Summary:
Even though it’s already May, Hachi can still feel the cold wind; she had thought Tokyo would be warmer. She’s waiting with Nana and Shin outside the restaurant where Shouji works. Shin gets a call from one of his lady customers, so he tells the girls that he has to leave on urgent business. Nana says that he can do what he wants as long as he doesn’t soil the band’s name. Hachi takes a much more motherly approach, trying to counsel him about going home. She does warn him that painful experiences will come from not taking women seriously. After Shin goes off, Nana also starts to leave, but Hachi stops her. Nana sees no point in Hachi waiting if Shouji is going to come by later anyway. Hachi explains that she wants Shouji to think that she’s gone home so that he can find her still waiting for him. Nana declares that she hates women who are so calculating, but says that she’ll keep Hachi company if Hachi is waiting because she simply loves Shouji.
Sitting on the curb, Hachi sneezes from the cold, so Nana takes off her jacket and gives it to her. In return, Hachi gives Nana her scarf. Listening to Nana’s humming, Hachi admires how Nana’s eyes have no impurity and thinks that Nana’s more suited for a white snow scene than a city where you can’t see the stars. Hachi feels that she is indeed calculative and impure, but she’s pretending to be pure so that Nana wouldn’t hate her. Inside the restaurant, the shift is finally ending, so both Shouji and Sachiko are getting off work. Sachiko does not to want to see Shouji, even as he tells her that he’s breaking up with his girlfriend. She continues running outside, but Shouji catches her and hugs her, in full view of Hachi and Nana. Hachi is shocked at the name Sachiko and even more shocked at what she just saw.
When Nana asks Shouji what he’s doing and who the girl is, Shouji claims that she’s his girlfriend. Things start clicking in Hachi’s mind – how Shouji wanted to talk and how Sachiko had apologized to her – but she still can’t believe it. Nana goes over to punch Shouji, but Sachiko holds her back. Sachiko offers herself up to be hit instead because she feels responsible for falling in love with Shouji. She doesn’t want to run or hide anymore, so she doesn’t care if Nana hits her. Since Shouji is also protecting Sachiko, Nana turns to Hachi who has been silent this entire time. Nana tells Hachi to fight for Shouji and to get him back, but Hachi finally says that she doesn’t need him – she doesn’t want to see his face anymore. As Nana drags her home, Hachi feels that she’s lost. That night, Nana sleeps together with Hachi in Hachi’s bed.
The next day, Hachi stays in bed, listening to her Trapnest CD, and repeatedly dreams about Shouji. She thinks she wakes up to Ren of Trapnest ringing her doorbell, but it turns out to be another dream. Her real doorbell then rings and the person responsible is Junko, who came because she learned about the situation from Shouji. Junko reveals that Shouji is worried about Hachi, but Hachi doesn’t want Shouji to worry about her when he doesn’t even come himself. Junko then says that it’s painful for Shouji too, which causes Hachi to accuse her of supporting Shouji. Junko has to explain that Shouji is just as important a friend as Hachi is. She expresses her concern over how Hachi always behaves like the victim and says that Hachi was always thinking of herself and not Shouji. Junko thinks that love is also about people’s relations with each other; if you can’t think about the other party, the relationship won’t go well.
Nana returns home that night to find Hachi sitting lifelessly at the table. Having taken some of Junko’s words to heart, Hachi remembers that she hasn’t made dinner and feels guilty for only thinking about herself. Fortunately, Nana brought back bentos along with a letter to Hachi from her mother. Inside the envelope, Hachi finds the front row tickets for the upcoming Trapnest concert that she had ordered earlier. In retrospect, Hachi felt like she was abandoned by luck every day back then, and to that extent, she didn’t have luck in lotteries. That’s why Hachi feels that those tickets were prepared by God for Nana’s sake.

That was quite artistically well done. I loved how everything was in slow-motion when Nana was about to punch Shouji, but then it all speeded up right after Sachiko stopped her. It made you feel like you were in Hachi’s shoes, watching as everything unfolded before her eyes. The animation quality was pretty good this week too, but once again I got a high resolution raw, so that probably had a big impact. Oh, and the part with Nana on the toilet was hilarious, something I completely missed when I read the manga.
This episode reinforced two things for me: Junko is right about Hachi always being a victim and Nana acts like a man in front of Hachi. If you think about it, Hachi’s character is more often than not crying or whining because of something. Thinking about it that way isn’t very flattering to her character though. In contrast, Nana here was about to clobber Shouji and get in a fist fight, something that’s not very ladylike, but it fits her character perfectly.
We’ve gone through a lot about Hachi and Shouji in the past few episodes, and now the focus will be shifting a bit to Nana. Next episode should have Misato-chan 🙂

20 Comments

  1. Shouji’s not a jerk. If you think about it, he’s just confused! Okay maybe he was a jerk for proclaiming Sachiko as his gf in front of the girls. But really, being in Shouji’s shoes, if I were neglected by my girlfriend all the time because she wanted to go home and hang out with her new friend Nana, then I myself would wonder if there’s even a relationship anymore. Not to mention my girlfriend misses my text messages and my calls – that is if I were in his shoes.

    I don’t know about some of the female visitors here, but haven’t you had a time when your ex (or current) bf was such an a-hole, ignoring and neglecting you so he can go off with his friends, that it was just better to run off to a friend/stranger and talk to them about your day?

    Pooky
  2. Ah AH! I knew this was going to get to me just like the manga did. I must like pain because I still watched the episode 🙁 . Well, at least one painful event is out of the way. More to come!

    golthin
  3. It still would have been better if he had broken up with her, rather than cheat on her and humiliate her. Regardless of who is to blame, if he had loved her at some point you’d think he would have respected her enough to just break it off. It just looks like he is a weak person.

    Nvenya
  4. there was definitely a better way for Hachi and Shouji to deal with this… but no matter what, Shouji just annoys me and I agree with Nvenya, he’s just weak! The Shouji in the live-action movie was even worse than the one in the anime, I think he appeared too clueless and heartless… Just my opinion! 🙂

    Lalita
  5. I’m glad to see this episode come to life. I’ve been looking forward toward seeing how things would play out with the ending scenes. Yeah, it was kewl to see Nana on the toilet, but I had already caught that in the manga while reading it a second time. 😀 I really liked scenes when Nana is humming. I keep wondering about what next if there will be any other songs and what not.

  6. I’m glad Shouji would be out of the way. I can’t wait until Ren finally comes into the picture. I was so happy

    when I saw Ren eventhough it was only in a dream sequence.

    tenshi
  7. ?Shouji’s not a jerk. If you think about it, he’s just confused! Okay maybe he was a jerk for proclaiming Sachiko as his gf in front of the girls. But really, being in Shouji’s shoes, if I were neglected by my girlfriend all the time because she wanted to go home and hang out with her new friend Nana, then I myself would wonder if there’s even a relationship anymore. Not to mention my girlfriend misses my text messages and my calls – that is if I were in his shoes.”

    even so….we don’t go off have sex with other ppl, do we now??

    destin
  8. I think that SHouji is a jerk cause the only thing he wanted to do was have sex all the time. How can you say you love someone when you don’t even try yourself to be with the person your suppose to love. reading the manga it just makes me even madder.

    Crimson-WHu
  9. Yeah I basically have to agree with what’s already been said. Even though I can’t really blame Shouji for his actions, the way he dealt with the situation was unacceptable from my point of view. If he loved Sachiko so much, he should have broken it off with Hachi right away instead of trying to hide it.

    Bah I’m glad this plot line is resolved, now we can get on to some Nana plot, who is the best character in this show x100.

    Beckett
  10. at first i hated shouji but then i thought about it and I don’t hate him anymore. Would you really want to stay in an unhappy relationship when some one who made you happy was already there? I just think his way of doing things was wrong. (Like everyone else on here)

    If he truly cared for both girls, he would have broken it off with Hachi instead of hurting her a million times more like he did in this episode. Then both the girls wouldn’t have to suffer as much as they did. So yes I may be angry at him but I dont hate him anymore. (Yes im a girl)

    silver
  11. i wonder what Shouji had in mind while he started relationships with Sachiko,if he’s really serious bout his relationship with Sachiko he should have finish his relationship with Hachi first..he’s totally worst than a jerk when he humiliates Hachi with claiming Sachiko as his girlfriend..i think Sachiko’s a brave girl,she may suits Shouji more unfortunately she came in at the wrong time..Shouji’s worst then jerk………….

    yuna
  12. I, along with several people, personally dislike Sachiko. It ticked me off when she plays this “cute, friendly, caring, I’ll-never-get-between-you-and-your-girlfriend” act yet she still goes after Souji, regardless of the fact that he has Hachi, and eventually had sex with him. And in my own opinion, I cannot stand that unattractive haircut she has. I’m sorry, but I do not find her cute in any way.
    I’m not technically on Hachi’s side either. I do agree that this breakup was for the best. (even though I dislike Sachiko, Hachi is more annoying.) And yes, it’s true.. I too believe Hachi did not deserve Souji (for a lot of reasons and it seems like a lot of you know already.)…. but neither does Sachiko. Well, I suppose if Souji absolutely HAD to have either one of the girls.. I guess it’d be best if it was Sachiko. DESPITE all this ”hatin” on the two girls…. most of my irritation, frustration, anger and HATRED goes to…….. dear ol’ Souji. The cheating, the lying, the wimpiness, etc. I suppose you could say he was “confused” but I can’t help but hate him so. Nana should have punched him, even with Sachiko in the way. She would have hit them both but I can proudly say, that wouldn’t bother me.

    P.S.. Junko had valid points while talking to Hachi.. I agreed with her a lot but.. there’s just something about her that I don’t like.. I just can’t put my finger on it.

    anonymous
  13. That moment, when Nana grabed Shouji, I honestly thought, she’ll hit him. That was one of the major turning points of the entire anime. Great, but something has become clear to me with it: Hachiko will never stand up for her friends, not even for Nana. Deep in heart, all she cares about is comfort and welth, she’s just afraid of realizing this in front of herself.

    Angelus
  14. Hmmm its strange because although Hachi really does nothing but wimper and feel sorry for herself i cant bring myself to dislike her. She can be incredibly annoying as a character but never once have i thought they really should have just let her drown in that river after all… I think its because she comes across as very human and feels kinda real or plausible as a person maybe? Plus i think her redeaming quality is that although she acts selfish she is aware of it and tries to better herself – her attempts do usually fail though…
    As for Shouji i cant blame him really – its impressive he already put up with her so far…

    sunyums
  15. I still dislike Shoji and Sachiko, no matter how you say “Shoji was confused”. Shoji is a wimpy character who I think is worse than Hachi at the victim role. I mean really, how he handled that was so shitty, any girl worth her salt would have killed him ten times over. I’m not saying that Hachi is the perfect girl. It’s proved that she’s not. But to fall for another girl, cheat (which I think that if it happens, is a total dealbreaker), and then proclaim in front of the girl you were dating for a long period of time that Sachiko is your girlfriend…I’m sorry, but I have to go with Nana on this and kick his ass. And Sachiko is a bit of a bitch for doing this. Granted, she’s not a horrible character and had she not been the sorrid character that she was supposed to be, I would have loved her. But the manipulation of Shoji and being the “I’m-innocent” in this whole thing, it just really pissed me off and makes me glad that the two of them are out of the story for a long long time.

    @Angelus
    I don’t think that that’s true about Hachi. The poor girl was shell-shocked about that nice revelation, so it makes sense that she is out of it. It’s evident later on that she cares for her friends and will stand up for them, but she’s still a 20 year old woman. She isn’t perfect and sweet. It’s like she said in episode 12 I believe “Shoji can’t expect me to be nice and sweet all the time”. And she does have a point in that she rejects Shoji for his infidelity. I wouldn’t want someone who just cheats on me, hiding it while pretty much everyone else around me knows. So I really don’t think that she just cares about wealth and comfort: at a moment when your heart breaks, all bets are off on how you react.

    queenie

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