Summary:

After having a dream of the place she wants to go, Kobato heads to the nursery to help Sayaka clean and pack up. Sayaka reassures her that she’s fine with all this and has no regrets because she made the decision on her own. Kiyokazu, on the other hand, doesn’t show up to help and heads instead to his various jobs. When Kobato tries to talk to him that night, he refuses to go to the nursery and tells her to throw all of his stuff away. However, the next day, Kobato sees Kiyokazu leaving the nursery after having spent a moment in front of the piano, causing her to worry about him. When the day comes for the nursery to be torn down, Kiyokazu still doesn’t go. Kobato and Sayaka do go to see the nursery’s final moments though, as do some of their former students.

Afterward, Sayaka asks Kobato to help support Kiyokazu because she feels that he had been died down by the nursery. She wants Kobato to tell him to do what he wants for his own sake and to be by his side. On the way home, Kobato runs into Chise and Chiho and learns that Kiyokazu was in an accident. Fortunately he only hurt his arm, and he’s met on the way out of the hospital by Doumoto and Kobato. Doumoto doesn’t accompany them home, giving Kobato the chance to try to talk to Kiyokazu, but he doesn’t want her feeling sorry for him and calls her a nuisance. He then walks off on his own, leaving Kobato feeling a pain in her chest. Her attention, however, is soon turned to a flying rabbit Ushagi which delivers her a flower. Ioryogi explains that it means that she has only until the next full moon to collect the rest of the konpeitou that she needs, and he tries to beg Ushagi for more time, but it refuses.

Preview

For once, I actually have no major complaints about an episode of Kobato. It got off to a great start with the dream sequence that featured a wonderful piano version of Kobato’s song, and this picture seemed to suggest something along the lines of young Kobato being the daughter of a previous incarnation of Kiyokazu. Incidentally, I have a new appreciation for the OST after finally having gotten a chance to sit down and listen to it recently. There’s more good songs on there than I realized.

Anyway, the bulk of the episode then did a good job showing Kiyokazu’s state of mind and building up how Kobato and his relationship was affected by the nursery’s closing. I thought they might try to pull something like having Kiyokazu be in a coma until Kobato made the decision to sacrifice her wish for him, but instead he was fine and just more pissed off than usual, which served to highlight Kobato’s growing feelings for him. They also put in some hints about how what happened in the past and how Ioryogi met Kobato (showing her for the first time without her hat), and it was nice to see him show how much he cares about Kobato at the end. The ultimatum sets us up for the final two episodes, both of which will air next week, and hopefully they’ll tell us clearly where Kobato wants to go or what she wants to do. That and her identity are probably tied in to how she hasn’t taken off her hat in the real world, and based on the preview it looks like she finally will.

21 Comments

  1. The hat will come off!!
    Mind, when she didn’t have a hat in that sequence, I thought “ohh… there’s nothing special about her then…” but to have an encounter with a creature from the other world is obviously a cause for something special. XD

    I’m happy with this episode, but I like Fujimoto better in the manga. He’s more considerate there.

    Satoida
  2. Many shows start strong and peter out at the end. Others tell you nothing all thru the series and then shove all the story into last couple of episodes.

    Once in a while you get a show like Kobato. Most of the episodes have been uneven. None of them were really terrible and yet none of them were really great. Just an average anime. Since last week this show has really picked up steam and the last 2 also look to be great. I feel sorry for those that dropped this series earlier because they are missing out on some great anime right now.

    Splash
  3. @ Splash

    “Many shows start strong and peter out at the end. Others tell you nothing all thru the series and then shove all the story into last couple of episodes”

    yes, and that often in most anime , but to an anime that had high expectations (common!, its clamp so expectations needs 2 be high) it will only be called a mediocore anime which is bad considering its expectations…

    I was on the verge of dropping this anime. good thing i was able to persevere. the recent episodes are excellent and I applaud the makers for that, but the fact that we had to wait for more than 14 or 15+ episodes just too see good episodes is pretty sad -_-

    Alec
  4. Arg I missed the Toya cameo D:
    I don’t think it’ll be a halo even if she does turn out to be an angel – neither Kohaku nor any of the other angels have one. Nekomimi would be awesome though.

    Seibee
  5. Hey, that’s Seki Tomokazu back as Touya in a cameo. No wonder it looks and sounds like him, lol. (For extra trivia, the Touya in Tsubasa Chronicles is voiced by Miki Shinichiro, who did Okiura in this series. So we’re more or less seeing “original Touya” once again. )

    Funny how in Ioryogi’s flashback, Kobato (without a hat) doesn’t seem to have anything special on her head, which adds to the mystery as to what she’s having under her hat.

    I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Ioryogi completely resembles Kurogane. They do share the same voice, after all. XD

    Ioryogi (or Iorogi) and his mates seems to be involved in a battle with the gods, and either Kobato or her loved one, or both, were killed in the melee. Perhaps Kobato’s wish was just to turn back the clock or something like that, and Ioryogi decides to help her in order to atone for his own sin of defying the gods. (Manga readers, don’t mind my talking crap if all this turns out to be wrong. )

    Kinny Riddle
  6. He’s so mean to her! Kobato deserves better. In the whole series he’s being polite to her like what ? Two times. Wonder why she was under water before being “born” She must have fins on her head and become a dolphin. 😛

    One more week for the true….

    Island Esper
  7. THAT HAT IS A SEAL!!!!
    *shrugs* Or so it seems after watching this episode. It’s likely maybe to release whatever special powers/angelic stuff.

    I too thought that Kiyokazu was going to be in a coma and it was going to influence changing her wish or something, when Kiyokazu kept on nearly getting into an accident and finally did I screamed, “I KNEW IT!” snapping my fingers LOLZ.

    Eva
  8. Somehow, my expectations are low for the ending of the series. I’m reading the manga and somehow, since it already seems to have gone in a different direction just slightly, I get the feeling it won’t be a great ending, just sappy happy…

    Sissy
  9. finally we will see what’s under the hat! I wonder if it will the same thing when Kobato takes it off or not in the future chapters of the manga. Too bad they didn’t add ioryogi past stuff info from ch20, it could had probably make it more interesting that it is already.

    mono
  10. Well, in the last episode, Kobato says that she can’t eat, which, if Wish readers remember, is something that the angels did. They only drank milk, if I remember correctly. And we actually haven’t seen Kobato eat during the whole series. And I agree with the idea that the hat is actually a seal on her ‘true’ form (yeah…). I’m also leaning toward the angel ending because of the kitten episode and the first episode of the series.

    In the kitten episode, Kobato gives the kitten milk, but when the twins tell her that Milk can’t survive on just eating milk, she looks confused. And in the first episode, the fact that her singing is so great that Ioryogi compares her to Kohaku (our lovely angel who is important in Heaven for helping give birth to new angels by SINGING), probably has some significance.

    (Purely speculation of course. I just think she’s one overall, in the show and manga.)

    But I can’t wait till the last 2 episodes…how will it all end….

    queenie

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