Ridiculous though this whole scenario is, it does lead to a face-off between Jinta and his former friend - a blurry mess of guilt and relief on Yukiatsu's part that quite clearly needed to be put out into the open for the good of all concerned, while the following scenes also explain a little more of Yukiatsu's feelings of guilt (and his obsession with Menma) while also offering up what could be solid proof of ghostly Menma's existence to Yukiatsu.
Is Yukiatsu's cross-dressing outburst looked likely to be the moment of alleviated tension which fixed everything for this group of characters then think again, as they soon fragment as per before, with Anaru in particular half-heartedly going back to hanging out with her current clique of friends - a decision which almost leads to some decidedly dangerous moments for her before Yukiatsu (of all people) comes to her rescue before embarrassing her, asking her out and probing her feelings towards Jinta. Meanwhile, we perhaps finally come a little closer to getting a handle on Menma's feelings and why she "exists" at all.
Altogether this was another quite decent episode of Ano Hana, with the emphasis on "quite" - even after its big reveal at the end of the last episode and the beginning of this, the series continues to insist upon simply bouncing all of its characters off one another without ever really progressing or shaping their dynamic or their own actions to any great extent. Perhaps this is the entire point of the series as it tries to move things along carefully and subtly, but at times it feels dangerously like inactivity (particularly on Jinta's part, given that he is our protagonist), and given that it doesn't exactly have a huge episode count to work with something major needs to happen sooner rather than later to shift things up a gear.
No comments:
Post a Comment