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)
Much better than the last one, although still not a return to form… Its a shame the misunderstandings wont be cleared until next episode at least
Well about Kazehaya I cant disagree… But I am sure its because we are just being shown this part of him, obviously later on he will be the source of drama as well, but like you said, right now he works as a plot device to make sawako move forward
What?!?!?! They stretched it to 3 episodes??!?!
Come on!!!!
At least it looks like they hit the core part from the manga properly (the development of Yano and Yoshida and their own inferiority complexes.)
At it’s heart this is a story about misfits and the insecurities everyone that age has. Even those whom look like nothing could bother them have their own weaknesses and some people whom look very weak can actually quite strong (Sadako.)
I like the manga because of the way it takes a different look at these issues than most of the generic shojo pieces; though it had a rough start.
I fear that the anime is just not living up to the manga, and is pulling out some of the more trite pieces to force it into the standard shojo model. They are emphasizing more of the similarities to the standard than the differences and stretching things out way too much.
Oh well.
As much as I like the progress of the story much up to this point and Yano and Yoshida too, expanding it to 3 episodes is just.. They could end this with this episode! >_
I think that the girl just hates Sawako, and she’s just really being mean. Anyway, I hope this series turns out to be a good one, because I’ve had it with typical shojo plots.