One Week Friends - Episode 9

The summer of fun continues for Kaori and company in this week's One Week Friends, as somehow the group even manages to make the last minute rush to finish their summer homework enjoyable. Still, I suppose anything is preferable to Endless Eight...

As our quartet of friends meet at Kaori's house to finish off any assignments (or start them, in Saki's case) while also enjoying cake and tea amongst other distractions, it's actually Saki and Shogo who become the focus of the first half of this episode in relationship terms, with Hase looking to delve further into how well the two knew one another when they were at elementary school together and us learning a little about how, unbeknownst to Saki, Kiryu did his part to help her out when everyone else was either bullying her or writing her off as helpless.

With a wonderful summer done and dusted and school resuming, it seems as if everything is going swimmingly for Hase and Kaori as they meet on the way to school on their first day of term before a desk reshuffle sees them sitting next to one another. This heavenly chain of events for Hase very quickly turns sour, however, as a new transfer student arrives - a boy who not only knows Kaori by both name and appearance, but also someone whose mere name causes Kaori to have another major episode of amnesia, causing her to pass out and once again forget all about Hase.

From what seemed like it was going to be nothing more than another gentle, light-hearted instalment, One Week Friends has now delivered in pulling out the rug from under its cosy tale of friendship to give us the closest this show will ever get to a cliffhanger. Now the big question is what it does with this shift in direction, as we look set to finally centre in on the cause of Kaori's trauma and see how it affects the rest of the cast - as much as I've enjoyed its lilting fare of late, the human drama angle is what I'm really here for and I hope it can deliver in those terms over its final few episodes.