I may have been a little too soon in saying that this show hit its stride last week, since this episode went back to its old slow pace. The first half of this episode had me a little concerned. Were we really going to watch Yuki do nothing for twenty minutes? The introduction of the "brothers fight and then make up" plot arc was appreciated and prevented the episode from becoming a complete waste of time, yet I can't say that it was good overall. The twins are enjoyable characters, but a lot of that comes from the way they play off the rest of the cast in this series. The two of them alone was, quite frankly, boring. They even had to bring in Kaname for a while to remind the viewers that they can be funny, given the right prompting. I don't think that it was a good idea to give an entire episode to the characters whose only function in the show are to act as comedy foils. There was a chance here to expand their characters beyond "Yuta is the responsible one and Yuki just doesn't care" but nothing in this episode happened other than to reaffirm what we already know. Watching this episode, I felt as if Yuki's laziness had affected the entire staff; the off-model animation was back in full force, along with the use of blank or solid color backgrounds whenever possible. Even when the episode decided to have something resembling a plot, it was resolved in the laziest way possible as well. I have no idea how Yuta found the plate, which was obviously what caused him to forgive (or at least, decide to tolerate) Yuki's laziness. Yuki was shown as the one who found it... yet this was after they had their argument, and they weren't talking to each other. Unless that was supposed to be Yuta and I got the two mixed up. If that's the case, then this episode has more problems with its art direction than I thought, since it's usually pretty easy to tell the two apart. Part of my disappointment in this episode has to do with the season it's airing in; while the reaffirmation of the bond between brothers was nice, there is a different show this season that's pulled off that sentiment in a much better way. Space Bros may a be a bit of an unfair comparison since the aims of these two shows are obviously different, but since they both try to take a realistic approach I think that the comparison is merited. If Space Bros is the bar, then this episode did not reach it. I wouldn't be so hard on this show if I didn't already know that it can do better than this, and following up those great episodes with a lackluster one was definitely not what I expected. To be fair though, this episode was like a lot of the first season, so I'm just going to put this one as a "miss" in the frequent "hit or miss" nature of this show. I'm also getting more and more interested in the source material, but probably not for the reasons intended. Is this just a result of adapting the manga? Was it this slowly paced in the original? Did the studio have very little content that they had to stretch over an episode? I'm interested if any of my readers are familiar with the manga, since I'm genuinely curious. As for the episode, there's always next week. Current tally: Two (2) Episode(s) without Shun in drag, zero (0) consecutive, one (1) where he does not appear at all. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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The least mature person in the episode was the reindeer man, in my opinion. What kind of person steals candy on Christmas Eve? The comments at the beginning and the end of the episode by Azuma-sensei--he always thought that time would make him an adult--provided a nice thematic frame for the episode as a whole. This week focused a lot on the difference between perceived age (from the way that someone looks and acts) and someone's actual age. Akira played an extremely small role in the previous season, so I had no opinion of him (my assumption was that he was Azuma-sensei's boyfriend, since this show seems to encourage me to think in those terms). This episode provided the right amount of fleshing out to his character, since I'm pretty sure that he'll continue to be a side character that'll show up every now and again to ruffle Chizuru's feathers. It reminds me a lot of the relationship that Chizuru and Kaname have, come to think of it... Anyway, watching Akira chose to act childish (even oblivious in some cases) while still insisting that he's an adult ("I have a job!") was interesting in the context of Azuma-sensei's statement. What makes an adult anyway? The answer the episode seems to be getting at is reliability; our heroes, the teenagers, are more reliable than the children--who take their free candy, tease one of their own for believing in Santa Claus and then walk away--yet they can't always pull off what they set out to do--they lose the balloon, can't catch the thief, and then forget their DVDs, which was the whole point of going to the mall. On the other hand, Akira wins his trust in style, stopping the thief and saving the kid all in one swoop. And Azuma-sensei is observant enough to know who the DVD bag belonged to. Of course, this ties into the idea of maturity as well, and Akira also proves that acting like a kid doesn't mean that you have the maturity level of one. However, that's not to say that this episode was an in-depth look at what it means to grow up; the usual antics were still there, with everybody getting on Kaname's nerves, Chizuru trying to look cool and failing, and Shun in a Mrs. Claus outfit. However, I think that Kimi to Boku may have finally hit its stride in balancing humor with an interesting insight on life, which it's tried before with mixed results. I might be biased here, but I think that a good slice-of-life show should do just that. Or maybe I'm reading to much into it. You tell me. Current tally: One (1) Episode(s) without Shun in drag, zero (0) consecutive. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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This show is trolling us. I’m here being burned alive in this hot summer, watching these kid complain the cold. Maybe we should switch places so that I can relieve myself in this hell. Anyway, less stellar episode this week. There isn’t much drama here. We only got Chizuru messing around with Choco Banana. Oh [...]
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Title context! I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. Anyway, after a lackluster start, this is the show I've been looking forward to. The show has dumped the usual shenanigans and jumped right into the romance, and I couldn't be happier. I can't even say if the animation improved this week because I was completely distracted by how cute this episode was. Chizuru and Mary were characters that grew on me over the first season; Chizuru I was mostly indifferent towards although I found him funny, and I didn't like Mary for a while because of the way she was first introduced. She's calmed down a lot since then, but she's still got a ways to go in learning not to take things so seriously, as shown in this episode. It was nice to see that she didn't lash out violently whenever something didn't go the way that she planned; the only instance I can think of in this episode was when she slapped Chizuru's hand away when he was looking at the bear, which is a big improvement for her. Putting the couple of the hour aside for a moment, there were also a lot of great back-and-forth moments between the characters this week, especially between the twins and Kaname. There were also brief references to events that happened last season, like the fact that they're still on "bread duty" so that Yuki can collect stickers. It's nice to know that this slice-of-life didn't go for a complete reset and is building on what happened previously instead. Speaking of development, let's get back to Mary and Chizuru. I still think that Mary is headed straight down the path of heartbreak since Shun is nice to everyone. Rather than worrying about him misunderstanding something, she should be worried about herself misunderstanding... Anyway, Chizuru continues to stack up brownie points be being more concerned with Mary's happiness than his own. Building off of last season, he clearly knows where he stands; however, that doesn't mean he's completely bottling up his feelings either. He half-jokingly attacks Kaname in this episode for walking home with Mary and accidentally starting a rumor, yet I can't picture him doing the same thing if similar events happened with Shun. He doesn't correct the woman at the bakery when she mistakes them for a couple, but he still defends her later when the guys in his class try to tease Kaname using the present. There's an interesting contrast going on here, where he's not against furthering his own interests but draws the line when Mary isn't happy. I initially thought that it was a little sad that he couldn't give her the present he bought properly, but it made her happy in the end, which was the point all along. I hope that Mary comes around on her own. If she just likes guys who are nice and will stand up for her, then what she wants is closer than she thinks... Current tally: One (1) Episode(s) without Shun in drag, zero (0) consecutive. (Yes, I will be keeping up with this.) Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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Now with more cats and bromance for your viewing pleasure~! Hooray! The return of Kimi To Boku has finally arrived and I have no idea why I enjoyed the first season, but I am actually quite happy that I gave it a shot…anyway season two is here at last to entertain us and make us [...]
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I understand why people dismiss this series for being a gender swap of the most run-down cliché in the cutesy anime genre. But for me it works, and I never had a dull moment. But does it take for a new comer to jump in now? Nope. Better watch the first season. For me, this pointless conversation [...]
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They're still one of the best parts of this show. While it's no Daily Lives of High School Boys (that show is god-tier) I still can't help but love Kimi to Boku. Despite my complaints when I blogged the first season, I did get pretty attached to the characters and I'm really glad to see them again. However, I did hope that the show would fix some of the problems that the first season had, and going by this first epiosde... They didn't. The animation frequently goes off model; just look at the opening scene! They're sitting around eating tangerines, I can't imagine that this costs a lot to animate. I don't think I'm asking for a lot here, I would just like their faces to continue looking like faces and their hands keep looking like hands no matter what distance we're viewing the characters from. Putting that complaint aside, I also thought that the pacing for this episode dragged a bit as well. It felt much longer than twenty-four minutes. A lot of the scenes felt like they were extended way beyond their natural stopping point to pad it for time. Maybe it was shorter in the manga? But like I said earlier, I can't help but love this show anyway. The episode was a re-introduction to the character dynamics of the central group, standard stuff for a second season. Even with the incredibly neutral set-up (they all stay at Kaname's house for the night) it's clear that this is meant to be a refresher, not a replacement for the things that happened last season. There's an unspoken assumption that the viewer has seen the first season, and I hope that means that this season will skip a lot of the fluff (as fun as it was the first time around) and get to the good stuff faster. They mentioned Yuta's former relationship, which was my favorite episode, so I'm taking that as a good sign for the romance aspect this season. And the show does still get a few laughs from me, this time from Kaname's mother and the re-interpretation of the Greek myths. I wonder if this season can go one episode without Shun in drag. We'll see. And the cats! I still love them. Overall in seems like nothing has changed in Kimi to Boku land (even the things that I would like to see tweaked), but I'm still exicted to see where the new season will go. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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You & Me Second Season It does feel kinda pointless to do a first impression for this show when it’s obvious that someone’s gonna blog it. But at any rate, my favourite slice-of-life show returns for a second season. You know how it’s popular to have cute girls doing cute things? Kimi to Boku is [...]
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You & Me Second Season It does feel kinda pointless to do a first impression for this show when it’s obvious that someone’s gonna blog it. But at any rate, my favourite slice-of-life show returns for a second season. You know how it’s popular to have cute girls doing cute things? Kimi to Boku is [...]
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