 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Summary:
After Aisia wakes from a dream where she’s wearing the same swimsuit as Nemu while chasing after Junichi, she can only concentrate on Nemu and Junichi’s relationship and how she doesn’t understand it all. During Aisia’s shower, Nemu goes into her room and takes her cloak in order to wash it. While they are eating, Aisia sees Nemu and Junichi’s close relationship first hand and gets rather angry – anger which is compounded when she sees that Nemu’s been in her room. And she’s even more irritated when she asks for her cloak and Nemu tells her that it’s in the washer. Without it, Aisia doesn’t feel that she can go out and work on her magic. She leaves the house anyway after Junichi breaks off their conversation to go help Nemu. Wandering around town, she thinks about how Nemu and Junichi like each other, but how Kotori also likes Junichi. At the old sakura tree, she runs into Misaki again. After Aisia explains the problem of happiness that’s been bothering her, Misaki suggest that Aisia’s concern is because she likes Junichi. Aisia denies it, but Misaki continues on everyone likes Junichi, including herself. Apparently Yoriko’s feelings transferred over to Misaki two years ago. Their like for Junichi equates to happiness. To investigate this, Aisia decides to go see how everyone really feels about Junichi. Tamaki and Nanako’s feelings are fairly apparent through their actions: Tamaki starts missing her archery targets (making a heart with arrows instead) when Aisia questions her, and Nanako admits that the prince in her manga is Junichi. After overhearing a conversation between Mako and Moe about liking Junichi, Aishia remembers when they were at the beach and everyone admitted to liking him. At her last stop with Alice and Miharu, Alice asks how Aisia feels about Junichi. As Aisia considers her own feelings, Junichi finds her by the beach, bringing her the cloak. As they talk, Aisia realizes how kind Junichi really is, and notices that her cloak has his scent. She slowly starts to understand that she likes him too. Aisia holds his hand as they sit, and when they go home together, she happily holds onto his arm.
The high points of the episode for me are the shower scene, angry Aisia, Misaki explaining about Yoriko (though without specifically naming her), Tamaki & Nanako, and the final scene – I’m a sucker for insanely cute, blushing Aisia. But I find the plot this week rather predictable, especially by the second half. Each girl’s reaction is unique, but their end message is the same: they like Junichi. And now Aisia does too, or at least she’s developing the feelings.
So forget what I said last week about Kotori’s story possibly not being over. This episode takes the story in a different direction, away from Kotori, who gets all of one flashback scene the entire episode. The next few episodes, based on the titles, will instead move the story towards Junichi, Nemu, and maybe even you-know-who (based on episode 19’s title). Next week’s is titled 「音夢と純一」 (“Nemu and Junichi”), which most likely means, well, more Nemu and Junichi (duh). I really hope that the next couple of episodes change the message from “Nemu always wins” to something else. I’m hoping for some blockbuster shocker to change everything. Otherwise, this is going to turn into a rather forgettable series.
Closing Thought: If we all look forward to the next episode in hopes that it’ll bring us what we want to see, does that mean they’re doing a good job and we’re hooked?
