Kabitzin on February 26, 2010 · in Kimi ni Todoke

Summary:

Chizuru is caught in an interesting dilemma as she wants to give Ryu his present (with a smile), and she wants to see Tohru again, but she knows she should wait until Tohru leaves before stopping by.  When she gets there, she finds Ryu has been waiting for her, and he coldly gives her Tohru’s message and mentions that she sure took her sweet time.  This supremely pisses Chizuru off, since she purposely waited until Tohru left, but Ryu combos off the launcher by honestly telling Chizuru that he is glad that things went down like they did, since now she can give up on Tohru.  Naturally, this doesn’t go over well, and Chizuru throws her gift in Ryu’s face, tells him she hates him, and stomps off.

Ayane and Sawako feel terrible that they can’t help Chizuru feel better, but Shota says that their concern is sufficient to lift Chizuru’s spirits.  Meanwhile, Chizuru ignores Ryu all day, but he intercepts her in the stairway after her bread-o-rama.  Ryu tactlessly agrees that Chizuru’s infatuation was hopeless from the beginning, and as Chizuru storms off again, Ayane and Sawako are there to comfort her.  Seeing Sawako’s tears gets Chizuru to stop pretending nothing’s wrong, and Chizuru finally engages in two of the three things girls love to do after being dumped: binge eating and complaining about guys.

Reaction:

The first third of this episode was sooooo boring, as we were forced to watch Ayane and Sawako mope around.  I’ve been there trying to comfort a forlorn friend, and it sucks; obviously watching someone else do it is not entertaining.  However, Chizuru’s plight was much more interesting.  I liked how she finally let loose about how terribly awkward the situation was, and how hard she tried to do the right thing.  I even felt bad for Chizuru this episode.  All this time she seemed like your typical genki-baka but this episode really deepened her character a lot.

Ryu continues to employ a strange strategy for winning Chizuru over.  Blunt honesty is his strength and Chizuru was never one for subtlety, but perhaps he could have held his tongue in a few cases.  Still, the things he said were all things Chizuru needed to hear, and perhaps in time she can piece together what Ryu was implying when he said he was happy that Chizuru’s one-sided romance was destroyed.  Hopefully the two of them can reconcile, although having Chizuru coming over to Ryu’s place to apologize only to find him making out with some hot, curvy chick in a mini-skirt would be an interesting/awkward development also.