Skip and Loafer, The Sound of Music, and the Toxic Girlfriend

Skip and Loafer has been one of my favorite series this anime season, and I get the impression that a lot of people feel the same way. From the cute, adorkable relationship between the main couple to the sensitive depiction of a significant trans character, what’s not to like?

One aspect of the show I’ve enjoyed only cropped up in the last couple of episodes: the school musical. The Family Singers is totally not not The Sound of Music, renamed (along with the cast) to avoid copyright issues. When I was growing up, we watched the official movie version of the Rogers & Hammerstein musical dozens—if not hundreds—of times. (I recognize that we were kind of unique in this regard.) The music is masterful, and the main theme is downright inspiring: “Climb every mountain! Ford every stream! Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream!” Loosely based on the story of a real Austrian family of singers, the von Trapps, the musical is worth seeing at least once.

The Skip and Loafer version hits most of the highlights of the real-life performance. Lyra, like the original’s Maria, is a (presumably Catholic) nun-in-training. However, she has a penchant for getting into trouble, and as a kind of community service is sent to be the governess for a household of no less than seven kids. The children’s father and Lyra quickly fall in love. Skip and Loafer even briefly portrays the scene where Lyra/Maria is reassured by the head nun that it’s ok to love him.

But their romance is overshadowed by the fascists rising to power, and the family is forced to flee across the mountains to a neighboring country. Complicating things is the budding romance between the oldest daughter and a young fascist soldier (played by Skip and Loafer’s male lead, Sousuke). (In the real world, Maria and Captain von Trapp did live through the Nazi takeover of Austria, and the family did flee the country. The daughter-soldier relationship was a bit of fiction added to the Roger & Hammerstein musical, though.)

Only one major plot thread is missing from the Skip and Loafer musical: the captain’s toxic girlfriend, Baroness Schraeder. In The Sound of Music, she and the captain are well on their way to tying the knot before Maria shows up and complicates the captain’s feelings. Schraeder schemes to get Maria out of the way, but when the captain confronts her and declares his love for Maria, Schraeder backs down. (In real life, the captain was engaged to an actual princess, but R&H probably didn’t want to irritate royalty, so they changed things up.)

Why would Skip and Loafer leave out this plot point while bringing up all the others in its rendition of the musical? It turns out that this plot twist does crop up during the musical, but outside it (between performances), with Sousuke’s childhood frenemy Ririka standing in for the baroness.

Like Schraeder, Ririka has an unhealthy relationship with, and hold over, “her” man. Each has known the man in question a lot longer than our heroine, and uses a prior commitment to try and pin him down. Schraeder uses her engagement to the captain, while Ririka guilt-trips Sousuke into doing what she wants by reminding him that he had a role in destroying her reputation as a child actress. Schraeder, jealous of the captain’s growing attraction to Maria, spitefully says Maria will make “a very fine nun”; Ririka expresses disdain for Mitsumi and for Sousuek’s friendship/unspoken romance with her, calling Mitsumi a “circus act.”

Ririka also follows Schraeder’s lead in manipulating people she doesn’t like to get them out of the picture. Schraeder persuades Maria to leave the captain’s home and return to the nuns’ convent. In Skip and Loafer, Ririka targets Sousuke’s mom, accusing her of using Sousuke for her own ends, and succeeds in driving her away from the musical, which the mom had hoped to watch her son perform in.

There’s also a parallel, possibly unintended, between Ririka and the fictitious Schraeder’s real-world counterpart, Princess Yvonne. When real!Captain von Trapp broke off his engagement with her, she spread a rumor that Maria was pregnant (a far more damaging allegation for a single woman in that time and place). Ririka, for her part, tries to make Sousuke’s life hell by dredging up his past as a (disgraced) child actor in front of his classmates, after he’s spent his whole time at school trying to hide it and put it behind him. Both women are not above rumormongering to destroy someone’s reputation just out of spite.

And both women are defanged when the men confront them and apologize. Captain von Trapp simply interrupts Schraeder’s wedding planning to tell her he’s sorry but can’t marry her, and she (somewhat gracefully, to her credit) cuts him off before he can speak any further and departs, clearly hurt. Sousuke apologizes to Ririka (for his role in damaging her reputation years ago, and for wanting to have a happy high school life despite her insistence he doesn’t deserve it) and says that, while he’ll still be there for her if she needs support, he’s not going to go along with her emotional manipulation anymore. His apology is met somewhat less gracefully: she throws a hat at him, calls him a narcissist, tells him to never show his face before her again, and flips him the bird. (Their mutual friend Chris strategically places his hand in the way so that we, the audience, can’t see the gesture.) The scene after shows her driving away in tears.

With that, our heroes and heroines are free (relationship-wise and emotionally) to move their relationships on to the next stage. The captain confesses his love to Maria and they live happily ever after, at least until the end of the musical. Sousuke doesn’t make it that far (at least not yet), but in the final minutes of the season he’s clearly realizing his feelings for Mitsumi and ready to act on them at last. Hopefully that will be covered in season 2.

Because there will be a season 2, right? I mean, there’s just got to be! Come on, PA Works! Do whatever it takes to make it happen! Climb every mountain, ford every stream, and follow every rainbow until! You! Find! Your! Dreeeeeeeeeaaaaaaammmm!