It's the best day of the year, girl
Summary:
Girl you know I-I-I, girl you know I-I-I / I've been feenin / Wake up in the late night / Been dreamin' about your lovin' girl
Things start out kinda awkward, with neither Sawako nor Shota making eye contact or talking. Fortunately, Sawako’s got Ayane and Chizuru (and Ryu in tow) stalking her life, and Chizuru gives Shota a call to give him a confidence boost. It comes at just the right time as Shota saves Sawako from a nasty spill down the slippery steps, putting him even with Ryu with 1 Sawako save. As the night goes on, Shota grows bolder, especially once he gets his buzz on. Although Shota doesn’t usually like amazake, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to loosen up. After realizing the implication of Sawako’s email address, Shota even gets a “Happy Birthday” to Sawako in time.
Sawako is happy Shota enjoyed amazake for the first time, but he informs her that she’s witnessed several of his “first times.” After all, he recently bought a cell phone strap for a girl for the first time, went on a shrine date for the first time, and wore a stomach band for the first time. Sawako loves hearing about the Shota nobody else knows, and she shares some details of her (extremely boring and lonely) early life. As she starts to tear up, Sawako thinks about how awesome this year has been. Also as Sawako is tearing up, Souichi plots to grope Ayane’s breasts, not realizing that Ayane is just flirting with Souichi to prevent the idiot from cockblocking Shota.
Reaction:
Sip mo-eezy as we sit upon m-y-y-y couch
Man, I totally had Jeremih’s Birthday Sex (CLUB REMIX!) stuck in my head through this whole episode. Anyway, this was a sweet episode, and I’m glad Shota finally stopped being a wuss. It’s a good thing Ayane and Chizuru were providing backup, because Sawako would have gone down in flames if she’d been solo-dating. I always thought Souichi was an annoying loser, but this episode made me kinda hate him. I could totally see him letting his bromance with Shota get in the way of Sawako’s birthday date, and that is unforgivable. And to be thinking he was gonna get to second base with Ayane when he came to the shrine with his parents is just the height of arrogance. Chizuru should have just rolled Souichi into that bonfire when she had the chance.
There were plenty of easy jokes to be made about Shota’s first times and Sawako’s solo hobbies, but I’ll leave that for another time, since it’s Sawako’s birthday episode. I guess the final episode will have some awkwardness and a little bit of doubt, followed by Shota asking Sawako to be a his girlfriend. That would be a fitting end, even if we never get to find out what happens to Ayane’s love life or Ume’s crush on Shota.
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This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1935 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
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Hooray first post!!! Indeed it was a nice episode, and I was rooting for sawako the whole way. I’m usually not for forcibly bringing two people together for a date, but I’m glad ayane and chizuru did this for them. They really do need some help, otherwise this show’s going to have no problem reaching 50 and up.
I”m still wondering about Ryu, wasn’t there ash burning on his jacket. I totally was expecting him, or one the girls to start screaming that his jacket went on fire. Drawing the attention of shota and sawako, thus stopping their date. I’m glad this scenario didn’t happen.
OMG your right!!!
Haven’t heard the term bromance in a while, and Souichi is pretty easy to please/fool. He’s pretty…can’t find the word to describe him, but what in the world is this guy thinking!!! His way of thinking really is to optimistic.
Yeah, clearly Sawako and Shota want to be together, but need a little push. I didn’t understand the ash on Ryu’s jacket either; maybe it was some Japanese cultural thing or some subtle comedy thing.
I thought the sudden disappearance of the ash after they made an attempt to include it in was weird as well.
wheres the sawako cute pic D:
That last Sawako pic is pretty cute.
Joe sucks. Why are they friends with him again?
I agree on both counts, and I chalk it up to Shota being a sucker for pity cases.
Goddamn you Kabitzin, stole my Kawaii Sawako pic of the week again… anyway I made this before your post even went up.
Because an Amakaze Sawako’s cute too!
Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol….
I started laughing so hard when they began talking about “firsts.” It really was a sweet episode, but at that point you know Shota was going to tell Sawako that there was one first in particular that he really wanted to share with her, and then they’d go home and reenact that scene from Risky Business. No, not the train one, the one with the Bob Seger song: Shota loves him some karaoke.
I was glad that things were moving forward for once, even if much of the momentum was due to the efforts of Chizuru and Ayane. And I totally agree on the Souichi roasting proposition, that guy is a menace.
I feel like his parents would have helped with the roasting. Take responsibility!