Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night

Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night (夜のクラゲは泳げない) is an original 12 episode coming of age story by Yakui Yuki.  The series originally aired during the Spring of 2024.

    Kazuki Mahiru used to love drawing and was talented enough to be allowed to do a mural of a jellyfish on a side street in the Shibuya neighborhood of Tokyo in middle school.  One day she surprises her friends by taking them to the mural without telling them it was hers.  Their unfiltered and raw criticism of the work dealt a major blow to Mahiru's confidence and she immediately gave up art as a passion.  The now second year high school student, lost without any ambition in life, finds herself at her mural during Halloween.  A small crowd has gathered around a girl putting on an gorilla street performance.  As the song begins another girl from the crowd rushes towards the mural, tearing down the posters put up by the performer.  The punk-like girl yells at the performer for defacing the mural that means so much to her then runs off with Mahiru in tow.

    The girl introduces herself as Yamanouchi Kano and when Mahiru tells her shes the artist that made the mural her eyes light up with excitement.  Kano tells her that the jellyfish artwork has inspired her to take on a new musical project and she wants her to work it her to bring that vision to life, using her artwork as the basis for the visual aspect.  Uncertain if she has the will to resume drawing she is sucked in by the other girls infections charisma.  The goal is to launch and push an anonymous music project titled JELEE with a goal of reaching 100,000 subscribers on YouTube.  Unknown to Mahiru at first, Kano is a disgraced pop idol who is looking to shed her past and perform by her self with the help of the artist who touched her heart.  Now they just need to find someone who can help with the music and who can help with the technical side of things, then its time to take on the world!

 

     Sadly this wasn't something along the lines of Princess Jellyfish.  Fortunately, it went with the core concept of a group of teenage girls struggling with self doubt and complicated interpersonal relationships way better than Wonder Egg Priority.  While Mahiru and Kano are undoubtedly the main characters all four of them are sufficiently developed, each having their own realistic personalities and complications.  Mahiru comes from a loving family who does not pay much attention to her internal struggles.  Since middle school, when her friends unknowingly rejected her, she has lost all confidence in herself and coasts through life with no clear goal.  Kano struggles with her complicated and parasitic relationship with her mother.  Mei struggles with moving past her reliance on using her love of Kano's past idol persona as a crutch for her emotions.  Kiui tries as much as she can to hide the fact that she is  hikikomori from everyone around her.  The series does not get darkly realistic but still retains a high level of believable enough to satisfy the staunchest realists.

    What really sold me for the series was the higher caliber of artwork displayed in the previews, and the series did not disappoint.  On top of the satisfying character design and direction, the story was good at holding interest when there was no real end goal set from the beginning.  Kano's idea of reached an online milestone was more a McGuffin than anything, the meat of the story is their relationships and their individual struggles.  Honestly by the end of it, which is satsfying, it would be nice to continue the story a bit longer.  There is room for more development to take place, especially with some of the secondary characters that were introduced in the second half.  Given that there was a recap episode near the end its easy to speculate that some of the story was sacrificed to wrap up the show in the cour without needing to release anything afterwards.

    The series was simulcast on HiDive.