In the nation of Yamato, Hinagiku Kayo is one of the Agents of the Four Seasons, humans endowed with the responsibility of bringing their respective seasons to the land. After being kidnapped by a terrorist group, Hinagiku disappeared for a decade, and with it her fruitful season of spring too withered away from the cycle. Now, Hinagiku is back, with the Guard of Spring Sakura Himedaka to protect her as she whirls spring back into bloom. Upon seeing news of spring’s return, Rosei Kantsubaki, the Agent of Winter, and Itecho Kangetsu, the Guard of Winter, set out to see it for themselves, cautious of what a reunion with Hinagiku and Sakura might mean after they failed to stop Hinagiku’s kidnapping all those years ago.
One episode wasn’t enough for me to determine my feelings toward Agents of the Four Seasons: Dance of Spring, but two episodes in, I’m thoroughly on board with this lush, melancholic, dangerous world. The necessary worldbuilding at the start takes a bit to sludge through, mainly because of a melodramatic encounter with a 12-year-old I’m sure we will never see again — but once spring arrives and the consequences ripple into being, the anime’s impact expands tenfold.
What did draw me in from the get-go, even through the slower exposition, was the gorgeous 2D animation. As expected of an anime about the four seasons, every scenic shot is rich with detail, each flower petal and dollop of snow like a delicate stroke across an oil painting. The rendering of the lighting and shadows on each of the characters captures the essence of the original light novel covers as well as the whimsical billow of spring illustrated in the anime’s first promotional poster, which is what keyed me into this adaptation in the first place. It almost feels like watching an indie animator’s final project uploaded somewhere on social media, even though it is a far cry from that as a production from the hands of WIT Studio of Attack on Titan and Spy x Family fame. But it invokes that same unbridled pride that’s unique to discovering those kinds of smaller art films, when you’re amazed to be witness to the boundless beauty of what artists create.
Other than the animation, this show’s current greatest strength is its main cast: Hinagiku, Sakura, Rosei, and Itecho. I’m a sucker for twisted friend groups — though it’s clear there’s more than friendship between some of them, or maybe even all of them! — and this quartet is completely entangled in thorns of trauma and power and resentment. Some shows can take 12 whole episodes to get me barely believing in their pairing’s chemistry, but even without a full group reunion, the first two episodes firmly establish the intricacy of the four’s dynamics. Hinagiku vowing to do anything to keep Sakura by her side, including bringing spring back to Yamato; Itecho soberly reminding Rosei of his unwavering devotion, and Rosei chiding him playfully to reserve the sentiment for Sakura; Rosei and Hinagiku’s doubts that the other will grant them forgiveness; Itecho’s guilt over not fulfilling his promise to Sakura, and Sakura’s bitterness over this betrayal. It scratches the itch previously satisfied by Yona of the Dawn’s Yona-Hak-Suwon trio and four-dragon cohort, where yearning and heartache are abundant in all relationships, romantic or otherwise.
Especially with Hinagiku and Rosei, I was impressed by how the show relayed both their individual strengths and their wistful longing for one another. It would’ve been easy to use stereotypical depictions of personified seasons, Rosei cold, Hinagiku warm — and while it’s not that they don’t have these traits, neither Agent is chained to these characterizations. Hinagiku’s tenderness shows itself in explosive ways, from her awakening the flora with the waves of her ritual dance to her sacrificing herself to the terrorists threatening her friends’ lives. Rosei controls his glacial defense to dance alongside Hinagiku’s spring blossoms rather than freeze them completely, intentional about not stealing her spotlight. The show emphasizes that the Agents aren’t gods but instead human wielders of ecological powers, and their gestures of care toward each other, both grand and delicate, highlight this humanity.
I also love how the background art assists with enriching Hinagiku and Rosei’s story, the other person’s designated season enveloping the world in which the audience is introduced to them: Hinagiku boring through a wintry mountainside in episode 1, and Rosei chasing after the long-awaited vernal flowering in episode 2. The environment emphasizes their longing and pain through its biting juxtaposition, so inconspicuous at first that when I realized it, it made me play through both episodes again to appreciate how well they complement each other.
All of my praise for the characters should be doubled for their voice actors, who shift so seamlessly between comedic banter and suffocating fear and stern commands. Yuka Nukui, who voices Hinagiku, has been nailing all of her lead roles the past few seasons, and unlike her past works that pressed her voice for frantic tones, in Agents of the Four Seasons she shows her range through her voice’s steady, solemn firmness that delivers the nuance of Hinagiku’s recuperating strength. I was also pleasantly surprised at the singing at the end of both episodes, when Hinagiku and Rosei invoke their Agent powers. The traditional inflections in their voices add to the enchantment and more ancient, mythical feel of this surprisingly modern-day setting.
Given how well executed all these aspects of the production are, the main plot conflict feels less important to me. The introduction of insurgents who want to kill or steal from Agents didn’t intrigue me as much as the visual enticement of the battle sequence between them and Rosei and Itecho, whose (oxymoronic) natural magic ices over the enemy’s manmade weaponry. Perhaps more so than these outside threats, I’m interested in the corruption within the Agency that the Agents report to; they seem like the greater hindrance, puppeteering the Agents and stripping them of the agency that their title prescribes. I can only assume this will become a greater point of contention and that future episodes will remedy my minor plot dissatisfaction, so till then, I’ll be patiently waiting.
