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I did Monday's write-up earlier than usual because I knew it would end up being too long to type out on my phone at work. It's almost 1200 words!

BONUS. Searching for the Full Moon
https://myanimelist.net/anime/122/Full_Moon_wo_Sagashite
Spring 2002 (52 episodes)
My Score: TBA, MAL Score: 7.94/10
Best Character: Kouyama Mitsuki
Recommended by: @Mega_Mana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igeYwGslD-M

Premise: Twelve-year-old Kouyama Mitsuki has throat cancer, which threatens her dream of becoming a singer. Then two spirits of death arrive and tell her she only has one year left to live. Realizing she no longer has time to wait, and with the help of shinigami magic from Takuto and Meroko, Mitsuki transforms into the professional singer known as Full Moon!

The Good: Searching for the Full Moon is a supernatural romantic comedy musical drama, and it somehow manages to excel at every single one of those genres. The premise alone hints at some heavy themes. Its about a little girl with throat cancer who only has one year left, so it should come as no surprise that some of this is sad. Mitsuki has two dreams she fears will go unfulfilled. One is to become a singer, which is difficult when her illness makes singing painful. The second is that she wants to finally tell her childhood friend Eichi that she loves him, but he moved away years ago and she doesnt know where to. The arrival of the shinigami duo, Takuto and Meroko, sadly confirms that Mitsuki will soon die. However, they also give her a chance to achieve her dreams. Takutos magic temporarily removes her cancer and turns her into a sixteen-year-old, allowing Mitsuki to become a singer called Full Moon. As her popularity grows, she hopes her music and her feelings will reach Eichi before its too late.

As much as I loved it, Im not sure I would call Searching for the Full Moon the best at anything. There are funnier comedies, sadder tragedies, more heartfelt romances, and several anime with much better music. However, it manages to do a great job at each of those aspects, and the result was simply magical. Ill start by talking about Mitsuki since shes the foundation for everything else. I absolutely loved her. Most of the time shes a lot of fun, full of optimism and energetic cheerfulness. Shes also acutely aware of her illness and her rapidly approaching fate. I was amazed at how well the story managed to balance those two emotional halves. Mitsuki strives to enjoy herself and do her best both in her regular life and in the singing world as her alter ego Full Moon, but setbacks and depressing things can still get her down in realistic ways.

I loved all the other characters too. Each of the major ones have a satisfying arc. The shinigami duo Takuto and Meroko are the obvious standouts. Their job is to make sure nothing interferes with Mitsukis fated death, but they also struggle with the sad responsibility of essentially having to kill a nice little girl who is still so full of life. Using their magic to help her achieve her dreams goes against a bunch of shinigami rules, but they do it anyway, and I loved watching the three of them grow closer. Mitsukis doctor, Wakaouji, and Full Moons manager, Ooshige, were also amazing because they both did their best to support her. Antagonistic characters like the rival singer Madoka or Mitsukis music-hating grandmother managed to have great storylines too. Even someone as minor as Tanaka, the Kouyama familys maid, had some hilarious moments. The story even managed to make me care about the largely absent Eichi.

My favorite thing about this show was how well it nailed whatever emotions it was going for in each particular episode. Some were comedic slice-of-life about a cute little girl and her stuffed animals that were actually spirits of death. I loved goofy situations like when they struggled to maintain a web of lies by transforming Mitsuki back and forth between her normal self and Full Moon depending on who they were dealing with. I also loved following her musical career. It explored the highs and lows of success and scandal in interesting ways, and the songs were all great. As a sucker for sad stories, I also enjoyed the episodes where tragedy became the focus. Even aside from Mitsukis illness, there was one mostly standalone episode that introduced a whole new character and made me care about them so hard that I was crying by the end of it.

Even though I watched this on youtube with mediocre video quality and a distracting digital clock imprinted in the corner of the screen, I still thought the animation was pretty good! In conclusion, just about everything about Searching for the Full Moon was charming.

The Bad: I had to ignore the age gap in the romance. I understand why Mitsuki needs to be twelve. Idol careers start at roughly sixteen and shinigami magic needs to age her up a few years to make it less likely shell be recognized. I dont see why Eichi needed to be six years older than her, though. The story wouldnt change at all if they were the same age, so I pretended that they were. A story about a twelve-year-old wanting to confess to an eighteen-year-old would be difficult to root for. Since I wanted to root for Mitsuki, I just headcanoned that issue away.

The other problem is that, especially for fifty-two episodes, Full Moons music catalogue is a little sparse. I complained about a 2022 anime, Ya Boy Kongming, because it repeated the same song several episodes in a row. I felt like retroactively apologizing to YBK because Full Moon sang Myself over and over for like twenty episodes! Maybe Ive just been spoiled by modern idol anime that have a new song every episode, I dunno. I still enjoyed the music, I just wanted a bit more variety.

Overall: Like I mentioned earlier, Searching for the Full Moon isnt the best at anything. It doesnt have my favorite romance. It isnt the funniest anime, and it wasnt the one that hit me in the feels the hardest. I cant even say its the best idol anime because Love Live Sunshine and Zombie Land Saga both blow it out of the water in terms of music. However, the real strength of Searching for the Full Moon is that it managed to bring all of those different things together. I enjoyed all those aspects individually, but my final opinion is that this anime is greater than the sum of its parts. This ranking isnt finalized yet, but it is my tentative number three favorite of all time, and, even if that shifts down a bit once Ive thought about it, I doubt itll go any lower than seventh. Thank you very much for recommending this, Mega_Mana! Since it isnt on streaming, this is an anime I can almost guarantee Id have never watched otherwise. Since it is the newest addition to not just my top ten, but my top five, Im eternally grateful that you got me to watch it.