Summary:
Seven years ago, Ayu couldn’t stop crying when she first met Yuuichi. When she did finally stop, her stomach started growling, so Yuuichi had asked her what she liked to eat. Her answer had been taiyaki, so he had bought her some. After eating, Yuuichi had gotten up to go home, but Ayu had held onto his sleeve. Since he was still calling her Ayu-Ayu, she had told him that it wasn’t her name. Still not letting go of him, Ayu said that she wanted to eat taiyaki again, so Yuuichi suggested that they get together again tomorrow at the same time and place. She had made him promise that he would come with a pinky swear, and then the two parted ways. Realizing what time it was, Yuuichi returned to the waiting Nayuki, who called him a liar when she saw him.
Back in the present, Yuuichi wakes up in the middle of the night and hears Makoto trying to sneak into his room. He pretends to be asleep, so she comes over and holds a piece of konnyaku over his head, ready to drop it as she counts down from three. But when she reaches “one,” Yuuichi startles her by yelling “zero.” He traps her by suggesting that the konnyaku is her midnight snack and forcing her to eat it. Fortunately for Makoto, Akiko shows up and offers to make something for her, despite the fact that Makoto isn’t hungry. The next morning, after another argument with Makoto, Yuuichi offers to take Nayuki’s lunch to her at school for Akiko. When he gets there, he finds Nayuki running laps around the gym with the other girls, and he hands over her lunch.
After watching Nayuki practice for a while, Yuuichi heads out and encounters Kaori in the schoolyard. After Yuuichi comments on how Kaori and Nayuki are so serious about their club activities despite it being a holiday, Kaori admits that she doesn’t want to be at home. She doesn’t give him a straight answer when he asks if she’s fighting with her parents, and instead changes the subject to how Yuuichi is adjusting to the school. She’s glad that there’s someone else he knows in the class, causing Yuuichi to wonder if she’s talking about Nayuki. Worried about her, Kaori tells Yuuichi that Nayuki involves herself with club activities every day until she’s exhausted. Yuuichi thinks that that’s the reason Nayuki sleeps so much, but Kaori thinks sleeping a lot is something Nayuki had from birth.
By chance, Yuuichi meets Akiko on the way home from school, so he carries a bag of rice for her. Ayu suddenly appears behind them, calling out to Yuuichi, but she slips and falls on her flat on her face. After Akiko helps her back up, Yuuichi introduces Akiko as his landlord. Ayu doesn’t know what a landlord is, so he explains that it’s the most important person in the house. When Yuuichi then introduces Ayu by using her full name Tsukimiya Ayu, Akiko is caught a little off guard, but attributes it to her own imagination. Since Yuuichi is on his way home to straighten up stuff from his move, Ayu offers to help. It is at the Minase home that Ayu meets Makoto, though Makoto is afraid to come out at first. Yuuichi also gets Makoto to help with the boxes to his room, and Ayu decides to share her taiyaki. Makoto finds it sweet but delicious, and the two girls hit it off.
The three work together to organize the room, and once they’re done, Ayu and Yuuichi go downstairs for a snack, though Makoto is apparently too tired to go with them. Actually, she is standing upstairs, listening in on the conversation below which has turned to the thing Ayu’s searching for. Ayu hasn’t found it yet, but she’s here today as thanks for Yuuichi helping her look around the other day. Ayu leaves as evening approaches, but Makoto doesn’t see her off. Outside however, Ayu catches Makoto watching from the second floor window. She waves and Makoto waves back, causing Ayu to wave even harder before she runs off. That night, when Nayuki comes home, she asks Yuuichi to return the notebook she lent him. He remembers that he left it at school, and at first he doesn’t want to go get it, but he finally agrees after seeing her expression.
On the chilly walk to school, Yuuichi notices the amazing starry sky. After he retrieves the notebook from the classroom and starts to head home, Yuuichi notices something down the hall: Mai carrying a sword.

Preview:

I wonder if Yuuichi is having these flashbacks as dreams. It doesn’t readily appear that he’s remembering once he wakes up, but the way they present those sequences seems to imply dreaming. In that sense, he seems to be regaining his memory little by little as he stays in this town.
Overall, this episode raised more questions than it answered, which may be a good thing given how relatively early it is in this series. From what I can remember off the top of my head, there was what Kaori said to Yuuichi about her home situation, Akiko’s reaction to Ayu’s name, and Makoto’s sudden aversion to being with Ayu and/or Yuuichi. On that last one, I can’t help but wonder if Makoto and Ayu are somehow connected, though that may just be a side effect of them having similar hair colors. But like I said, the story’s still young and I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops.
Given that we’ve ended two straight episodes with Mai and her sword, I would imagine that we’re going to be delving further into her story pretty soon, maybe as soon as next week.

25 Comments

  1. You know if these guys are able to pull off remakes of already existing titles like Kanon, and Negima, I wonder if they can remake TYPE-MOON’s anime, “Shingetsutan Tsukihime”? I mean, the manga storyline was a lot more accurate and the artwork is nice like Fate/Stay Night. If they can pull that off, that will be all the more reason to put that on my watch list. I did like the anime, but it was kinda short but the music was supurb.

    Karis
  2. Oooo… I love it when Makoto is on screen for any decent amount of time… I’m so glad their taking time to expand the storylines in this longer series.

    Also, a question for people. In which order were the game, the manga and the anime released? Was it the game, then the (original) anime, then the manga?

  3. @Karis

    Tsukihime didn’t really do the producers satisfaction. It didn’t establish much of a fanbase, so it’s proably ignored.

    I can’t stop admiring Kyoto Animation’s animation skills…I mean goodness sakes. The last couple of minutes had AMAZING qualities (not that it was ever inconsistent). XD

    Rasmiel
  4. Ahh, I was kind of hoping they would get to more Mai scenes in this episode. Oh well, at least we got to see more little Ayu flashbacks. I started playing the game over because of this but it feels kind of weird seeing the difference in artwork.

    Likkun
  5. Personally, I actually thought it was the first one that really showed the slowed down pace and kinda dragged a bit between the Nayuki jogging sequence and the 91 unpacking. The Makoto-Ayu stuff, which sorta making sense also seemed a bit… off… and had a lot of dead air. *shrug*

    AC
  6. Erm, i understand that there’s shouldn’t be any discussion about the anime download and torrent stuff, but i’m very much interested in watching this. Any guide or pointer or url to some forum for such matters?

    maimai
  7. lol… first preview image is made of win and gold… hahaha…

    @maimai: on the community links to teh right, you can click on “AnimeSuki”, “Tokyo Toshokan”, and “Baka-Updates” for sites where you can access forums and torrents… they should have guides there to help, anyways…

    kablaq
  8. Dammit, I’m getting restless. Gimme the Mai story already! I thought this episode would begin it, but I guess we’re going to have to wait for NEXT week. Anyways, I still like this episode a lot, especially the beginning dream sequence and all the foreshadowings.

    Pakxenon
  9. Personally, I thought this episode was a bit “slow” compared to the last 3 episodes (or maybe last episode was just too good)

    Hopefully, the pace would pick up again next ep

    deltazechs

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *