One Week Friends - Episode 6

Our little group of titular "one week friends" (or almost friends, in Shogo's case) are now fully formed, but it's other issues that are the front of some of their minds in this week's episode.

At least, this is the case for Hase and Saki, both of whom have failed miserably in a recent maths test and are going to have to sit a make-up test to... well, make up for it.  Given their poor performance, it's clear that they both need someone with decidedly more intellect than they to assist - enter Kaori as their saviour.  Surprisingly, Fujimiya not only agrees to help them out, but she also suggests that they should hold a study session at her house - a prospect that both terrifies and excites our protagonist, although this is nothing compared to how flustered Kaori's mother is at the sudden appearance of her daughter's precious friends.

By the end of their visit however, Kaori and Kiryu have grown closer (well, perhaps a little, anyway), and Kaori's mother has composed herself enough to leave Hase a note asking to meet her after school the next day.  Just what does she have to say to Hase in private?  The answer, of course, is that she wants to talk about Kaori's memory issue, explaining how it occurred in the aftermath of a road accident that left her with no brain damage and little more than a concussion, yet somehow it still led the way to the memory issues surrounding any friends that exists to this day.  It seems that Kaori herself is holding onto some kind of deep-seated psychological issue, which perhaps holds hope for a resolution in the future.

Now that Fujiimiya has a collection of good friends and associates around her and most of her barriers have been lowered, One Week Friends feels a little less "sharp" as a result - the first half of this episode was more like a sweet and simple slice of life show, which only gave way to more serious matter in the second, albeit in a thoroughly predictable way (I'd love to see the numbers for road traffic accidents in Japan, because if anime is anything to go by there sure is a lot of them!)  Neither of these issues are major enough to inherently dampen down the fact that this series remains enjoyable and has a cast you can't help but root for, but I do wonder whether its second half will struggle to capture the same subtle yet palpable drama and emotion of its early episodes.