First Impressions: Futakoi Alternative – 10

Short Summary: (Bear with me on this one, I’m leaving out a lot of details I didn’t catch) Rentarou and Souju are at the bathhouse when a Mercedes pulls up. Rentarou “encounters” the man from the car (this was hilarious) who turns out to be from the same company as Mitsugi Kimihiko. He offers Rentarou a large sum of money but Rentarou turns it down. Rentarou and Souju visit the rubble which used to be their home. At the Sakurazuki home, Kira and Yura are seen leaving, bags packed, with an angry air about them. Back in the city, Rentarou’s new job is to hand out flyers dressed in a bear costume. He manages to go berserk on a couple that tosses his flyer. Thinking about something Souju said earlier when they were looking at the rubble, Rentarou hears the voice of an old friend, the squid. The squid starts beating him up pretty badly until the police arrive. When Rentarou returns home, he is greeted with congratulations by his neighbors. He gets rather drunk, but sobers up real fast when someone mentions Souju. He heads out to search for her, narrowly missing her each time. After crashing his bike, he finally finds her by the riverbank. That night, the squid strikes, wreaking havoc. Rentarou heads towards him for a confrontation.
The title of this episode was rather wierd, but it made sense (somewhat) after watching it. Rentarou has quite a bit to deal with now, from protecting Souju to getting Sara back to beating the squid. I get the feeling that Rentarou has really been chasing Sara and Souju the entire series. He’s always seems to be looking for them and this episode is no different. The Kira and Yura bit was interesting, I want to see how that fits into everything. Maybe Lulu and Lala will get some action again in next week’s episode since they are seen again towards the end. Speaking of which, the ending of this episode was different (yet again). This time, we get scenes of Rentarou’s father defeating the squid in the past (no, not in claymation, though that would be awesome) while a piano version of Bokura no Jikan plays in the background. Then the scenes change to the final three caps I took from last week (Souju in the shower crying, Sara crying, Rentarou on the bed), and efuonius comes on and sings the last few words to the song. Stuff like that really makes me appreciate the production value of a series. That being said, the animation quality when the squid beat up Rentarou was rather poor, but maybe it was meant to be drawn that way (or maybe it was just a crappily drawn scene).