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「すべてを捧げる恋」 (Subete o Sasageru Koi)
“A Love to Give Everything For”
When a door closes a window opens, it’s a good phrase in general, although in KtU’s world you might want to watch out when going through the window. We may have received an explanation on Shuu and her Misaki ways, but as fully expected that only muddied the waters further. Neji making a choice? Oh you knew that wasn’t going to happen. Locking down this boy is going to be a challenge.
While Shuu’s reason for interfering with Neji’s matchmaking was known last week, it’s nice having a basis for explaining how it came to be. The whole liking Misaki because of her wholesome feelings is as contrived as the initial Misaki-Neji childhood crush aspect, but it makes some sense given who Shuu is. As Shuu is a supposed genius with minimal personality, it’s not that farfetched thinking she’d take a liking to Misaki for her uniqueness. Here’s a girl who not only fell in love, but did so spontaneously and to a stronger degree than some arranged pairings—what thinker wouldn’t be intrigued? This explanation furthermore also broadens the foundation for exploring KtU’s love dichotomy. As Yajima correctly states, Shuu is trying to equate two very different forms of love. While “natural” love and “arranged” love may similarly converge (i.e. yield similar relationships), both originate from different sources and have differing degrees of success. The Yukari system is wholly designed to maximize the success of love, and for that purpose chose “arranged” love as its foundation. It may come at the cost at successful spontaneous loves (ex. Neji-Misaki), but this society has deemed the happiness of the many more important than the few. Unless the system is changed, Shuu’s actions only damage the prospects of the girl she has sworn to protect.
What makes the situation even more ironic is that Shuu is also right about Ririna. While Shuu is attempting to give Misaki what she wants (to Misaki’s detriment socially), Ririna is trying to vicariously love through the relationship Misaki has with Neji. Ririna’s cheerleading only gives false hope to Misaki, for while Ririna may publically “back off”, there’s little reason for Neji or Ririna to dissolve their pairing if it will only end in social ostracization. In effect Ririna’s actions are for Ririna only, much like Shuu’s interference is for Shuu’s own happiness—Misaki is just the tragic tool for their own personal ends. No matter your best girl opinion (*cough* Ririna), you have to admit it’s incredibly sad for Misaki, the poor girl has been triply screwed (Neji’s notification, Ririna’s encouragement, Shuu’s involvement) and stands little chance of victory considering the system she’s under. The best solution would be for Neji to officially turn her down and end the pain, but of course that’s a little hard for Mr. Vanilla to contemplate, let alone go through with. If just for Misaki’s sake I really hope Neji reaches a decision before KtU ends. With both girls being such strong contenders they at least deserve an honest answer from the burial mound master. Anything less after all this would be a disappointment.
Answers or not though, we should see some further drama discussions once we get around to that Yuusuke approved wedding next time, maybe. With dresses, kisses, and wedding cake abound, more than a few dream sequences are guaranteed to pop up. Will it be enough to evoke a Ririna confession or stir those conflicted Neji feelings? Just have to wait and see.
Preview
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End Card
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Damn shame, it seems like people lost interest on this & no longer commenting here, yet it feels like there’s much to discuss.
True enough. I think that the story would be fundamentally different if Misaki and Neji had been friends for years instead of having their first actual conversation a half hour before Neji got his notice. As it is Neji really doesn’t know that much about Misaki and at this point has spent considerably more time with Ririna.
I was quite enjoying it until little miss “my granny invented this system so I can fuck with people’s lives if I want” turned up. I’m still watching, but only to see what sort of mess it gets into by the end.
This is the biggest problem IMO, and it’s not just their relationship. How Neji/Misaki fell in love (and stayed in love), Shuu’s entire reason for “protecting” Misaki, the government officials turning up at midnight, a lot of it feels forced for the sake of setting up the drama. It doesn’t help a lot of the voice acting is incredibly soft spoken/monotone (especially Neji), which makes the characters feel even more artificial.
I’m still watching this (because I like to finish I what I start), and I feel like there’s nothing to discuss.
Same here, I feel like I lost interested since the 4th episode but just watching until the end.
To be fair the show has stumbled a lot after the halfway mark. The unorthodox premise has largely been pushed aside in favour of the usual romance hijinks now, and that part of KtU was never its strong suit. We still get some intriguing nuggets like Shuu’s rationale this week, but I think a lot people simply gave up after KtU decided to trend back into ubiquity.
I really like the premise but the executing is typical and its in a boring way.
If it would focus on the drama instead of the romance comedy it would really become something special.
But end of the day it goes the “lazy” route and well there are better ones in the genre that might not break interesting new bounds but are simply better.
I ended up dropping this anime and simply read these posts.
lol They go somewhere to talk and they end up going to a cat cafe xD