Which is to say this episode confirms that they were all schoolmates, with Seiroku having such a magnetic personality that all of them fell in love with him to one degree or another, which has been implied in this anime's opening for a few episodes. These flashbacks do reveal that Yosuke was fully romantically in love with Seiroku, with his grief at the inventor's passing driving his actions throughout the show, which makes his machinations to marry a child extra cringe-inducing. It is overtly homophobic to have a gay man also fill the role of a child predator, as it validates longstanding harmful stereotypes against queer men and has no place in today's media landscape.
Another question I kept returning to as this episode played out, even as Kengo and Kihachi did electric ninja their way onto the boat where Yosuke and Inako's wedding announcement was taking place, is why anyone assumes Yosuke will keep his word? He gave the protagonists an ultimatum in that either he gets the electrical catalogue, or he marries Inako, but they have no leverage over him to enforce those conditions. We as the audience know that Yosuke only ever wanted to marry Inako as a means to obtain the electrical catalogue, but this episode introduces the idea of Yosuke falling out of favor with the Mizoe family if he backs out of the marriage, so it's entirely to his benefit if he takes the catalogue from Kihachi and then still goes through with the wedding.
If any of these characters had stopped and had a conversation about their situation, they would realize that what they now need to do is just raise enough money to keep Inako's family's brewery solvent, which the inventions inside of the electrical catalogue would presumably allow them to do!
Beyond offending my sensibilities as a queer man, this episode of Sparks of Tomorrow offends my sensibilities as a writer. It's been a while since I experienced a piece of media whose conflict could so easily be resolved with any amount of honest communication between characters. Sparks of Tomorrow keeps having characters bend over backwards to keep a conflict and storyline that isn't all that interesting going, and I'm growingly shocked that this version of the script is the one that made it to broadcast. Especially with this episode lacking the animation flair of prior episodes, episode nine feels like a low point for the show when it's clearly supposed to be the first stage of build-up to its climax.
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Lucas DeRuyter finds sparks of inspiration in all parts of his life, which would explain why his portfolio features such a broad array of interests and writing formats! To read what he's ruminating on more regularly, you can keep up with his regular contributions to ANN's This Week in Anime column.Sparks of Tomorrow is currently streaming on Netflix.
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