March Comes In Like a Lion E2: “April Comes In Like an Ocelot”

The given title for this episode on Netflix is just "Episode Two," so I felt like I should rise to the occasion. Since originally posting this on Patreon I learned that this was just a stupid omission on Netflix's part, but I don't care. Anyway, sad chess drama go!


Start with a reply of the pilot's bizarre cliffhanger ending. Rei's letter or check or whatever it is has been stolen from his mailbox by a cackling weirdo who low-key reminds me of Pokey Minch, from Earthbound. The grandiose wind instrument section he gets as he reveals himself doesn't mitigate this. Anyway, the weirdo is scheduled to be his opponent for tomorrow's match, and when he received the notification letter of who his opponent would be he hurried over to Rei's building to steal his own notification out of his mailbox so he could present it to him in person.

He even opened the envelope to make sure. Rei tells him that he's pretty sure that that's a crime, but it seems to go in one ear and out the other. The intruder, named now as Nikaidou, was apparently an elementary school shogi opponent of Rei's. It took him several years longer to make it into the pro scene, due to his lesser skill, but with enough obsessive practice and training he was finally able to get in. And is now freaking out over getting a rematch against someone he played against at age 9 or whatever.

As Nikaidou rants and raves, Rei quietly excuses himself and heads for the elevator. Unfortunately, Nikaidou notices just before he can escape and forces the door back open and blocks it with his face so he can keep demanding that Rei take the notification from his hand. Rei tells him that no, really, he'll just call the shogi organization in the morning to get the details, don't worry he's not going to call the cops on Nikaidou for opening is mail, just please leave him alone.

Nikaidou doesn't take that answer though, and tells Rei that this is no way to treat his best friend. Rei asks him what the fuck he's even talking about, he hasn't thought about him in a decade and they weren't friends even back then. Nikaidou retorts that he's made Rei the center of his obsessive rivaldom, which means that they'll eventually be best friends, so they might as well just skip to that part already. That's how it works in his shounen mangas, and he's reasonably sure that that's how it works in real life too.

Rei asks him if most shounen heroes open other people's mail. Nikaidou ignores the question, but I'm pretty sure that that IS the sort of thing that the rival might do before being beaten in combat and then subsequently forgiven of all wrongdoing and becoming a totally different and more likable character, so that wasn't the "gotcha" Rei thought it was anyway.

Rei's next question is what happened to that old man who used to keep Nikaidou on a leash. Nikaidou takes a moment to think of who he's talking about, before explaining that his wealthy family's butler is on an 80 day world-spanning cruise as a thank you for his many years of loyal service. Apparently, this is why Nikaidou is out at night unsupervised. Rei doesn't look forward to potentially 79 more days of it.

Cut to Rei's apartment. Rei has let the twerp in for some reason, and the latter has ordered a whole stack of pizzas. I guess his being rich at least helps a little, when it comes to ordering take out. He's now chewing through said pizzas at a startling pace while trying to get Rei to reveal his shogi strategy for tomorrow.

Nikaidou, huh? Well, between the various displayed traits I think I have a better name for you at this point.

Rei fends of Nikocado Avocado's fumbling attempts at getting an advantage, while gritting his teeth and wondering if tomorrow's match will at least be the end of this. He prays for the return of the Avocado family butler.

Roll intro. Bit of a long teaser, but hey, stuff happened in it to build up to what I imagine will be this episode's central conflict, so it works for me.

Episode proper begins with Rei delivering a melancholy internal monologue as he heads off to the game the next day. Usually, he takes a local bus to the train station to get where he needs to go, but on match days he prefers to walk to the train station along the river. He finds it soothing, due to him having spent his childhood on a town surrounded by a river on all sides.

Erm...you mean like an island? You could have just said island, bruh.

He then segues into some exposition about how the professional shogi scene works. Most players, like himself, play 30-40 paid matches a year, plus the many other practice and demo games. The highest tier of players - the short list of seventh dan grandmasters - play twice as many paid games, about 70-80 a year. He's not at that level yet himself, but winning today's game will grant him entry into the nation-wide televised championships, bringing him a significant step closer to it.

As he mentally narrates this, he approaches that shrine we saw in the background before, only to find someone already praying before it. Praying very loudly, obnoxiously, and self-aggrandizingly. He is praying that he will beat Rei today ("incinerate his cheesy shogi playstyle like an amoeba in the heat of my manly soul" being his wording) and get into the national big league. It isn't Nikocado though. It's some twenty-to-thirty-something year old guy. How many games is Rei playing today? And why are all his opponents fixated on him to the exclusion of one another?

Rei tries to back away without the lunatic noticing him, but he fails.

So, everyone in this trial mini-tournament besides Rei thinks that they're shounen manga characters. It's just that Nikocado thinks he's the asshole rival who will get an unearned redemption if he keeps on pushing, and PCP here thinks he's an arc-one villain of the week. Or else wrong-genre conventions have nothing to do with it in his case, and he really is just on PCP.

Cut either ahead to today's game, or back to a previous match against PCP that Rei remembers. PCP is twitching and trembling like...well, like someone on PCP...as he plays against Rei, to the point where other players around them are complaining. He's going to get himself kicked out if he doesn't get his shit under control. Fortunately, one of the players at the table next to theirs - a very tall western immigrant by the name of Smith - seems to be the one person able to intimidate the bath salts out through his pores at least temporarily.

The next few minutes just show them playing their shogi game, with the board in view and captions narrating each movement. I consider myself a decent-ish chess player, but shogi pieces aren't recognizable as their western equivalents and the rules seem to be at least substantially different, so I'm not able to follow the game myself. I'm sure this would be effective storytelling for a Japanese audience, so this isn't the show's fault. It's an intense match, but not a particularly long one. PCP, twitching and gibbering again despite the warnings, is lured into overextending himself and beaten, while Rei pulls through with his customary grimace and sips of energy drink. After being defeated, PCP curls up into a fetal position, shivering.

That Smith guy steps over, and informs Rei that PCP had been hoping to get into the televised national games so that his hospitalized grandfather who taught him to play would get to see. Rei just kind of stares down at the quivering tweaker. I mean, sure, that does make him more sympathetic, but what the hell is anyone expecting Rei to do about this?

Then Smith tells PCP that Rei will be treating them to drinks. Rei objects, saying that that place is expensive (Smith counters that a kid like him has nothing better to spend money on) and that he's a minor (Smith replies that he can just order juice), but still goes with them for some reason.

PCP also gets a bouquet of flowers, and when they reach the bar they meet...this lady:

Is that the oldest sister from last episode, just in a more flattering outfit and putting on a flirty persona? I think that's her? It seems like she's serving them at first, but then she's just sitting and drinking with them. I'm not really sure what's going on here.

And yeah, Rei confirms that this is Akari, the oldest of those three cousins of his or whatever they are. Is this a second job of hers, alongside her grandfather's restaurant? If so, is she supposed to be drinking along with the guests? Is that a thing in Japan, like some kind of classy prostitution-lite thing? It sounds like the sort of thing that might be mainstream in Japan, but I haven't heard of it.

Anyway, they start eating and drinking. Rei has orange juice, they have expensive booze, while he winces at the mounting price tag. You know, Rei, you could always just tell them you're not paying. That's a thing you can do.

He's saved the trouble of having to do this, however, when Akari herself rises to the occasion. She starts flattering and fawning over PCP (who seems to be extremely enamored of her), and going on about how glad she is that Rei has people like them to hang out with instead of ones who would exploit him. PCP ends up paying for everything.

Rei smiles fondly, and starts reminiscing. Not long after moving to this city, he got his underaged self hopelessly drunk and half passed out on the sidewalk in front of a club, abandoned by whoever (if anyone) he'd been there with. Akari found him, took him home to get him off the street, and he woke up in an unfamiliar house beneath the skeptical eyes of her two younger sisters. None of whom he'd ever met before.

So, they're not his family. They're just this totally random local family that kinda sorta adopted him. That's, well. It's a thing. It's definitely a thing.

I'm wondering more than ever if the guy he played against in the previous episode is his biological father. Or his non-biological father. Or...I don't know. The thing that's gotten Rei so depressed and lost is almost certainly the loss of part or all of his birth family, but I'm still trying to figure out if he's still in touch with any remnants of it and how he got from there to here.

Also, every neighborhood in this city is named after one of the months in the Gregorian calendar. Because anime is like that about names, for places if not also people. The relevance of big cats will likely be made apparent sometime soon.

Cut to next morning. Wasn't the game against Nikocado also supposed to be yesterday? I'm confused. Anyway, Rei finds himself completely out of both food and toilet paper, which Nikocado may or may not bear some responsibility for. There's no grocery stores in his neighborhood, so he has to cross a bridge to a different month.

It's a swelteringly hot day, but he doesn't have much choice. As he walks, he muses about how this whole city seemed unreal, dreamlike, and monochrome when he first moved to it. It was winter then, so today's heat gives a contrast that pushes his mind in that direction. The city started to feel more physical, and he started to perceive its colorfulness, after he started meeting and getting to know people like Akari and her family. He still thinks that they resent him and only are still nice to him at all out of a sense of pity or obligation, despite appearances to the contrary.

As he reaches a Marchtown grocery store, he smells smoke on the air, like fireworks. He enters the store, glad for the air conditioning, and sees Obon supplies for sale.

Obon is more or less Japan's Day of the Dead equivalent, and fireworks are a traditional accompaniment. Rei hadn't noticed the festival creeping up, as he doesn't notice most things not inside of his own head.

Guess this is going to complete the buildup that all this religious death imagery and the drowning-themed dream sequences have been given to the "what happened to Rei's family" question.

After roaming the store picking up ramen noodles and energy drinks for a while, Rei runs into the sisters doing their own holiday shopping. Despite his characteristic token resistance, they incorporate him into their own shopping, and bring him home for Obon dinner.

Is Akari coming onto him? How much older than him even is she? Well, maybe not that much, given the ages of her younger sisters. So, cougary, but not creepy.

He goes home with them, and they do the ritual fires and incense while preparing the feast. Grandpa tells youngest sister Momo that her parents were both equestrians, which is why they make little mock-horses out of vegetables to honor them tonight. He also mumbles about family Obon traditions going back into the premodern era, which isn't surprising given how traditional this family seems to be at least religiously. Meanwhile, Rei feeds the talking cats. They talk while he does it, but no one acknowledges this, so either they can't hear it or talking cats really are normal enough in this setting that it doesn't warrant attention. I'm guessing that when the lion comes marching in, it'll have quite a bit to say itself.

Eventually, Grandpa asks Rei where his parents are buried. He explains that they were buried in his father's hometown, quite distant from here. We get a stylized flashback look at them, as well as a kid who I assume is Rei's sister who died along with them.

Rei doesn't ask any questions about this family's own recent dead. He knows that it was recent enough that they don't want people asking about them. He remembers that period of his own, from not too much longer ago.

After dinner, Akari gives him the leftovers, wishes him luck on the next game he has in a couple days, and invites him back for their final dinner of the three-day Obon festival.

She also says that they prefer company over for Obon, as it helps them. She doesn't say what it helps them do, but Rei can infer.

He heads home that night carrying his leftover fried chicken and rice with shrimp. Crossing the bridge home against the jeweled holiday cityscape, he wonders again how much they actually like or care about him versus them just being desperate for distractions from their recent loss.

But for now, he feels at least better about himself and his relationships with them than he did before. End episode.


This one was easier to follow, though there were still some things (like the match with Nikocado that I was sure they said was the next day) not happening, and what exactly Akari was doing at that bar/restaurant which didn't appear to be her family's own (though again, that may just be cultural info I'm lacking).* Rei's narcissistic self-absorption is annoying, mostly because I've had enough experience with depression from both sides to be frustrated by it, but it's certainly realistic.

The two story arcs of getting over grief and being a pro gamer haven't really intersected yet, so for the time being this kind of feels like two separate shows going on at once. I'm sure those streams will start crossing soon enough though.

So far, decent show. Not sure I'd be motivated to keep watching were it not commissioned, but it's certainly not bad.



*Some Patreon commenters have since confirmed for me that this sort of geisha-lite bar or restaurant service is indeed a thing in Japan. It's sort of seen as being at the borderline of respectable, just shy of getting the sort of stigma that strip clubs etc have. Learned something new.~