#love that his ability to disassociate during meditation literally gives him super powers

[jenn-the-mostly-harmless]

I think Tsukimichi Moonlit Fantasy is probably one of my favorite ongoing anime right now. I've been reading the light novel and I just keep having feels about it.

It's easy to dismiss it as just another isekai or harem show but it has a habit of surprising me. A lot of isekai anime are just regurgitations of tropes in new slightly different configurations, but unlike those stories, the author of Tsukimichi (Kei Azumi) seems to have something to say. There are obvious themes and explorations on beauty, power, responsibility, mental illness, and the power of familial love.

I don't know if the author intended it or not, but I think it's really interesting that Makoto has trouble connecting to feelings besides anger and embarrassment, that his decisions only take him and his friends into consideration, that he feels nothing when he kills a person he doesn't know, and that he can be destructive and impulsive on a national level without realizing how others will perceive it. To me personally, he comes across as someone with a severe mental illness who grew up in the best environment possible and learned to cope with most of his issues in healthy ways.

He would be a totally different character if his environment and connection to other characters were taken away, and the story plays with that constantly. The anime hasn't gotten there yet (super light spoiler warning for details that are not as far as I know, important to the larger plot), but at some point he's granted dreams of true alternate realities of his path and they are all incredibly dark. In those other realities he was left alone with his fear and anger and became a terrifying destructive force.

In his own timeline, multiple side characters realize that he has no qualms about killing (even if he only ever does it to save or avenge friends, a classic hero trope) and decide that he's scary and needs watching. When one of his closest companions starts to worry about him falling victim to bloodlust, another close friend tells her that Makoto will never love killing because life means nothing to him.

But my favorite part of this reading is that Makoto is a kind, thoughtful boy, who treats his friends well, treats every new person he meets with respect, helps any random little girl that is in danger around him, and generally bends over backwards not to hurt anyone who isn't actively attacking him or his allies. The people who love him know he has some dangerous faults and love him totally and completely anyway and without fear.

I haven't finished the series quite yet, so I hope this doesn't slap me in the face, but it feels like a really nuanced, positive depiction of a mentally ill protagonist and I love it.