While Ai's devastating sweater-lips combo attack left Shinichirō in shock at the climax of part seven, things soon settle into a state of calm and happiness for the show's protagonist, as he finds himself getting closer and closer to the ever more adorable Noe. On the other hand, Hiromi's obvious malcontent and emotional imbalance worsens further over the course of the episode, where we see yet more of her sharp tongue and manipulation of any given situation to get her own way. This state of affairs soon begins to slowly impinge upon Shinichirō's happiness somewhat, leaving us with an end of episode cliff-hanger with interesting implications for both Noe and Shinichirō.As I've used up all my praise for this series in the first sentence, there really isn't anything more to be said. I love this show with every fibre of my being, and can only reaffirm my opinion that you won't find a better anime to occupy your time with this season. And you know the best part of all? Against all odds, it just keeps getting better.
I concur.
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness though, it's a really well paced progression of the Shinichiro/Noe relationship - I think his encounter with Aiko actually made things clearer for him in that respect because he seemed to make up his mind (albeit with some nagging doubts).
The picture book theme was great in that it added some more metaphors and symbolism, and explained Noe's character a bit more too.
As much as I'm losing sympathy for Hiromi a bit now (I'll explain further in my next tt 'blog post!), the issue of Shinichiro's mother is kinda separate, to my mind at least. Hiromi is more or less digging an emotional hole for herself but Shin's mum's attitude is beginning to feel less and less justified.
Yeah, I seem to have rather a lot to say about the series at this point...which just proves what a good piece of storytelling it is. Excellent stuff.
Perhaps it's just that I have a bit of a soft spot for Aiko despite her relative lack of screen time, but I'm not sure she should be written off entirely just yet, nor do I want her to be.
ReplyDeleteNot that I have any evidence to back that up beyond the fact that love interests never get written out of shows like this that cleanly. ;) I guess I can just see her being the person he turns to if things continue to get complicated with Hiromi and Noe.