Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai 04 — Crossdressing

Another excellent episode of Ano Hana. I appreciate series that mange to intersperse serious moments with comedy, and this show is doing quite well at it. The first meeting at the clubhouse was a good example of this: as everyone is searching for Menma and there’s tension over whether they believe each other or not, Menma is also searching for herself and disappointed not to find her. The way the show handled Jinta’s seeing ghosts was excellent as well: usually in this situation the person who sees the ghost would try to make everyone else believe it’s real, but here, Jinta is much more reasonable and instead doubts whether Menma exists himself.

Both Tsurumi and Matsuyuki, who had been sidelined up to this point, begin to develop and become strong characters in this episode. The best description of Tsurumi is probably Hisakawa’s “mysterious girl”, although you can tell that she is worried about Matsuyuki. She didn’t seem too concerned about Jinta seeing ghosts, but now that I think about it, that’s probably because of Matsuyuki’s hobby. The only part that she didn’t believe from his story was that Menma made the cookies, not that he saw Menma.

Crossdressers tend to be overused in anime, but Matsuyuki is one of the few portrayals (along with the characters of Hourou Musuko) that I can actually buy. The thing is that Matsuyuki isn’t a crossdresser in general, he is Menma. He has (I presume) a longing for Menma, not a desire to wear female clothes. That kind of desire is much more compelling than a desire to go to a girl’s school or the far more common lack of any reason whatsoever.

One thought on “Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai 04 — Crossdressing

  1. She probably thinks that (Jintan) is imaging Menma or made the pastries himself, in the same way that Yukiatsu….cross dressed.

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