© Yoshimi Sato / Futabashi / Crossing Time Partners
What They Say:
“Clank, clank, clank, clank…” Today, the railroad crossing bar goes down again, stopping someone on their way somewhere. The various stories of youth, eros, art, first love, etc that occur during the time spent waiting at a railroad crossing… All railroad crossings, all the time. Bringing you a variety of short stories about railroad crossings!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While the first few episodes were mostly traditional in a lot of ways, Crossing Time has veered into the odder side of events at the crossing sign spot. This episode adds to that kind of oddness as we get the latest high school girl who, while at the crossing, comes up with poetry/haiku material there. It all serves as inspiration and there’s an amusing kind of concept behind it that you could see it being something that would catch on. It’s played largely serious but with a kind of pleased approach by our lead as she comes up with it all in her head and works through the structure of the haikus themselves.
In Summary:
With a lot of fun and weird episodes so far, Crossing Time essentially disappoints this time. Our railroad poet isn’t bad per se and the show isn’t exclusively about romance at the crossing signs, but the single character focus puts a lot of pressure on the character and what she’s doing to really make a connection with the viewer. I’m sure it did with other people but it didn’t do anything for me since I just have frustrated memories when it comes to haikus and having to work them and other poetry structures over the years. It has its cute moments but that only goes so far here for me.
Grade: C
Streamed By: Crunchyroll