School festival arcs. Inherently boring, so series really need to add something to make it work. This series does that by just doing what it always does and making the school festival not the central focus. Instead, this was again about working hard to make something good, and very sharp dialogue and lots of addictive character chemistry.
I noticed that the bad school festival episodes just put too much emphasis on the school festival: just doing boring stuff like having a haunted house or a cafe, and having characters walk around without much passion. And really: having a school festival in real life sounds really fun, but only a few anime really manage to capture it. Sakurasou didn’t exactly capture it, but ir rather avoided it. Misaki’s bit with her sister was very surprising and a great way to develop her, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the school festival. Same for Mashiro’s subplot about returning to England.
There is one thing that I’m a bit bothered with: the way this show looks at Shiina. It’s a bit subtle, but sometimes the focus is a bit too much on her as a “pet”, rather than as an actual character. In this episode there was this focus about him not letting Shiina go back, as if she was his property. Only at the cliff-hanger the focus returned to what Shiina really wanted. It’s a missed opportunity.
Also, small detail: I like how Shiina’s painting on the wall stays there. Yay for continuity.
Rating: 4.5/8 (Good)
In english the title is called ‘the pet girl of sakurasou’ T.T
… which is, as far as I can tell with my rudimentary Japanese, a direct translation of the Japanese title.
It’s also been translated as “The Pet Girl of Sakura Hall”
Pretty funny and also has some drama in it. School festival is kinda meh but that’s what happens a lot of the time.
Just one question, where in the subplot was there anything about Sorata “not letting her go back?” I’m not well versed in Japanese so I go by the subs, but basically, not only does Sorata think that she should actually go back to the art world, but he’s convinced that she is going to leave. In this episode he just appeared a little sentimental about loosing a friend as it were.
Twas’ a good episode. This show does good on avoiding anything too overly boring.
I agree, at least as far as I remember; on the surface, Sorata’s position is as you say. It’s just heavily implied and natural that he doesn’t want her to leave. The reference is probably just to the episode focusing on Sorata’s side of things.
Along those lines, I’m sure the next episode’s going to have a one-liner or two from Mashiro on the subject, with her usual delivery. Sorata might learn a thing or two. For that matter, maybe the painting she was working on an episode or two ago will come up again.
I wouldn’t particularly take it as a drawback to focus on Sorata in this episode (aside from Sorata maybe not being one of the best characters in this show). It’s just the order of buildup. Hopefully they can pull off something better than most episodes recently.