First Impressions / Nyan Koi!

「四角関係の刻（タイムズ・スクウェア）」 (Shikaku Kankei no Koku (Taimuzu Sukuwea))
“Square Relationship Time (Times Square)”

I was so wrapped up in the amusement park date that I completely forget one of the twins was going to show up. Tomatsu Haruka did have a line during Kirishima Akari’s brief appearance, but more importantly, Kaede knows about Junpei’s curse now!?

Things end abruptly after Akari confronts Junpei about his curse, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Kaede just misunderstands the whole thing next time. In any case, this episode was all about Tokiwadai Land and Nagi’s wholehearted attempt at being Junpei’s “wingman” so that he can score with Kaede. Of course, she wouldn’t be doing this out of the kindness of her heart alone, as she adds the stipulation that Junpei has to get engaged to her if him and Kaede aren’t an item by the end of the day. According to Nagi, she’ll only allow Kaede to take Junpei from her and no one else, especially not “D-cup Kanako”. Humorously enough, she originally invited Junpei to the amusement park to make him choose between her and Kaede, but used a letter of challenge of all things. Kanako tagged along, leading us to a wonderful day in relationship square.

Surprisingly, Nagi earnestly helped Junpei all day and gave him tons of “alone time” with Kaede by removing the third wheel Kanako. To help move things along, she even tipped Kaede off that Junpei sees her as something more than a friend. As the icing on the cake, Junpei also gets unexpected help from the amusement park workers, since the whole place is run by the Ichinose group and they don’t want Nagi to end up with him. As such, everyone was trying to keep Kanako away from Junpei so that he’d be alone with Kaede, but the poor guy was so creeped out by his senpai’s actions that he could barely take advantage. He did have a couple of good opportunities in the haunted house and on the ferris wheel, but Kanako manages to intervene both times. (Gooo childhood friend!) By the end of the day, Junpei isn’t able to officially ask Kaede out, but the two of them did have fun together. Kaede did give Junpei a gift for troubling him, but he secretly thought holding her in his arms was more than enough.

With thoughts of Junpei filling Kaede’s head, she asks Kanako the next day if she’s going out with him. Much to her surprise/relief, Kanako says he’s just a childhood friend. Kaede then inadvertently lets the idea slip that Junpei was hugging another woman (i.e. Chizuru), which gets Kanako and Nagi’s jealous blood boiling. Out of spite, they feed him some dog treats Kaede accidentally brought. After school, Kaede goes after Junpei to warn him that those are actually dog treats and overhears Akari talking about Junpei’s curse.

 

It was pretty weird seeing Nagi help Junpei behind the scenes here, but Kobayashi Yuu does an awesome job bringing out her stupidity. The letter of challenge “invitation” was a hilarious example of Nagi flipping between her tomboy personality and her creepy head-over-heels in love with Junpei side. On the flip side, it was pretty cute seeing Junpei spend some time together with Kaede, but even more so with Kanako barely able to contain herself in the background. After episode two, I was favouring Kanako over Kaede because of her tsundere nature, but this episode made me see the latter in a different light. Kaede’s an earnest girl with some good charm points, like being afraid of haunted houses, so I’m starting to think her and Junpei aren’t so bad together.

Comedy-wise, things weren’t as funny as last time, but they made way more progress with everyone’s feelings. Things should get a lot more interesting now that Kaede’s thinking about Junpei in return. I kind of see Kanako being pushed out of the picture as a result, but I expect her to fight her way back into the “Junpei contest” much like she did this week. The question is, where do the Kirishima twins, Akari and Kotone, fit into the picture? I gather they know about Junpei’s curse because of their relationship to our cabaret club loving priest Keizou, who shares the same surname. Judging by the preview, they’ll definitely have more screentime next week and can tell us all about it then.

 

* Note: Both the opening and ending singles were released recently, which means I need to go digging for some PVs. I see Sakakibara Yui in nekomimi!

 

Omake

Preview

21 Comments

  5. @Who:

    You mean deredere & tsuntsun right for the twins although Akari isn’t exactly all tsun, there’s some dere in there somewhere but both tsundere & yandere can go fly a kite in my book.

    Megas
    Reply

  6. Kanako is the one for him. She obviously loves him deeply, she just doesn’t know how to get her feelings across to him without coming across as a Fire Breathing Balls of Steel Tsundere.

    Splash
    Reply

  12. They skipped over a chapter, so I’m really hoping they do that sometime. They seem to be trying to get character introductions out of the way first before further developing them, but I was really looking forward to that. I hope they don’t skip it entirely, it really helps develop Kanako’s place in all this.

    Nothingseen
    Reply

  15. Kanako really is depicted like shit in this animated version, by ignoring her softer side scenes and emphazing her jealousness to the point of making her look like a neurotic girl, I find it pretty hard to ship her this time (like the absolute opposite of its paper counterpart).

    Orange
    Reply

  17. @:) In the manga he eats them.

    @Tama It’s not like they can fit every chapter of the manga into the series (budget reasons etc…)

    @Nothingseen & Orange They’ll probably show Kana’s softer side toward the end of the season, where it’ll really count to making the final “decision” difficult.

    It’s probably just me, but has anyone else noticed that Kaede is kinda like a hybrid of Alicia and Akari from ARIA? Especially the Nyan Koi manga SD animation style of Kaede’s surprised look.

    Julian
    Reply

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