「守りたい・ごめんね」 (Mamoritai / Gomen ne)
“Want to Protect / Sorry”

Episode at a Glance:
Having won over all her classmates, Akira invites all her new friends back to her place for a goodbye party. Afterward, Yoshikawa informs Akira of a car from Yahiro’s place that stopped in front of the school. Hearing this, Akira asks Yoshikawa to drive Yui to and from school everyday, which draws the unwanted attention of her classmates. After overhearing some others talk about how much the jewels in Akira’s place are probably worth (and how she probably wouldn’t even notice if a few were missing), Yui heads over to Akira’s place and tells her that the daily escorts are a bother and asks her to stop. She also mentions that this is the last time she’ll come by, leaving Akira thinking that she pushed Yui away. Back at the greenhouse, Akira is in shock and Tadashi is worried about her in this state (especially since she doesn’t hit him), so he tries to and succeeds in cheering her up a bit.

Meanwhile, Yui is at a jewelry store trying to assess the value of some jewels, when Yahiro comes by, takes the jewels she stole from Akira, and insinuates that she stole them to get money for her family. After Yahiro tells her not to go near Akira anymore, some guys accidentally knock Yui into oncoming traffic, but Yahiro dives out and saves her from being run over. Akira later pays a visit to Yui’s house, and finds out from her mother that they’re moving because her husband was suddenly fired from his job. Hearing this, she feels Yahiro is responsible and rushes over to his place along with Tadashi. At the Saiga house, Yui is thanking Yahiro for saving him, but he simply says he did it because he doesn’t like seeing accidents happen right in front of him. Yui feels that she should properly apologize to Akira for stealing from her, which reminds Yahiro of how people became friends with him in the past for his money, and how Akira had become a real friend of his.

Akira and Tadashi then arrive, but before Yui can speak, Yahiro stops her and says that he was responsible for getting rid of her, after remembering how he overheard people saying they’re Akira’s friend for her money, and how he swore to protect her from those people even if he has to become the devil himself. (Hellooooo Lelouch Lamperouge! I thought you were playing Kei.) However, Tadashi steps in and tells him to let Yui speak, so she explains that Yahiro saved her and wasn’t involved with her family’s money troubles, and apologizes for stealing the jewels from her. With Yui in tears, Akira tells her that she should’ve told her from the beginning and also apologizes to Yahiro. While the others leave, Yahiro feels he’s done enough for Akira’s sake.

The next day, Akira informs the others members of the S.A class that everything’s fine now that Yui’s father is working for her company. Ryuu and the others have no idea what she’s talking about though, having not been informed. Akira then gives a present to Tadashi, who’s overjoyed, but she soon finds out that Kei and Hikari went out together yesterday and still haven’t returned.

 

Next Episode:
「仁義・上等」 (Jingi / Joutou)
“Moral Code / Superiority”

Impressions:
So yeah, they wanted to make us hate Yahiro’s guts last episode, only to give him a spiffy “I’m only being the bad guy to protect someone I care about” background, which was reminiscent of the Lelouch x Nunnally relationship everyone is familiar with. (The line about doing whatever evil, devious deeds necessary in order to achieve that goal was what gave me instant “Zero” vibes though.) I was already hinted towards this by readers’ comments, so in a way, I guess I saw this coming. With Yahiro now shown in a better light, I guess he’ll stop chasing away all of Akira’s potential friends from now on, even though he’ll undoubtedly still be really protective of her. Being a very Akira, Yahiro, Tadashi centric episode, we got to see Tadashi and Akira get a lot closer, and next time we should see Yahiro meet this supposedly cute girl who I’ve heard about. We’ll also find out what happened between Kei and Hikari last night, the former of which only had like one line this episode.

 

Cast:
– Hanazono Hikari (華園 光) / Gotou Yuuko (後藤 邑子)
– Takishima Kei (滝島 彗) / Fukuyama Jun (福山 潤)
– Toudou Akira (東堂 明) / Nabatame Hitomi (生天目 仁美)
– Karino Tadashi (狩野 宙) / Shimono Hiro (下野 紘)
– Yamamoto Megumi (山本 芽) / Takagaki Ayahi (高垣 彩陽)
– Yamamoto Jun (山本 純) / Yonaga Tsubasa (代永 翼)
– Tsuji Ryuu (辻 竜) / Horie Kazuma (堀江 一眞)
– Saiga Yahiro (雑賀 八尋) / Taniyama Kishou (谷山 紀章)
– Oikawa Yui (及川 唯) / Sayo (小夜) / Shitaya Noriko (下屋 則子)
– Yui’s mother (唯の母親) / Abe Sachie (阿部 幸恵)
– Yoshikawa (吉川) / Matsuo Daisuke (松尾 大亮)
– Class 1 Girl A (1組女子A) / Shindou Kei (真堂 圭)
– Class 1 Girl C (1組女子C) / Takada Hatsumi (高田 初美)

17 Comments

  1. @Flo

    Yeah, she’s just being silly about it all.

    Anyways, the start of Tadashi x Akira is nice, but this is just the start, if you notice much like with Hikari we only see the “love” from Akiras side at this point. Tadashi is just Tadashi, same as always really.

    GP
  2. man i don’t know why not more people watch this its one of my favorites this season. I’m enjoying this a lot more than kanokon even though theyre not even in the same genre really. I’m actually rooting for yahiro and akira to get back or at least clear up their misunderstanding. Somehow tadashi just urks me the wrong way so i cant really like him.

    BrighterThanWhite
  3. @Westlo

    Yeah, well, I don’t hate either, but Yahiro just played it wrong. Tadashi doesn’t try to force anything, he just does his own thing and if Akira likes him as he is then it’s just as well. If things where different and Yahiro told Akira the truth back then so she didn’t hate him then it would’ve been best. But I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

    GP
  4. If I’m not mistaken, the girl in the preview (pink hair) is Sakura. She is not there to be paired up with Yahiro but instead she is
    Show Spoiler ▼

    yuKime
  5. @nanami

    WEll, Tadashi x Akira is much more interesting because it’s moving along faster than Kei x Hikari, so yeah, you just feel better since it’s going somewhere.

    But once the Kei x Hikari stuff kicks in, man, you’ll love it!

    GP
  6. @GP
    Didn’t know Sakura was blonde… I always thought she had pink hair or maybe I’m wrong too. But judging from the preview and the flow they’re going in comparison to the manga, yup it’s about time they did show Sakura~ ^^

    @Sarah
    Don’t worry because Yahiro won’t be all alone. ^^
    Show Spoiler ▼

    yuKime

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