Epi on November 7, 2009 · in Kimi ni Todoke

Summary:

It’s midterms time and everyone is stressed about exams, but Sawako is extra stressed as she ponders what to do now that she is alone yet again. Keeping her thoughts to herself, Sawako spends her entire exam time crying and thinking about what might have been with her new friends as now that she has found real companions, she realizes that she cannot give it up and return back to her old days, which makes her even more sad.

As she walks home by herself after the test, she is confronted by Kazehaya who wants to know why Sawako’s been avoiding him. At first Sawako puts on a brave face and tells Kazehaya not to talk to her, but she quickly breaks down and the tears start streaming out. She explains to him about not wanting to make him lose his popularity and thus why she was avoiding him. Kazehaya responds by saying that no one is making him talk to Sawako, and that it’s his own will, and that he’s there for her.

After a long talk and some canned coffee, Sawako feels much better and is astonished at how fast Kazehaya was able to make her feel better. He explains to her that if Yoshida and Yano were avoiding her to keep her popular she would feel pretty crappy too. Sawako realizes the errors of her ways, and with Kazehaya’s urging she vows to talk to the two girls to clear things up and let them know that she really does want to be their friend.

Meanwhile Yoshida is at school and bumps into Pin. After blaming Pin for taking her away so that she never overheard what followed after Sawako told her middle school friend that her and Yano were not her friends, Pin responds that she shouldn’t blame others for her own problems. Yoshida then goes to the library and realizes that Sawako has read all the ghost story books in the school library, and is astonished at how hard Sawako tries in everything even though Yoshida had previously just made a joke about Sawako needing to learn more ghost stories.

We switch over to Yano who’s sitting outside her front steps at home looking miserable. There, a passing jogging Ryu (didn’t know he had so much energy in him!) talks to her. Seems like he’s been consoling her since they were little kids. This time he asks her if she really does know what Sawako is thinking or if she jumped the gun, and he convinced Yano that perhaps she needs to talk to Sawako more before running off.

That evening Yano and Yoshida meet up and decide that they will try and clear things up with Sawako for real because they realize how much they do care about her.

The next day, while stressing about how she would talk to Yano and Yoshida, Sawako is thinking in the toilet when she overhears some girls talk about the rumours about her. She busts out of the toilet to tell the girls that it’s all a misunderstanding, but it seems that she has bumped into the wrong group as the girls obviously don’t care. The girls confront Sawako as the episode ends.

Reaction:

I felt like this was a super short episode as if nothing much happened, and really not that much did. It was nice to see everyone come to their senses though. I guess even in Shojo manga, it’s acknowledged that girls are pretty emotional and perhaps not so rational while guys (Ryu, Kazehaya) are much more so. There WAS a lot of crying in this episode though, and for a second I thought I was watching Gundam (which ironically is a shonen thing which likes guys who cry a lot and strong women).

When Sawako was crying during her test, I found myself pretty caught up in it all. Not for the normal reasons of feeling bad for her, but I suddenly had this flashback to Love Hina where Keitaro is daydreaming during his entire entrance exam, ends up falling asleep and failing it all. I really hoped that Sawako wouldn’t ruin her test with her crying buckets of tears the entire time.

This episode did have some really touching moments. The first moment occurs when Kazehaya confronts Sawako after the exams and she starts crying, he grabs her hand ever so gently. I honestly thought of all the tension that one feels back in high school when you’re about to kiss a girl but the timing just isn’t right… it had that type of tension in it, and I felt it was really well done. As much as it was a moment for Sawako to vent and cry and release all of her feelings all at once, I felt that on the flip side Kazehaya was trying really hard to stop himself from kissing her. The other touching moment is when Yoshida is at the library and finds all of Sawako’s books. It could easily have been a scene of someone finding out the ‘truth’ after someone died as it had that much of an impact.

I’m looking forward to seeing how everything is resolved next episode. It seems like the girls in the washroom were just about to laugh at the fact that it was them that made up the rumours or it was that other girl who liked Kazahaya a few episodes back who made up the rumours, but Sawako was too quick to interrupt them. Perhaps things will be more clear next week. I can’t wait.