91 Days

Episode 12

With his culminant assassination at the playhouse, Avilio has completed his revenge by instigating a gang war that will wipe the Vanetti family off the map. Everyone with that name is dead, with the exception of Nero, who Avilio has left alive as his final act of sadism. Strega, the new Machiavellian head of the Galassia family, takes Avilio under his wing in the hopes of turning him into his lackey. Unfortunately for him, Nero busts Avilio out before he can be convinced. Furious at his former friend, Nero proceeds to let him live longer for no apparent reason. Even Nero's driver, Cerotto (who's eternally doing menial jobs for big mobsters, I guess) wonders why Avilio is still alive, but Nero doesn't answer. He just keeps hanging out with the guy, in between moments of near-murderous fury. Eventually, Nero even ditches Cerotto, since he just really wants to hang out alone with Avilio for some reason.

This leads them on (B)Road Trip 2.0: We Kind of Destroyed Each Other's Lives, So We Should Hate Each Other, But We're Also The Only People Who Understand Each Other For That Same Reason, So It's All Just Awkward. Ostensibly, Nero is just taking Avilio to the place where he wants to be executed out of some emotional obligation, but that still means he harbors enough affection for the guy to let him die at the location of his choice. The episode is emotionally confusing, which mirrors the characters' own emotional states. Basically, Nero has moments of intense anger for Avilio, but not as much as he should toward the guy who killed everyone he ever loved. So he delays the event in order to figure things out. Unfortunately, this only recreates the pastoral contentment that they shared at their most intimate, leaving Nero even more confused.

Avilio himself is just resigned to death. Perhaps he's a bit surprised that his life isn't over yet, and he can still enjoy simple acts like eating or drinking with another person. For all of Avilio's previous self-abandonment, this raises the possibility of moving on with his life, a point that Nero mentions during their fateful (and perhaps fatal) walk on the beach. As a testament to their intimacy, this trip marks the first time he's ever opened up about his family's death – meaning that he's just started the healing process right when he's decided to die. In the end, Avilio and Nero have wronged each other equally, which makes them equals in a twisted way. They derive pleasure from each other as companions, and they don't need to hide anything because they both already know what the other is thinking by now. They don't even need to speak. It's the companionship of people who have seen each other at their ugliest, who no longer have anything to either articulate or deny. So ultimately, the choice is between making something out of that bond or going through with the more standard end scripted by the cycle of violence.

This ambiguous ending relies on the uncertain tension between Avilio's two possible fates:

Possibility #1: In spite of their renewed connection, Nero killed Avilio as retribution for his actions. Nero's smile represents him embracing the cycle of retaliatory violence that's defined their lives up to now and taken so much from them both. At most, Nero is now aware of this bitter cycle and finds a twisted form of contentment within it. Nothing has been learned. Nero may die soon, since Strega's agent is hot on his trail. That's one way of interpreting the final shot of footsteps – Nero's go just a bit farther than Avilio's because that's how long he lives. The future isn't shown because it's nothing, just death. The mobster life cuts people short.

Possibility #2: Avilio's death was faked in order to throw Strega's agent off his trail. Nero sounded a gunshot and drove off by himself so that Strega would think he had killed him, but in reality he let him go. Having accomplished his mission and resolved to die, Avilio must now find a new reason to live as Angelo Lagusa. It's now possible for Nero to find real happiness, since he's renounced the cycle of violence. This future isn't shown because it's an unscripted realm of total possibility.

Personally, I think the former is way more likely, but the latter would be more interesting. It'd be neat if after all they'd done to each other, Avilio and Nero embraced their strange and honest companionship. It'd be a braver and more definite note than the wishy-washy “maybe he makes it out, maybe he doesn't” cliché. It also works much better intellectually than emotionally, since I could tell what they were going for, but I also didn't feel as much for Avilio and Nero as the show seems to have wanted.

All in all, 91 Days was solid from start to finish. Erring only slightly at its midpoint, this finale concludes a consistently effective and often thrilling homage to classic gangster films. Its biggest weakness was characterization, and that's perhaps why I don't feel as strongly towards this show as I do some others this season, even ones that I'd consider worse overall. The problem is that 91 Days leans a little too oblique in its character writing, particularly when it comes to Nero. While I get Avilio not spilling his soul easily, Nero is a big boisterous guy who's supposed to be too friendly, and the final gut punch relies on our knowledge of his psyche. Unfortunately, I don't know much about him besides “puppy man who doesn't appear particularly troubled by the moral compromises of his lifestyle.” It would've helped a lot if he had expressed some reservations or made excuses for his actions – just something to indicate that there's a conflicted moral agent in there, not just someone who's totally alright with anything so long as it benefits his family. The show's pathos are dependent on this understanding, (if not, why wouldn't Nero have just torture-murdered Avilio back in that hotel room?) but it isn't conveyed all that well. In the end, I'm stuck inferring things that I shouldn't need to infer. For example, Avilio and Nero's connection is supposed to have been intense enough to tempt them into overlooking the fact that they both murdered each other's families, but it never feels all that exceptional. Some direct, honest emotional expression between the two could have helped make that friendship as unique as the show tries to frame it. Overall, I'm impressed that 91 Days' writer, Taku Kishimoto, can handle the difficult technique of oblique characterization, but that doesn't mean that it should replace the direct approach in all situations.

In the end, 91 Days is a pastiche of pretty much every classic gangster thing in existence, and while does a great job at recreating their tone, structure, and general atmosphere of excellence, it's missing that core passion, the spark of a creator who has something to say besides, “I'm a huge fan of The Godfather.” The themes amount to some rote cycle of violence stuff that feel like a carry over from the show's stylistic ambitions rather than the true centerpiece. At the same time, it's also important to remember that this hardly makes the show bad - it's a strong piece of entertainment that I'd recommend to anyone looking for some mature, cinematic fun from their anime. 91 Days is certainly unique within the medium of Japanese animation, and it's rare to get a genre exercise that succeeds as much as this one. 91 Days starts to pale when you compare it to the real standouts in the history of the genre as cinematic art, but the fact that you can make that comparison at all says something about how high it reaches and how much it manages to achieve. I look forward to seeing it again in one sitting, since it functions a lot more like a long movie than a show. (Hopefully with some of the derp face cleaned up and an English dub. Yay Funiroll!) After 13 weeks of Avilio's revenge, I'd say that watching this show amounted to a well-spent 91 Days of my life…

…I see what you did there.

Grade: A

91 Days is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.