First Impressions / Kimi ni Todoke

「土曜の夜」 (Doyou no Yoru)
“Saturday Night”

We now interrupt your regular Omni Kimi ni Todoke broadcast for a little backup divine support. *static noise bzz bzz*
So after clearing up the rumours last time, Sawako is back to enjoying high school life like she never has — with friends! That means hanging out on Saturday night over at a guy’s place, getting teased about crushes, and all that other jazz. This episode had me laughing a lot more than I thought it would for one sole reason: it was sooo high school.

Things start off pretty precariously with a phone call from Yoshida out of the blue. Having missed a previous opportunity to eat out with Sawako, Yoshida invites her out for a second attempt at eating some touted ramen. Naturally, Sawako’s parents are overjoyed at the thought of their lonely daughter going out with some friends, so off she goes to Ryuu’s family run ramen shop/house. One delicious bowl of miso ramen later (with egg and all! *drool*), Yoshida takes Sawako and Yano upstairs to Ryuu’s room and makes herself at home. There, they discuss Yano’s adult-like relationships, Yoshida and Sawako’s lack thereof, and Yoshida and Ryuu’s sibling-like relationship, before deciding to get Sawako to call over the ultimate of ultimate rejuvenating individuals, Kazehaya. However, this is done with Ryuu’s phone for Yoshida’s entertainment, which has Kazehaya scampering about like a flustered little boy at the sound of Sawako’s voice.

While Mr. Refreshing zips on over, Sawako gets a glimpse of Ryuu’s middle school photo album and learns that Kazehaya was big on baseball before, but opted not to play in high school. When they come across Kurumizawa Ume‘s picture, the talk quickly drifts over to girls and how she’s not Ryuu’s type, but Sawako is surprisingly alright in his books. One earth-shattering moment later, Yoshida and Yano quickly pick up on the fact that Sawako likes Kazehaya. After Kazehaya arrives, Yano notices the feeling is mutual and uses the opportunity to entertain herself to no end. Pin later storms in, disrupting the good ‘ol high school teasing. As it turns out, he was coached in little league by Kazehaya’s father and he’s quite the regular at Ryuu’s ramen shop too. Their crazy teacher then misunderstands Sawako as someone who can rid him of the little men that haunt him, causing Kazehaya’s boyish jealousy to quickly surface. Sawako however doesn’t mind one bit, since she’s so happy about hanging out with friends. When everyone finally heads home, Kazehaya chooses to accompany Sawako by using a convenience store run as an excuse, whereas Ryuu is quick to notice that Yoshida did all this to let him know they’ve reconciled with Sawako.

 

This episode was so amusing to me because it was basically a page right out of my high school days. It had everything from guessing who likes who to going through old yearbooks. In the process, you usually come across one or two friends who wear their feelings on their sleeve. Here, it happened to be Sawako and Kazehaya. The fun that Yano had with hugging Sawako and making Kazehaya envious was something I’ve seen happen all too often. It’s childish and dumb, but hey, that’s high school for you. In a way, the near-perfect high school depiction was almost scary, but I could simply laugh it off thinking, “oh man, I used to do such stupid things before.” If you’re wondering where I fit into all this during my teenage years, I was pretty much like Ryuu. I’d hang out with everyone, but be pretty indifferent to all the petty/friendly teasing going on. You know, it’s how we cool, calm, and composed guys roll… yep yep. (Sarcasm heavily intended.)

Aside from that, I actually liked the prevalent use of silly flat faces this time around. While the thought of them being used as time-saving measures crossed my mind, it seemed more intentional than anything else. The faces brought out all the silly high school behaviour a lot better, which unquestionably added to my personal enjoyment. Overall, an awesome episode that’s a nice change from all the high school melodrama. The latter is good as well, but I loved the change of gears here. Great stuff!

P.S. Yano stopped calling Sawako “Sadako”! *gasp*

 

Preview

34 Comments

  2. @Kyon

    Divine reviews very quickly at the cost of his HEALTH

    Anyways. I loved this episode and how it just felt so normal and that Sawako was experiencing all these things for the first time.

    Cherubium
    Reply

  5. Every time I get together with an old friend who moved to a nearby town, all we do is look at the yearbooks of each other’s schools and talk about our young days.

    Ahh, high school. I’m going to miss it.

    Phosphatide
    Reply

  6. Cherubium:
    I’m afraid people are going to misunderstand me as some overweight slob who stays at home all day and blogs with that remark. -_-;

    (For everyone else, I do have a full-time 40hr/week job I go to!)

    That said, things have been pretty manageable thus far. The 8 shows I currently cover are nicely spread out across the week, so it works out to be about a post per day. The “busy” days are Thursdays (Kampfer, Nyan Koi) and Sundays (SoraOto, Natsu no Arashi), but I don’t mind letting those spill over a day or two.

    Last fall, I had something like 4 shows on Thursday and 4 shows on Sunday. I wanted to stab myself on some weeks. It was my fault for committing to such a ridiculous schedule, but that didn’t stop me from blaming the Japanese broadcasters for deciding on it!

    Kyon:
    RandomC readers tend to appreciate timely, (somewhat) well written posts that are fun to read, so that’s something we strive for. I can’t guarantee that my posts are always an interesting read, but I try nonetheless. orz

    divine
    Reply

  9. sorry divine.

    I just get all worrisome since what happened to you before. Well I’m glad it’s more spaced for you and it really doesn’t matter if it spills over an extra day or two, by the time you’ve got the post up, the subs will be there as well so we can read your posts and enjoy the anime whilst understanding it.

    Cherubium
    Reply

  10. Cherubium:
    No need to apologize. I do appreciate the concern though. =)

    I actually find I enjoy blogging in spurts. After being away from it for a while, the burning “drive” to talk about anime comes back. I’m not sure how long it’ll last this round, but it’s been fun again thus far. I happen to have time to spare for the time being, so I thought meh, why not write. Much like yourself, the readers here have been pretty supportive both past and present.

    Back then, I went on a hiatus not so much because I was burnt out, but because 1.) I lost interest in writing and 2.) it was taking too much time. Even though the motivation was gone, I was still watching anime fairly regularly. Hmm, maybe that’s the solution to my predicament. Be a seasonal writer. =)

    divine
    Reply

  12. For what it’s worth, this is the only place I come to for reviews on shows I watch. The writing is definitely fun to read and full of humor. I also agree most of the time with the writers’ opinions. :]

    As for the episode, I totally laughed my head off at the scene in the beginning with Sawako’s parents. “SHIRINAI!” (sp?) LOL Also the part where Sawako was asked how she felt about Kazehaya. Omgshewassocute when she said “…Dai….. -suke~” KYAA! <333

    Le
    Reply

  13. XD RC is the only blog i use, seeing as shows get blog pretty fast after its aired… i never read the post until i watch the show… its more like an anime alarm clock for me 😀 as i dunno the broadcast timetable. either way, somehow i dont got the “40 y/o fat slob” in my mind… i think its because i seen some video of jaalin playing piano :/ (sounds like im stalking u bloggers -.-)but ye, he isnt a fat slob… and i use to read natrone’s post, and he seems to be a healthy male teacher…

    if i have to fit myself in this anime… i really cant say, but probably yano or chizu ~”~

    brianleung8912
    Reply

  14. I really love this episode, too, Divine!

    I totally agree with you on how realistic this episode is! Hahaha! I do remember doing all those silly things with my girlfriends when I was in highschool. Hahahaha. But among those characters…I guess I the “Yano” type when it comes to tormenting guys who like one of my friends. Hahaha. Eviiiil!

    Eri
    Reply

  15. What i really like with this anime is how they keep soooo close to the manga. You have almost everything and they dont rush or cut anything to go faster than it should be.
    In this ep, the only thing they missed is 4~5 sentences about maru-chan, everything else was here. Even if this slow pace can annoy some manga-readers i really love it (about 1ep = 1chapter so far).

    If this continue like this, next 7 eps will be sport festival/kurumi arc, and i soooo much looking foward for the cute scene to come <3

    Zeross
    Reply

  18. pues la verdad esta muy bien el episodio y las amigas de sawako que hacen provocarle celos a kazehaya no tiene precio hehehe

    bueno esperemos ver que sigue en el siguiente episodio.

    saludos

    Jezreel
    Reply

  19. im a big fan of general fun and games over love-triangles and misunderstandings so this chapter was probably my favourite from what i’ve read of the manga so far. im glad to see the anime has done such a fine job covering it. i especially love pin and sawako’s mother, so funny!

    ps. anybody know where you can find up to date translations of the manga? onemanga only has the first 15 or so volumes covered. boo.

    fathomlessblue
    Reply

  23. well as long as they dont ask money for scans, only the size of database and intuituve interface does matter (and the compatibily with auto-pager =D). If you dont find what you’re searching on one of those, just check the others 😛 onemanga is good, but often (always ?) late.

    You could also go on the team website and download it from there, you’ll got it sooner (3days sooner) but it’s not a read-on-line site, so you’ll have to download the image archive to read it (not a big problem if you cant wait for the next chapter 😛 )

    Zeross
    Reply

  24. The adult girl is fucking the teacher!
    1. mysterious phonecall saying where she is.
    2. teacher showing up that time, that day, and bothering going up.
    3. sharing some history
    4. going home together with a fake argument.

    outcast
    Reply

  26. I really liked this episode, it brought me back to my high school days in a more funny and hilarious way. I also understood how Kazehaya was feeling during his time in Ryu’s room cuz I’ve been teased like that also in my days…not a cool feeling.

    Siege
    Reply

  32. Man I’m tempted to give this anime a 9 and put it in my top 10%. My smile was slightly over a mile wide when I was watching this episode. Production I.G. is also doing a fantastic job with its animation and art.

    My decision to try out Kimi ni Todoke is definitely entering my Top 10 Good Decisions list.

    Eater-of-All
    Reply

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