Sawako is nervous as she calls me up for a date (sorry Shin/J159)

Summary:

This zoom-in thing was awesomely done (BTW that's Sawako cookin' me dinner)

It’s Saturday night and Sawako is whipping up a batch of her famous curry for her family. Although cooking, Sawako’s in her own little world (flowers around her head and all) as she thinks about all the new positive developments in her life. While they were not able to go to ramen because it was closed last time, Sawako, Yoshida and Yano did manage to go to a cafe which Sawako treasured as an important memory.

Suddenly the phone rings, and on the other end is Yoshida as Sawako’s mom picks up. The fact that a friend… ANY FRIEND would actually call up Sawako is a shock to her entire family but none more than Sawako as the camera pans into her astonished face. Yoshida asks Sawako if she wants to go for ramen that night to make up for last time, and as she gladly accepts.

MMMMM! We have decent ramen here, but it just doesn't compare... makes me want to go back to Japan to eat more ramen!

They head to Yoshida’s favorite ramen place, which is owned by Ryu’s family. After an amazing meal, Yoshida invites everyone upstairs as Sawako is astonished that Ryu would let that happen. They settle into a bedroom and as the girls chat, Sawako hears many things. First of all the fact that Yano has a boyfriend in college is a bit of a shock, secondly that they are in fact in Ryu’s room, and finally that Ryu and Yoshida are so close, Ryu calls them ‘brothers’ – a fact that Yoshida doesn’t even bother disputing but in fact starts arguing at who the elder brother is.

As Ryu comes upstairs, they decide to call up Kazehaya to join them. Everyone pressures Sawako to make the call as she quite obviously betrays her nervousness at calling him and Yano realizes that she may have feelings for Kazehaya but that Sawako is probably too naive to realize herself.

While waiting for Kazehaya to show up, they rummage through some old yearbooks and find out that in fact Yoshida, Ryu and Kazehaya have been classmates for years. Infatuated with the loli-Kazehaya from middle school, Sawako starts getting all dreamy thinking about it. We also learn that Kazehaya in fact is quite good at baseball and that Pin was quite annoyed when he decided not to play in high school. Before they close the yearbook, Sawako notices the (Aya Hirano) girl in it as well. Her name is actually Kurumi according to Yoshida, but she avoids talking about her though, hinting that she may know something more.

Did she just call her Sawako?! OMG! *girly scream/giggle*

As Kazehaya arrives, there are some further awkward moments as Yano decides to exploit Kazehaya and Sawako’s mutual affection for some fun. Pin interjects (he was having ramen downstairs) and Sawako soon learns that in fact Kazehaya’s dad was Pin’s baseball coach as a kid and that they are quite close.

Really awesome scene

As the evening draws to a close, Kazehaya makes up an excuse to walk with Sawako back home and they have a dreamy talk under the stars. Meanwhile Ryu tells Yoshida that she didn’t have to go so far out of her way to let him know that the three of them had made up as Yoshida blushes.

So the other night I stayed up till 3:30 AM to watch the Leonids at the peak... while nowhere near the '500/hour' predicted, I did see 7 in half an hour including one super bright one that left a trail that hung in the sky for 5 seconds or so...

The episode ends with Sawako looking dreamily at Kazehaya and wondering what more she will learn of him.

This week’s Kawaii-Sawako pic-of-the-week:

I like how her best expressions are when she's talking to/thinking of Kazehaya

Reaction:

It was really nice to see Sawako finally hang out with her friends. As we all know, it’s one thing to be ’school friends’ and another thing to be actual friends. Over the years, I’ve had many really good ’school friends’ which I subsequently never talked to or saw again after that year of class was over. Of course having high school friends in no way guarantees that you’ll even talk to these people when you graduate at least it’s a step up.

I really like how although at first we thought it was a bit of a coincidence that this group of people congregated around Sawako, in actuality they were all friends already. While we knew about Yoshida & Ryu and Kazehaya & Pin, it was kind of neat to see everything tie in together. Of course in real life, there is always a danger of being the newly admitted member of a group of established friends. It’s pretty easy for that same group to quickly dump you as a friend. Simply put, this group existed before you, and while you are allowed admission, they can function well without you. That said, I hope Sawako doesn’t meet this fate.

Now that we finally have a name for Aya Hirano’s character – Kurumi – and the fact that Yoshida knows something about her it opens up more questions. Does Yoshida know that Kurumi has a crush on Kazehaya? Perhaps Yoshida knows that Kurumi ruthlessly crushes all those who may be competition? We will have to wait to see.

Finally a few random thoughts. Watching this episode really made me think back to my couple of times in Japan in the last few years. Going to the conbini at night, walking alone under on a road overlooking the city, having awesome ramen, all of these things made me really want to go back to Japan. I remember my first time there (as an adult anyway), my very first night I walked into some random ramen shop and randomly ordered something from the menu since I couldn’t read Japanese. The chef looked at me like ‘are you sure you want this?’ and said something in Japanese (I had no idea what he said) and I nodded. The ramen was delicious. Anyway… just rambling on.

The other random thought is yet more fanboy gushing at the production values of this show. The part where we zoom into Sawako’s face as she realizes that a friend has called her was really well done. I could see how most other studios would not have bothered but Production IG really did go all the way with that. I also really like how there’s subtle differences in how characters look, one major one being how Sawako looks every time Kazehaya’s around.

One little nitpick though. I really wish this show had the awesome sound production that True Tears had. I could only imagine how much better the last scene (where Kazehaya and Sawako walk at night) would have been if we could have heard the cicadas chirping, the sounds of the night wind and the distant rumblings of the city beyond.

Next episode:

Sawako with braids?!?! OMGWTFBBQ

Related posts:

1. Kimi Ni Todoke 04
2. Kimi ni Todoke 08
3. Kimi ni Todoke 06