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Quickie Summary:
Honoka, who knows that Yamato likes Suzuka, can’t help but wonder what their relationship is. She finds it hard to spend time with him because different people keep coming between them. After receiving some water park tickets, she tries to ask him to go (when he wanted to use his pair of tickets to ask Suzuka), but Miki interrupts and gathers an entire group, including Suzuka. The water park is as frustrating for Yamato as it is for Honoka, as neither can get close to the one they like. As they are going home in the evening, Yamato manages to get a moment alone with her watching the fireworks together. Days later, Honoka asks Suzuka to walk home together. She confesses that she really like Yamato, and asks Suzuka whether or not she likes him. Yamato walks by just as Suzuka proclaims that she doesn’t particularly like Yamato. Seeing him, Honoka runs off embarrassed. Yamato just takes Suzuka’s comment in stride, saying that he understands that she doesn’t like him.
This would have been a decent episode, even pretty good at the end, if not for the fact that they brought on the second-rate animation team. That alone ruined it for me. This episode suffered from poor character drawings and way too many distance shots. You’d think that for the fanservicey water park part, complete with the female characters in bikinis, they’d have good animation, but no, that is sadly not the case. There’s improvement by the last scene (thankfully), but not nearly enough to make up for it. I did like their use of music there as it brought more feeling out of Honoka and Suzuka’s words.
Oh and what the heck is with the preview? Next episode covers one of the most important (and one of my favorite) chapters, but the preview just goes and spoils it. Well, not quite, but it’s pretty damn clear what’s going on. And the particular frames they show don’t even happen that way in the manga, unless they’re playing the aftermath in reverse(which is what I suspect they are doing). If this makes no sense, don’t worry about it; it’ll all become clear once you see episode 13.
Closing Thought: Sorry for all the ranting, I am just very upset with this episode. Next ep better be where all the budget is going…
I’m not quite as critical as Omni here. I’d say this would have been a great episode, even awesome at the end, if it wasn’t for the second-rate animation team. Alot of wasted potential here. And it really hurt the ep. Nevertheless, they hit the key scene at the end very well, so it’s a miss-and-hit in my opinion.
Except for the cheap little-animation style they messed up alot of details. For example the mangaka is very consistent and natural with his art – Miki volupterous, Honoka quite stacked but balanced, Suzuka lean. In the anime they would look virtually alike, almost reversed in the order. Simply sloppy work.
Finally, the preview is totally messed up this time. If you want my advice, skip it. It’s extremely spoilerish and at the same time totally misleading. Very idiotic.
Finally!!! Honoka had missed so many chances up to now (the biggest one after Yamato stopped attending the training, when even Miki failed to keep things in balance) – but she’s working hard and never ceases to amaze me, now facing Suzuka like this. I’ve waited 11 long episodes for her to grow beyond the Shinobu level… but she didn’t play the jan-ken-pon trick of Love Hina Again episode 3, she’s going all the way!
In a way this was even a clever choice, as Suzuka would exactly shy away like this if she weren’t completely sure about her feelings (the “losing face” issue of the Japanese) and getting her hand forced without having time to think about it: Honoka managed to put Suzuka into the defense, and that’s where Suzuka belongs at this stage. (I don’t know the manga, I’m just guessing, but my bet is on Yamato and Suzuka in the end.) I actually wonder if Honoka was fully aware of this, as we’ve already seen how she can act selfishly when she tried to discourage Yamato about joining the track&field club…
One major downside of the recent episodes has been that Yamato had too much of sheer luck. Observing Suzuka and Soichi talking about Suzuka’s Yokohama trip, then meeting Suzuka’s o-nee-san in the nick of time (Yamato would be completely helpless without her), then arriving at the competition right when Arima bullies Suzuka (with Hattori’s help even), and now overhearing the two girls about the most interesting topic. It’s all too easy for him – they’re forcing the development at this stage. What’s the probability of all four events actually happening?
But other than that, I’m very happy with how the series is developing so far (fortunately I am less critical about Art and Animation as long as the story and the characters work). The two crucial episodes 6 and 9 were done excellently, and all the present characters (which means the triangle plus Hattori and Miki; Kobayakawa is currently in use as the weekly annoyance but even he might get a chance to develop in forthcoming episodes) are very interesting (I just wonder whether Souichi should get himself involved a bit more, as his two top performers show serious problems – maybe he talks with Miki about the issue now and then?).
The one character I’m least enthusiastic about is Suzuka, just because we know so little about what she’s thinking. I can understand and feel with Yamato and Honoka, but Suzuka herself is more of a guessing game (to the audience as well as to Yamato)… which will make the second pass through the series quite rewarding but poses a problem during the first pass.
I can well understand your rants about the previews. But actually they only show _what_ will happen and not _how_ (which actually is the interesting part)… I’ve seen far worse previews in KOR, for example.
Yah the animation was pretty second-rate. Especially when they were all in their bikinis. You notice that there boobs are lop-sided and mis-shaped..But whatever. I hope episode 13 is good. I like the background music too. Makes me want to go out and by it when they ship it over here to Canada.