Before that however, there's some excitement for Sawako in the form of her first ever sleepover with Yano and Yoshida, although this excitement is tempered a little by Chizuru's mood on account of some ill-thought words by Ryuu, who tells her to "stay away from his place" for a couple of days - An attempt to save her from the upset of what is to come, but expressed in the worst possible fashion.
Eventually Yano, Yoshida and Sawako go to pay Ryuu a visit, only to find that there's already a small party in full swing which includes the presence of Kazehaya. The party is soon halted however as Ryuu's brother Tohru puts in an appearance a day early... Along with his fiancée. So, the reason for Ryuu's concerns for Chizuru become clear (if they weren't hinted at heavily enough already), yet outwardly she appears to recover from the shock incredibly quickly and remains largely her normal quirky self. On the inside of course, things aren't quite so simple, although it's from Sawako that the first tears of sadness actually flow as she gets to see the pitfalls of unrequited love in front of her own eyes.
While this episode was handled pretty well, perhaps the revelation of Tohru having either a girlfriend or wife-to-be was made a little too obvious last time around, which only served to make this particular instalment overly predictable as we could see what was coming a mile off. This rendered a lot of this episode as somewhat moot, although it did still have some great moments of comedy and interplay between various characters (with Yano in particular standing out), and Chizuru's reactions throughout had a genuine feeling of realism to them against the sometimes overly dramatic stuff that anime can get dragged into on occasion. Still, it appears that the Chizuru and Ryuu story arc isn't quite over yet, so we'll have to wait and see what the next episode holds - At least we can be pretty certain that it'll be less predictable than this one proved to be.
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5 comments:
For me, I had no idea.
Was it just me, or did the animation quality look worse than usual?
I enjoyed this episode... I had a feeling that his brother would show up early, but throwing in the wife was a surprise..
The sentimental education of Kuronuma Sawako continues, with another demonstration of the truth that love doesn’t always run smoothly. A pity it is Yoshida who gets the rough end of the stick, because she may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but she has a heart of gold.
The animation may have been a bit "off" this episode (though the bit with Kazehaya on his bike was rather nice), but the characterisation was as good as ever. Plus points to Kazehaya, for tact and friendship, and plus points to the writers, for taking the spotlight off the main couple and giving us a change of view. It’ll be interesting to see how all this impacts on Sawako down the line. Both her friends have had unfortunate romantic experiences – is this going to make her even more wary of the relationship thing?
I thought the brief looks between Kazehaya and Kuronuma were well placed and gorgeous. :)
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