Tari Tari - Episode 11

With the White Festival fast approaching, everything seems to be falling into place for our choir club as they work towards their decidedly ambitious musical project.

Now that Wakana has a handle on writing a song, it's up to the others to roll up their sleeves, whether it's Sawa's work on choreography or Taichi's artistic set-building efforts... actually, perhaps the less said about Taichi's artistry the better, as he finds himself having to grovel to the school's art club (or rather, one of its number) to help him out in return for a photo of Sawa.

Is all of this going to be for naught however?  If you hadn't guessed it already from the ominous references throughout the series and the appearance of builders around the school in last week's instalment, things are not looking up for the school, and this latest episode finally sees what's going on revealed - the existing school is about to be taken over and rebuilt as part of a luxury apartment complex, seeing a smaller school built in its wake.  With the school proper shutting down and relocating to temporary classrooms in the short term, the White Festival is summarily cancelled - unlike most other anime of its ilk however, there's no sign of rebellion from either teachers or students as they meekly accept their fate in the name of progress; only Wakana refuses to have her dreams crushed as she continues towards completion of her all-important song.

Having expected the announcement of the school's impending closure to generate some serious late drama for the series (and let's ignore its implausibility in terms of timing and how quickly the school would be expected to relocate for now), the whole thing rather fizzled out upon its announcement, with everything carrying on in a business as usual sense.  Instead, we seem to be sticking to the feel-good factor that come from the show's main cast now that they've conquered their personal demons and get on with their lives thanks to the bonds of friendship they've enjoyed - a decision which works pretty well for the series overall, even if it feels like it might be wasting an opportunity for a grand finale.  Perhaps next week's penultimate episode will set things off in a more dramatic direction, seeing as it doesn't have a huge amount of other material to work with at this point.