In the Clear Moonlit Dusk – Episode 1

What’s it about? Yoi has been nicknamed The Prince thanks to her above-average height, lower-pitched voice, and facial features that skew more “handsome” than “pretty.” While she’s uncomfortable with this label and the attention it gets her, she’s too awkward and too kind to speak up for herself. But her school life changes when she runs into Ichimura, a popular and mysterious boy also nicknamed Prince. Though he seems more punk than princely, he’s the first person to see past Yoi’s reputation and express an interest in the beautiful girl beneath the crown.

Folks, I’m of two minds about this one. On the one hand, I think it’s valuable to tell a story about how the rigid expectations of femininity can restrict access to the concept of girlhood itself: Yoi has been un-womaned in the eyes of her peers because she’s failed to meet the ridiculously narrow standards of what a beautiful girl “should” look like. She’s been effectively misgendered her whole life and shoved into a masculine role she doesn’t identify with, due to physical characteristics like her height and voice that she can’t control. The storytelling makes it clear how much this upsets her (getting stabbed in the head with the “male” symbol and making a noise of anguish when Ichimura asks “you’re a dude?” is pretty strong imagery!), but also highlights how difficult it is to push back and get people to see her as she truly is.

Gendered expectations are so unforgiving that we have a cis protagonist with honest to goodness dysphoria. Maybe I’m coming at this from a genderqueer perspective that the work itself wasn’t trying to capture, but it’s a character conflict that I sincerely think is worth exploring. After all the shy sadness this premiere sets up, it would be lovely to see Yoi repair her tattered self-esteem, feel the validation of being recognized as the gender she identifies with, and get to experience the girlhood she’s been locked out of for such arbitrary but socially-ingrained reasons.

On the other hand, depictions of anime girls who are even slightly masculine are so few and far between that I can’t help but be disappointed that this is the storytelling route ahead. As Caitlin aptly pointed out in the seasonal shojo guide, while Yoi’s character arc (and impending romance with Ichimura) might make a sweet story in isolation, it fits into a broader social and media context where girls are pressured to be feminine and being feminine is presented as the best thing a girl can ever be. I have nothing against Yoi herself—she seems a perfectly charming and relatable lead—but forgive me if I yearn for a genuinely confident girl prince who happily leans into her boyishness instead of staring sadly at her reflection (and finding her happy ending with a guy who reaffirms her girly girlhood).

It doesn’t help that, design-wise, the concept of “masculine” here is a bit tenuous. While I have empathy for Yoi’s body image issues, it’s a liiiiittle difficult to buy the whole “alas, my manly face” thing when she has the same big sparkly eyes, long eyelashes, glossy lips, and soft features of the other girls in the series, and indeed other girls in similar modern shojo art styles. It’s the same gripe as when stories insist that their protagonists are “plain” but draw them to be perfectly conventionally attractive (or, in a live-action context, cast typically Hollywood-gorgeous actresses). Again, this problem is not unique to In the Clear Moonlit Dusk, but places it snugly within a broader net of pop culture issues. The series wants to tell the tale of a girl insecure about her unfeminine appearance, but can’t imagine a character design outside the rigid borders of what’s aesthetically acceptable for girls.

I fear I’m not going to be able to unsee and unthink about all this while watching In the Clear Moonlit Dusk. But that doesn’t mean it’s overall an unpleasant watching experience. While I have my reservations about some key aspects, honestly the execution is pretty nice: the animation looks lovely, the narrative gets across a strong sense of Yoi’s personality, and even Ichimura successfully tightrope-walks the line between being annoying and being sweet.

He’s pushy and brash and frequently puts his foot in his mouth (see: aforementioned “you’re a dude?” question, which, to be fair, other characters later call him out on) and his hands in Yoi’s personal space (see: multiple supposedly heart-fluttering moments where he strokes her necktie or princess carries her). But… I can’t put my finger on what it is, exactly, but he also exudes a certain charm. There’s a blunt sincerity in the way he interacts with Yoi that she clearly finds refreshing but also confusing, and I as a viewer find weirdly endearing. While I frown at some of his antics in this episode, I also have to admit the two leads have chemistry and I’m cautiously interested to see how their story develops, and how this Prince 4 Prince romance causes both characters to grow. 

There are many complicated discussions to be had about the depiction of gender and gender roles in this show, I’m sure; and as with any piece of art that touches on such themes, you may have entirely different reactions to it depending on what personal experience and/or tolerance for cliché that you’re bringing to the table. All I can do right now is give you my two cents, which is: while I remain frustrated with the broader trends this story is tapping into, I think it also has a lot of potential to unfold into a sweet romance about a girl rebuilding the confidence that’s been stripped away by the way society sees her. This one sits squarely on our It’s Complicated shelf, but I think it’s going to be really interesting and fun seeing how it tangles and untangles those complications across the season.