Summary:
Hiroyuki thinks things are going well because he’s walked home with Nao a few times, but what he doesn’t realize is that he’s barely a footnote in this episode. Nao’s always admired a painting by Renjou Yukito, that hangs on the wall in the art room, and one day she comes face to face with the handsome Kaitei High School student himself. Yukito is visiting his old middle school to remember his happiest days, and he agrees to help Nao out with her painting. Cue the hero-worshipping scenes, complete with a stunned Hiroyuki spying on the happy painters.
Unfortunately for Nao, Yukito wants to travel the globe and paint poor people after his graduation. Because Japan doesn’t have any poor people, Yukito will probably never return. When graduation day comes, Nao waits for Yukito for 2 hours before noticing the letter he left. Yukito couldn’t bear to say goodbye to Nao, but he thanks her for having such faith in him. Everyone else thought his globe-trotting plan was really stupid, but Nao’s encouragement meant a lot to him. In return, Yukito went ahead and painted Nao into the picture in like 10 minutes, which makes Nao look that much slower. Nao can only sob (alone) on the rooftop as Yukito’s plane passes overhead.
Reaction:
Ok, so if Nao sees Yukito every day, that means he touched up her painting and added Nao to the painting in the course of a single school day. It’s no wonder Nao never finished the painting; that kinda stuff is really intimidating. It’s one thing when you’ve got Yukito just touching up your shadows, but suddenly he paints in a main foci of the scene. How is Nao supposed to compete with that? Speaking of which, I wonder if Hiroyuki is going to be able to move in for the rebound now. He really hasn’t done much to get Nao to notice him, but I did admire his ability to not gloat aloud when he heard that Yukito would never return to Japan.
At first I was somewhat bored with Nao’s story, but the second half of it was very touching. Nao’s love was different from everyone else’s, and I liked the way it played out. I think the juxtaposition of the unfinished relationship and the unfinished painting was especially nice, and yet both were beautiful memories for Nao just the same. It’s interesting that Mamoru mentions in this episode that “it is better to be dumped clearly.” I also appreciated Kei laying the massive guilt trip on Ayumi and Koyoi, and it was good to see that Kei ended up giving the plastic kappa to Etsu anyway.
Related posts:
12 Comments
As you said, the whole episode was touching. And inspiring. I already feel the growing desire to dig up all my painting accessories and remember how to create masterpieces.
Two things: Yukito could have worked the whole night, because (as i think) he fell in love, and that’s also why that painting is so priceless for Nao – of course she won’t change it in any way! Second: deciding over your whole lifetime so easily is dumb. Especially if he really loved Nao he could change his mind.
I hate farewells.
Since Nao was always the one to lock up, I don’t think Yukito could have taken the painting home with him (unless he broke into the school). Also, note that he totally touched up the highlights (See the grass in the foreground) in addition to painting Nao in. What a show off!
/cynical
. I don’t think Yukito loved Nao romantically, though.
I bet he will be back in Japan after one month
I think it was love from the first sight. It seemed so…
But Nao isn’t the whole time in that room, there are also other club members. He could have painted in the morning while she had classes.
Yeah, way to make Nao feel even more inadequate in the very end, Yukito.
Man, this show does everything right. The drama and the final scenes were really touching. The last couple episodes have jumped it up in my book from something pretty amusing to something pretty special. If they don’t wrap up all the loose ties by the end of the show, I hope there’s a 2nd season.
As much as I liked this episode, at the same time, the ending felt too k-drama-esque. I mean WTF? The dude isn’t going off to war to die, he’s gonna have a cell phone, he’s gonna have email. It doesn’t have to make the final scene any less poignant. But the goodbye felt unnecessarily “final.”
Oh and in other news Sogabe is screwed.
Well, since Yukito is specifically going to poor countries, maybe they don’t have cell phone towers. That or Nao is getting too close, and Yukito doesn’t want any baby mama drama.
If by “interesting” you mean “highly frustrating,” then sure. You’ve known her most of your life! Don’t you think you have some sort of advantage over the Lollipop Kid? But really, of Misaki’s suitors it’s the elder Besshou that is really the wuss. Maybe he really stands no chance but he seems to be a real giver-upper.
That said, I like seeing him go through the traditional “nice guy’s dilemma” of talking a female friend through her relationship issues while secretly pining for her. That’s genuine stuff.
They deserved it, that was really mean. If I was Mamoru I’d be pretty pissed, on top of being depressed — he just realized this girl was into him, and then immediately found out she’s willing to stoop to sabotage and subterfuge to get at him. I don’t think that bodes well for Ayumi.
Haha, damn females and their early growth spurts! I think Yoshihiko’s problem is he doesn’t have experience fighting for love, because Koyoi gives it up too easily
.
Also, I really want to see if Mamoru will end up with Ayumi. I don’t think he should, but she is really boxing out for the rebound. He wants to be wanted, right?
I like how you mentioned the unfinished painting and Mamoru’s quote and how it fit perfectly with the plot and tone of the episode. I was a fan of the Manga, but I never thought this show would actually pull off things like that. This show isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s actually turned out to be a respectable show and it could keep getting better.
Gah, did my comment get eaten? Having some trouble with the new version of BB now. orz
I um… messed up the database and had to restore to a little before you left your comment
.
Ah I see. Fiddling with the database always fills me with fear.
Anyhow, brief repeat of said comment: Nao will now spend the rest of the series building up her mad brush skillz so that she can put Renjou-senpai next to her in the painting and show him she IS BOSS.
P.S. BB .27 had some kind of error in the core but it’s been fixed in .28 – real fast!
2 Trackbacks
[...] ‘most beautiful and poignant of the bunch’ of high school rom-com stories. But with my /cynical switch constantly being auto-flipped throughout the episode, whenever Worthy Worthy Man opened his [...]
[...] the use of metaphor — painting as a metaphor to Chikura and Renjou’s relationship, the “juxtaposition of the unfinished relationship and the unfinished painting“, in the words of [...]