Category: Kimi ni Todoke

Every time I watch this show I get reminded of how utterly bland Kazehaya is/ He doesn’t feel like a character, and much more like a bunch of plot devices to get to Sawako’s development and the author’s view on morals and values. Fortunately, he only appeared in the first quarter of this episode.

Because apart from him, I have to admit that this episode was pretty good. There again was a lot of angst, but especially between Yano and Yoshida it felt very detailed and genuine. And I think that that’s the strength of this series: the detailed and imaginative dialogue. At times it’s really caught up in its own morals, but when it’s about the characters then it can actually get quite touching.

The end of this episode shows Sawako as she’s about to confront the person who looks to be the one who started the rumours. She looks pretty stereotypical right now, but that’s only logical considering she’s only had about half a minute of screen-time. Let’s see whether the next episode can flesh her out and make her something more than “that evil bitch who has a crush on Kazehaya and hates Sadako for being close to him”.
Rating: * (Good)

I’m not exactly happy with this episode. It was all angst, angst and more angst based on a misunderstanding, and I feel like the creators were really forcing it in order to get as much drama as possible. Wasn’t this supposed to be a very simple romance? When I think of simple romances, I think of Sasameki Koto, not this kind of series in which the creators try to create as much misunderstandings between the lead characters as possible.

Yano and Yoshida, overhearing Sawako talking is classic romantic fodder. Instead of letting these romances play out naturally, the creators just had to drag on these misunderstandings, hadn’t they? It would have been fine if this was just a short misunderstanding, but the creators were dragging it on for way too long. Angst isn’t necessarily bad, I really liked how Bokura ga Ita did it, but this episode just felt forced and pointless.

One thing I do like more and more was that teacher and his crazy midget theories about Sawako. He’s getting funnier with every episode. But seriously though, I hope that the rest of this series is going to be different from this episode. There definitely is potential: even though Kazehaya is rather dull, Sawako, Yano and Yoshida are nicely characterized. Just not in this episode.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

You know, I’m starting to get into this series. Or rather, I’m starting to care about the relationship between Sawako and Kazehaya, and Sawako’s quest in trying to connect with the class. I’m starting to see her desire to be liked, clashing with her desire not to be hated. On top of that, Kazehaya is finally starting to show some flaws, so I’m liking this series more and more.

But on the other side, Sawako’s facial distortions still are pretty annoying, especially when repeated over and over again. It’s a problem that a few other shoujo-series have, but ironically I ended up really liking those (Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge and Skip Beat both abused them, and yet they turned out to be great otherwise. Let’s hope that this will be the case for Kimi ni Todoke as well, though a lot still has to happen for that).

I think the next episode is going to be a major one to determine whether or not this series is going to work: it’s going to be about the first love rival for our couple. The set-up is pretty obvious: this girl is in love with Kazehaya, she doesn’t like Sawako being near him and starts spreading all sorts of rumours about her. It’s obviously a plan that’s generic and never going to work, so it’s all going to depend on the execution to make up for it.
Rating: * (Good)

As for the series I’m not going to blog:
– I have no idea what to write about Sunred on a weekly basis. Nevertheless, that Tempura-monster was hilarious.
– I have to give Yumeiro Patissiere credit: against all my expectations, the fairies did not give the lead character any powers whatsoever, and instead stressed the importance of hard work and preparation. Thumbs up. Nevertheless, the classmates are still a bit too stereotypical.
– Natsu no Arashi lost its subtlety in exchange for dull fanservice jokes. It can still get good but I don’t want to blog it while finding out.
– There are so many things wrong with Miracle Train that I don’t know where to start: ugly bishies, abysmal voice-acting, dull jokes, one-line background for each of the ladies, it’s already getting formulaic, every case gets solved with a dull monologue, pointless trivia, dialogue that’s just there to waste time. What the heck was Kenichi Kasai thinking?
– Sora no Otoshimono lost me when the panties started flying around.
– When blogging Basquash, I remember how I noted that something really weird had to happen for me to blog Shoji Kawamori’s next series. That did not happen, though such a cute and fluffy shoujo was probably the last thing I expected as his new series. And it’s pretty enjoyable so far in any case.
– Kobato is too one-dimensional: Kobato is just a moron who happens to be cute, her animal side-kick is just yet another subversion of the cute animal sidekick trope, then there are the stereotypical badass male tsundere, emo kid et cetera.
– Let me get back to 11Eyes when Winter Sonata airs. If that one turns out to suck, I’ll probably go for this one.

As for Kimi ni Todoke, well, you forced me all to blog it here. It’s an interesting choice, because I don’t think that I would have blogged this series on my own. I usually just leave shoujo romances like this for what they are, and this isn’t even one of the best ones. My problem with these types of shoujo series is that I’m still not able to determine whether they’re going to turn dull or not during their second half.

In terms of comedy, I’m hardly able to predict whether such a series will turn into a complete success as with Yamatso Nadeshiko Shichi Henge or Kodocha, or just a bore-fest like what happened to me with Ouran High School Host Club. For the serious series, how do you recognize whether a series is going to be awesome like with Bokura ga Ita, or just a complete disaster like with Vampire Knight from the first two episodes? The one time I actually tried blogging such a shoujo turned into a complete disaster: Shugo Chara descended into a filler-fest and still goes on three years later. While it’s nice on its own, I cringe at the thought of what would have happened if I didn’t decide to drop that series after 13 episodes…

Right now, Kimi ni Todoke isn’t the best, but also not the worst. At the moment it strikes me as a bit of a shallow emo version of Bokura ga Ita. The characters at the moment are a bit too exaggerated aside from the lead character: most of her classmates all are scared of her 100% of the time, her boyfriend is perfect without any flaws so far, so I really hope that the rest of the series is going to add a bit more depth to them. The lead character is off to a pretty nice start, however I do want to say that her constant chibi-version is really getting annoying right now.

I do have to praise the art. Especially the background art is absolutely beautiful, which is unsurprising considering the other shows the art director worked on: Eden of the East, Real Drive and Seirei no Moribito. Some of the backgrounds are probably filtered photographs, but they really work well along with this series’ unique art style. I think that right now, there are just too many series that go with a generic art style, instead of one with its own visual identity, and that really is a shame IMO.

Anyway, about the episode, I never knew that seat choosing was so serious business in Japan. I remember from the time when I was in high school, the only reason we had fixed seats was to give an easy time to the teacher, who had to remember all of our names. At the start of the year we’d usually just pick seats ourselves instead of having this strange lottery-thingy that the characters had in this episode.
Rating: (Enjoyable)