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「これが私の気持ちです」 (Kore ga Watashi no Kimochi desu)
“These are My Feelings”
After a short delay due to PAX West, here’s last week’s Harukana Receive!
General Impressions
Boy, was this week’s episode literally everywhere. From the animation to the story, there were definitely moments where I was genuinely concerned about where things were trying to go. Starting with the good (or rather what I enjoyed), I really appreciated the story going forward with its mini time skip. By giving me a somewhat believable reason behind Kanata and Haruka’s sudden improvement, it felt like we were coming into these last few episodes with a lot of ammo in terms of getting to see some cool beach volleyball moments. Toss in their even stronger sense of camaraderie and you had me nearly salivating at the thought of them taking on their closest rivals Claire and Emily. However, along the way, there were definitely a few issues that we can’t ignore.
The largest of which were the Aragaki sisters. As a new pair that appeared as a stepping stone for Kanata and Haruka to overcome, I was really disappointed with how the story tried selling their story to us. Not only were they completely stripped of the right to take on the Thomas sisters because of “unlucky” bracket placement, but it just felt bad to see them get completely shut out when they were a pair that should have been able to at least keep up with Kanata and Haruka. That said, I get what the story was going for and at the end of the day we got to at least meet new characters who managed to serve a purpose greater than just being bodies to stare at. However, I feel like there’s so many other ways the story could have used these two to really create a situation where we could become more invested with the show — like I don’t know, maybe have them actually play against Claire and Emily?
At the end of the day though, this is a show that revolves around Kanata and Haruka and I think this episode made that clear. If I were to make a guess for what’s coming up in the near future, I’m really hoping that all the creative brainpower and whatever money this show received for production gets thrown into last few episodes since I still believe there’s a chance for things to really turn around and give us one last hoorah before the season comes to a close. In any case, I’ll catch you guys next week (or rather in a few days). See you then!
This episode did feel scattered around, but I still thought it was an improvement on the last one. The backstory with Kanna and Youna seemed written to mirror Haruka and Kanata by giving them the same goal of reaching and beating the Eclair pair, something that helps build the importance of the final game. By showing them losing the story floats the idea that Haruka/Kanata might end up losing too. While it’s true that Kanna/Youna’s story might have resonated more if they had actually played Eclair, a full episode concentrating on the twins’ game was never on the table. It was always going to be Haruka and Kanata’s game that got all the focus, meaning that realistically our choices were between Kanna/Youna’s story as it was in the show, or else an entirely different pair with a different narrative. With that in mind I’m fairly satisfied with it.
The whole topspin thing might be a set up for the end game too, I don’t know. Maybe that specific technique, or maybe just the idea of plugging away until something works. I haven’t dipped into the manga so I’m blind on this.
Well, i want to notice it. The Animators do an very good job until now. The perspective of the Girls and such are good. Please continue, the responsible for the Human animations know their stuff
You know… the light blue on the MCs bikinis just… is NOT a good look for either of them.
Honestly, I felt like the first half(ish) of the episode that focused on Akari was a bit of a waste. The phone-call was okay, but then it just dragged on and on to its incredibly obvious conclusion. Of course the team’s gonna be fine. They all knew the two sides would have to face off sooner or later. It was so obvious that I just didn’t care about the agony Akari was putting herself through since the the whole time all I wanted was for the story to move on to the volleyball matches. Five of those first ten minutes could’ve been used on Harukana’s first match, or on Eclair’s match, or made Harukana’s second match five minutes longer to make the Aragakis more important. Not just sitting there to tell us that the girls are all BFFs for the Nth time.
I am probably alone on this but I enjoyed this episode and I didn’t feel the story was everywhere. However, I don’t think this scene sat well with me. It just seemed out of the blue and completely separate from the context of the story.
https://randomc.net/image/Harukana%20Receive/Harukana%20Receive%20-%2009%20-%20Large%2010.jpg
Oh I enjoyed this ep just fine too. After 8 eps I knew what sort of thing to expect. I might criticize it a bit but I was never bored or annoyed by it, and the usual mix of volleyball, fanservice, melodrama and surprise ass-slapping is still entertaining.
A hundred bucks says that Haruka and Kanata will have to win in the upcoming episode.