Kokoro Connect - Episode 3

Although it was hardly a welcome way to spend some time after school, it seems that Inaba and Taichi's round of mutual volunteering for clean-up duty around the town has at least given them an opportunity to talk about things that wouldn't otherwise be discussed.

Apart from having seemingly set Taichi up with Iori, Inaba seems quite determined to psychoanalyse him, pinning him (quite rightly it turns out) as a guy who will selflessly do anything to help others even if it hurts him.  While the reasoning behind her digging and discussion isn't really clear, her concerns about the group falling apart as individuals under the stresses of the body-switching which is dogging their every day life most certainly is.

Just some of Inaba's concerns come to light not long after - not so much because Taichi and Aoki make the most of a body switch between themselves and Inaba and Kiriyama, but more because Aoki has picked up on the fact that Yui is seemingly terrified whenever she's close to the boys thanks to his experiences in her body.  Lo and behold, it appears that for all her karate skills Yui is androphobic and hates being around guys - quite the shocking revelation all things considered.  When Yui and Taichi swap bodies that night, the opportunity arises for the latter to quiz the former about the reason for her phobia, and it seems that he might even have a solution (at least in part) to her problem, delivered in his own typically selfless style.  Is it really Yui that the group should even be worrying about though?

Having been unimpressed by its start, Kokoro Connect seems to be settling into its skin (with every pun intended) quite nicely - the show is clearly not going to be some kind of dramatic tour de force or anything of that nature, but it seems to be holding the line between having a little fun with its scenario and using it as a solid grounding for exploring its characters in a satisfactory way, and thankfully all of those characters now seem sufficiently interesting to be worth exploring.  It's certainly pretty heavy-handed in the way it goes about doing things (witness how Taichi's selfless personality is spelled out so that later events make perfect sense), but lack of nuance aside I'm finding myself starting to enjoy watching the series somewhat, for the time being at least.