Heike Monogatari is not what I expected. Going in, the only thing I knew about it was that it's about the fall of the Heike clan. I was expecting a grand narrative focused on a large scale conflict, and how all the involved characters feed into this larger narrative of war. What I got was almost the opposite. Heike Monogatari is a personal story, of an almost episodic nature, where it's built not as a central narrative, but a series of parallel narratives, and while they all tie into the Heike's conflict in some respect, they are largely independent from each other. Each character has their own story, their own morals, their own ideals, and view of the world. This way of presenting the stories reminds me of stuff like Kino's Journey, Galaxy Express 999 and Mushi-shi, but instead of showing us a single slice of the characters' lives spanning a whole episode, Heike Monogatari opts to spread that time over the course of all 11 episodes, showing off important moments and trusting the viewer to fill in the gaps. To execute on this unique structure, I couldn't have asked for a better duo than Reiko Yoshida and Naoko Yamada.

Reiko Yoshida's experience on a plethora of episodic and moral-heavy stories is demonstrated in full gear. Her scripts do a fantastic job of giving each character a unique voice, and this is no exception. With the way she writes for characters like Biwa, Shigemori, Kiyomori, Tokuko, and Sukemori, you could pick out who's speaking from a contextless subtitle. When you're dealing with this many characters all in play at the same time, not only does this help out fleshing out the characters and realizing them as real people, but it also helps with keeping track of the story. Understanding who's talking and what they're talking about is a lot easier when each character has a unique voice that you can get into the flow with. Accompanying her immense skill at writing unique voices, she also does a fantastic job of making sure that every line is meaningful, but not pointed. Every single line in Heike Monogatari adds to something. Whether it's the characters, their ideas, their ideals, or even more structural aspects, Reiko Yoshida is able to convey them without explicitly stating it, but talking around the concepts. Her dialogue trusts you to fill in the blanks and infer, and that allows her writing to feel much more fluid, impactful, and poetic. This style matches up perfectly with the direction of Naoko Yamada.

Naoko Yamada's soft and symbolism heavy visuals style puts an emphasis on exploring what isn't presented. Every shot of a petal, or a leaf, or a sunset, all of them mean so much more than just the images themselves. When Reijko Yoshida is having you read into the gaps between the words, Naoko Yamada is having you explore the gaps in the frame. The meaning of every shot, every composition, and every transition. Nothing is there just to fill time or highlight an element, yet it's never overwhelming. Her fantastic sense of framing draws your attention to the points that matter, while the beautiful visuals hold your attention. It's visually stunning and full of depth. Now, not all of this is due to Naoko Yamada herself. A team of 8 episode directors besides herself drafted up the storyboards that created this wonderful series. However, her impact, aesthetic decisions, and sense of direction clearly defined how the entire series would look and feel. It's incredible. So many images still linger in my mind, from the death of Biwa's father to the final epilogue of seeing the characters at the end, every scene is memorable, beautiful, and meaningful. And those scenes aren't just limited to the main cast of characters, every character in the anime has their scene(s). Their moment to shine. The moment that resonates with you and causes you to think about them for forever. Scenes like Shigehara accepting his fate for his part in burning the temples and Tomomori's lead of the Heike's remnants to their deaths in the Heike's final hour. Each of these side characters has a their own story and their own purpose. But with the direction of Naoko Yamada and script of Reiko Yoshida (as I've talked about too much already) what you take away from each of those stories is unique to you. What you see and take away is so dependent on how you interpret the symbols and vague ideas presented to you, which makes it a much more personal and meaningful narrative. For example, @KiwiBen wrote in their June write-up that Heike Monogatari was a story about women, meanwhile I didn't view it through a feminist lens at all during my watch, yet still took so much away.

Despite me singing its praises though, I do have my issues with it. The bouncing back and forth between a series of characters you're quickly introduced to is jarring to start and takes a bit to ease into the style and flow of what it's going for. I feel like this could be mediated a lot if you just knew what you getting into though. The biggest issues I have though were with the final episode. The final episode has some fantastic moments. The collective suicide of the Heike clan and the final epilogue are incredibly well done and super memorable, but, there were a good amount of things I didn't like. The art style for the final episode is pretty weak. While the flat and muted palette worked well in a previous episode, primarily the river battle, by using it for the entire episode, it feels very samey and bland. This is especially heartbreaking given just how gorgeous and spectacular every other episode is, and how well the artstyles matched with the ideas of the episodes. The dolphin scene also felt like it came out of nowhere, and left with essentially no impact. If any part of it was foreshadowed earlier, or lingered more into the rest of the episode, it would be fine, but as it stands, the dolphins just appear, decide the course of the battle, and leave. The biggest issue I have though is with Tokuko. Up until this point, Tokuko's story of self-confidence, finding her place in the world, and her desire to protect the prince really struck me. So when she decides to back down and let the prince die, it feels like a reset of her whole character. She also has the unique distinction of being saved by Biwa. Where Biwa's story was about accepting the inevitability  of death and her own place in the world, allowing her to save Tokuko, even though her death was foretold, really messes with Biwa's story as a whole. It no longer feels like she was experiencing the last moments of those people she talked to, instead, it feels like she just failed to save them like she should have. And after Tokuko was saved, she proceeded to live out her life in relative solitude, affecting almost no one. And while this does have a nice parallel to earlier in the series, it makes Biwa's comment that this isn't her place to die and that she still has so much to do, feel even more vapid.

Overall though, it's a fantastic series. My gripes are minimal, and the vast majority of the series was essentially perfect. I want to give a special shout out at the end though to two staff members I'll have my eyes on from now on, color designer Satoshi Hashimoto, and art director Tomotaka Kubo. Two people who were instrumental in giving the series its incredible identity, with Hashimoto having an incredibly strong career doing the color design for anime like Pigtails, ACCA 13, Perfect Blue, and Sonny Boy. Show that rely so much on their color to achieve their desired vibes and tone. He definitely deserves more credit than he gets. And Kubo is relatively new as an art director, only doing the art direction for Promare before this, but he definitely showed what he's capable of here, and is definitely someone to watch. As a bonus, I hear often that for some series, "every frame could be a wallpaper," so I tested that with this, taking screenshots from random timestamps in the first four episodes, and I think the results speak for themselves.