So here too we’re nearly at the end. Unlike what I expected, it’ll focus on Kouhei’s father. It makes sense: it’s what this entire series has been building up for, but that does mean that his brother did not really get the time to show off his character. I really thought that he too would get an arc like Yuuko’s, but it pretty much stopped after his date failed.
This episode was build-up to that finale, along with Kouhei’s best friend suddenly announcing that he’s moving far away. That’s the thing with this series: every character’s story is linear, apart from Kouhei, whose is episodic. The stories around him are the least coherent. It’s an interesting mix, that would have worked if the acting was better.
The same acting also got in the way of this episode. I mean, having a friend move far away again is a situation that a lot of people can relate to. The acting during the goodbye scene though was just really bad. Especially Kouhei hammed it up, but the other kids also delivered cringe-worthy performances, and this is both in terms of the voice acting and the animation. What was meant to be a tearful goodbye ended up looking rather silly.
This episode also may have dropped the sickness bomb a bit too often when it kept hinting to both Kouhe’s father AND grandmother’s health. His father was the first to collapse, but I’m not sure what Grandmother’s health is really going to add at this point. I do like how this series keeps fleshing out all of its characters while building up to the finale, though: this episode again left no character really ignored. That’s pretty good, especially since it has been doing this consistently.
Father’s sickness has potential, though. It’s obviously a bit forced, but with the right character development it can make for a nice finale. But do give Kouhei a small role. That yell at the end of this episode felt so disinterested that I’m pretty sure that his voice actor is being forced by his parents to perform this and would rather be doing something completely different.
Rating: * (Good)
I felt that the voice acting made a huge part of this show and the fact that the voice was a little less than passionate irked me.
I’m still waiting on subs for this. Looking forward to watch it when I can understand it!