Wave, Listen to Me! First Impressions

“And please let me say one last thing. Mitsuo, I will kill you even if I have to chase you down to the ends of the Earth!”

I think I’m the wrong audience for Wave, Listen to Me!. Boisterous characters are rarely my favorites. Brucie was never my favorite GTA IV character, Asta annoyed the crap out of me when I reviewed Black Clover, and, as much as I like him, Nekomaru will never crack my top 10 Danganronpa characters. Most of the time, this doesn’t get in the way of enjoying an overall series. So you don’t love one of the characters. Big deal. But Wave, Listen to Me! is a series about a shock jock. Obnoxious and boisterous are the name of the game here. I don’t listen to shock jocks. Whenever there are talking segments on local radio stations, I tend to just tune them out, so it’s safe to say that this series is blending a tone I’m not overly fond of with a subject matter I don’t care about. I don’t say this to be blunt, but to express my reasoning and assure any potential viewers whom this description may appeal to that they will likely enjoy Wave, Listen to Me!.

The story follows Minare Koda, a waitress who is struggling to move past a recent breakup. While drunk at a bar, she complains to a businessman who works in radio about her ex only to end up blacking out. The following day she arrives late to work and is shocked to hear a recording of her complaining about her ex-boyfriend on the radio. She immediately rushes over to the radio station to demand the recording be taken off the air. The producer she spoke with the night before informs her that, if she wants the recording taken off, she will have to fill the time herself. It’s strange that an episode that, on paper, doesn’t appear to have much happen during its runtime still feels fast paced. Admittedly, the episode does open in medias res with Minare doing a radio show of her own, and that fills a good 10 minutes. Minare describes her life as overly structured at one point, but the episode does little to exhibit that aspect. She’s mainly drunk and or yelling in this episode, which makes sense given the context, but it makes her feel one-sided. Furthermore, she does the overwhelming majority of the talking in the episode, so there’s no chance for her to be balanced out by other characters. In the end, the show has a lot of yelling, and I just wasn’t interested in what it wanted to yell about.

Sunrise is handling the production, and generally the animation quality is to the level one would expect from such an established studio. However, there is one visual detail that I find ridiculously distracting. The characters’ eyes all have small circular shadows on them. It’s a strange artistic flourish that draws my attention constantly. The original manga was written by Hiroaki Samura, the mangaka behind Blade of the Immortal… which I also haven’t read or watched, so I don’t know if this is something he does in his art, but, based on the images of the manga I found online, it appears this detail is unique to the adaptation. Still, Sunrise imbues the proceedings with a level of movement and energy that one likely wouldn’t expect from an anime about radio broadcast. Minare’s car is CG, but it’s an outlier in that regard. Plus, it doesn’t conflict with the background, so there are no complaints there. With the exception of one confusing visual tic, Sunrise did an effective job of bringing this series to life. I’m not interested in seeing more of it, but at least it looks good.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• I’m trying to think of boisterous characters that I do particularly like. I like Gundam Tanaka from the Danganronpa series, but he’s a very different flavor of over-the-top.
• The in medias res opening that I mentioned before features a lengthy and bizarre visualization of Minare fighting a bear, because… that’s the story of her show that day? This seemed like an unnecessary detail that served little purpose beyond distracting and confusing.
• I won’t be surprised if I’m in the minority with my opinion on this one, but that’s okay. I don’t dislike the episode. It simply didn’t click with me.
• My radio/listening preferences tend towards modern rock stations, listening to Let’s Plays or listening to Night Vale. Modern rock stations are admittedly prone to having interruptions from personalities like Nikki Sixx, but, as I stated before, I tend to tune them out.
• I was having difficulty remembering the Japanese title (Nami yo Kiitekure), until I remembered that I actually know the Japanese words for “Wave” and “Listen.” I have no excuse.