Summary:
After Nayuki leaves early for practice one morning, Yuuichi and Makoto are talking about what to do with the cat. Yuuichi suggests Makoto ask Akiko, knowing that she’ll answer immediately. Indeed, Akiko immediately approves it, but she warns them about Nayuki’s allergy too. They then try to think up a name for the cat, but Makoto doesn’t like Yuuichi’s initial choices. The one she finally warms up to is Piroshiki, or Piro for short. Although Yuuichi insists that it has no meaning, Akiko knows that he named it after the Russian pirozhki (a type of stuffed bun). In any case, Makoto likes Piro so much that she even brings the cat with her to her job. On the way to school, she explains to Yuuichi that she feels that Piro helped her after she lost her memory.
At school, Yuuichi encounters Mai and tells her about finding Makoto. He asks her again about how she knew, but the answer is still the same – Mai had a hunch. When Yuuichi then tries to beg for more information from Mai, she says that she can’t do anything, but… It’s at this point that Amano Mishio walks by and Mai reveals that Mishio might be able to do something. Mai doesn’t say anything more about the subject, even when they’re having lunch together. It is when Yuuichi is getting out from school that he notices Makoto outside by the gate and Mishio appears behind him, saying that Makoto is waiting for him. When she asks him for Makoto’s name, Yuuichi tells her, but suddenly gets a flashback of his childhood. In it, he’s explaining to someone that someone else’s name is Sawatari Makoto.
By the time Yuuichi comes to his senses again, Mishio is gone. He goes out to meet Makoto, and on the way home, she tells him that the people at the nursery weren’t happy that she brought Piro. Seeing how depressed she looks, Yuuichi offers to buy her a meat bun. Those magical words immediately brighten up her. Later that day, Makoto interrupts Yuuichi’s homework to show him how cute Piro is drinking milk, thought it leaves him less than impressed. She rushes into his room again after he’s done with his homework because Piro seems to have gotten sick. After cleaning up the mess, Yuuichi warns Makoto to be more careful with the cat. When both Makoto and Piro go to sleep, Yuuichi thinks to himself that he knows a girl by the name of Sawatari Makoto. However, that Sawatari Makoto isn’t the person in front of him, but rather an older girl he liked when he was young. Still, except for a certain person, no one else should know that name.
On the way to work the next day, Makoto suddenly loses her balance, though she blames it on how she didn’t sleep last night. At school, Yuuichi meets with Mishio again and this time gets a proper introduction. He then asks her to be Makoto’s friend, but Mishio refuses even though she somehow knows that Makoto lost her memory. Yuuichi feels that she must know something and perhaps she was acquainted with Makoto when she was young. Amano, however, denies it and claims that if anyone knew Makoto before, it would be Yuuichi himself. She thinks that it must have been a long time ago, but at that time, that girl… Yuuichi interrupts Mishio at this point because he doesn’t want her to say anymore.
Yuuichi finds Makoto waiting for him after school again and this time she tells him that she remembered something about her past. She then takes him up to Monomi Hill – a place that she feels she’s been for a long time. While walking through the nearby woods, Makoto stops at a clearing that Yuuichi realizes is where he separated from a certain someone. She suddenly hits him for a reason she doesn’t even understand, and then the two of them notice that it has started to snow. Yuuichi offers to buy her a meat bun, so they head home, though Makoto trips and falls down first. The two end up having a lot of fun together in town before arriving home, where Nayuki meets them at the door. After Makoto goes inside, Nayuki informs Yuuichi that her mother has had no success finding Makoto’s parents.
Before dinnertime, Makoto interrupts Yuuichi’s reading to ask him to make paper airplanes with her, but he turns her down. She then comes by again to ask him to read manga with her, and he agrees after seeing how there’s words in it that she can’t read. As they lie together on his bed, he reads out to her the shoujo manga that she picked out. During dinner, Makoto suddenly drops her chopsticks, though she blames her hand not moving on being tired. Later that night, after Yuuichi has fallen asleep, Makoto comes to his room again and wakes him up because she’s looking for Piro. The cat has made its way into Yuuichi’s bed, so Makoto decides to sleep there too. Yuuichi is ready to move into her room for the night, but she tugs on his shirt as an indication that she doesn’t want him to go. Unable to sleep, Yuuichi hears Makoto talk in her sleep about being with someone forever. Yuuichi starts to feel that he’s in a long dream and remembers that 10 years ago, it was like this too. He remembers how he had helped an injured kitsune and told it about the Sawatari Makoto that he knew.
On the way to school the next day, Yuuichi teases Makoto about being cute after she reveals that she doesn’t want to get revenge on him right now. It is later in the day that he meets with Mishio again and confirms that Makoto isn’t human. Mishio thinks that Makoto came here only to meet Yuuichi, taking a human form in the process. In other words, Yuuichi is in the middle of a brief miracle right now, one that Makoto traded her life for. Mishio explains that two sacrifices need to be made for a miracle to occur: a person’s memory and their life. Although Makoto doesn’t know about it, her own health will deteriorate and it will become hard for her to behave as a human. Yuuichi becoming attached to her now means that their parting will be full of sorrow. Mishio finally ends their conversation by telling him not to involve her in this anymore.

Preview:

So as suspected, Makoto is indeed not human, and is instead a kitsune turned temporarily turned human. From what I can gather, Yuuichi helped her 10 years ago and told her about a Sawatari Makoto that he knew, and so the kitsune turned into Sawatari Makoto by sacrificing its memory and life. It seems that the current Makoto might be the kitsune that Yuuichi and Nayuki encountered in the first episode.
I wonder how they’re going to structure the rest of this series if they’re going to get Makoto’s story out of the way in the next few episodes. If Makoto’s conclusion has her living, then she’ll end up in a backseat role for the remainder, but if she dies or goes back to being a kitsune or something, then it seems like there’d be a void at home. Either way, I’m curious to see where this goes.

39 Comments

  1. This episode’s too much for me… I say kill, her but do it in a grandiose-full-of-Oh!-melodrama-with-a-bucket-of-tears way. At least she’ll be remembered better that way…

    moondoggiebuiscuit
  2. Maybe they want to put more focus on other arcs? It does seem insanely earlier, thinking about how many episodes they have left. They’ll be able to get into some real detail with the others though by doing this.

    Likkun
  3. @kazahana: I don’t think that’s going to be next week. Its going to be at least two since she gets the bells next week. After that, I think it will be in this order: Mai, Shiori, Nayuki, Ayu.

    Kit-Tsukasa
  4. If Makoto’s arc is ending soon, I’m all for it. She’s always been my least favorite character since the first series… but in that was, she was even more annoying and was around for most of that series. It’s time to move on to the others because they received less focus than Makoto the first time around.

  5. @qin, I haven’t seen any monsters @ school. For all I know Tamura’s character might be a psycho bitch, which to me would be the best thing to happen in Kanon ATM – so far all the characters have such positive/squeeky clean/cutesy personalities it hurts… But I now guess those monsters do exist… boring.

    @Shinigami, if they all have similarly weak storylines to Makoto’s then I truly fail to see what so many people love in Kanon. Yea, I hope they die and the Kanon fandom does with them, too.

    I thought I’d understand the hype after seeing more episodes, but the show keeps proving otherwise… Fox girls, cat girls, dog girls, weak girls… aliens… tentacle rape? Hentai fetishes…

    Guess that’s me.

  6. It took 8 episodes, but Kanon 2006 has finally produced an episode that is worth watching.

    Let’s see if they can keep it going until Episode 24. Maybe… there’s some hope for this show?

    dsong
  7. lol @ kacpy

    Those who never gave the series a chance in the beginning will always look for ways not to like it. Do yourself a favor and go watch another show, and save yourself the “hardships” of sitting through it.

    I don’t understand why people always ask “why do so many people like Kanon” … you’re an individual, if you don’t like it, then you don’t like it…. move on and watch Bartender or something…

    – T

  8. It’s not like I started watching the show with an “I will hate it at all cost” attitude – I approached it as any other show I’m watching this season because I wasn’t really anticipating any of them (other than Negima!? ’cause of my Akiyuki Shinbo luv).

    I already am watching plenty of shows I’m enjoying more, but can’t I comment on this one? It is probably the most talked about show of the season so why the heck wouldn’t I want to understand why almost everyone (old fans and newcomers alike) is so crazy about it. It’s not like I attacked anyone for blogging it (see Hudson&co in Omni’s Negima!? entries).

    (And if anyone else has to go down Mentar’s “play in traffic” route, well, be my guest.)

  9. @ kacpy:

    Really?

    “It’s not like I started watching the show with an “I will hate it at all cost” attitude”

    but…

    “Yea, I hope they die and the Kanon fandom does with them, too.”

    So really, saying that:

    “It’s not like I attacked anyone for blogging it”

    …is a bit misleading to say the least… if u hate it, u hate it… that’s ur right… but move on buddy, less stressful that way … but of course you’re free to stick around till the end and ask the same question “why does everyone like this shit?” in the 24th episode 🙂

    Cheers

  10. The sentence with death wishes you quoted had an assumption (as the sentence before might (or not) suggest) that other character arcs are as ridiculous as Makoto’s. I’ll maybe make you pleased saying that if the next arc is even more ridiculous than fox-turned-sad-girl-in-snow I’ll stop watching this show and never again post in any of Omni’s Kanon posts. 😉

  11. Hmm, let’s hope that solved it, finally.

    I just can’t believe that here we are, grown people, still fighting for little things like “My anime is better than your anime.”, “I hate your anime so don’t watch it.”, “What the **** is wrong with you Kanon people, are you retards?”

    It is my own right that I love Key’s story. Some love it, others hate it. So why not just get it over with move on with your life doing other more productive things like observing paint dries.

    What a bunch of children.

    Sorry for my choice of words, but I just can’t stand all these hate already.

    VynN

Leave a Reply to kazahana Cancel reply

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