Final Impressions / First Impressions / Special A

「華園 光・滝島 彗」 (Hanazono Hikari / Takishima Kei)
“Hanazono Hikari / Takishima Kei”

Episode at a Glance:
Watching Hikari chase after his plane, Kei is reminded of how she always gave him presents and stayed by his side until he opened them, just so that she can explain what they were. Back at the greenhouse, everyone figures that the S.A class was restored because Kei agreed to leave for London, but Hikari is furious about being challenged to a competition that Kei never intended to win in the first place, so she decides to go to London too. While Akira tries to explain that Kei did this for her sake, Hikari says that’s what pisses her off so much, before storming out. Ryuu, Jun, and Megumi then decide to go along, prompting Tadashi to ask if he can sit out, but Akira naturally doesn’t let him. Sui then arrives holding onto Kei’s uniform.

Back at home, Hikari realizes that London’s farther than she thought, but recalls that tomorrow’s Kei’s birthday. Sui then arrives with a helicopter, asking Hikari to go to London and stop Kei. Shortly after, Aoi comes by with his men after following Sui’s suspicious actions and threatens Hikari with the S.A class again if she continues. However, the rest of the S.A class shows up after submitting their school resignation letters and head off to London with Hikari. Aoi says that going won’t change anything, so Hikari tells him that she never gives up and always sees things through, much like how Kei can accomplish anything once he sets his mind on it. Watching them leave in the helicopter, Sui tells Hikari that he’s counting on her.

In London, Akira is instantly goes into sightseeing mode, but they eventually make it to the Takishima Group headquarters, where they’re told that Kei doesn’t want to see them. Hearing this, Hikari suggests sneaking in, but Akira reveals that the premises are rigged with traps by using Tadashi as a guinea pig. Claiming that she has a plan, Akira suggest shopping until the evening, making everyone suspect that she just wants time to shop. Ryuu on the other hand mentions that Kei once told him that he has a room in the main tower and reminds Hikari to be careful. Inside, a butler asks Kei if he’s okay with not seeing them, which he confirms.

Later that evening, Hikari and others infiltrate the estate during Kei’s birthday party, but run into various obstacles along the way. With Ryuu staying behind to deal with the guard dogs, Tadashi with the defensive lasers, Jun with the maids (thanks to Sakura’s help), and Megumi with some additional guards (thanks to Yahiro’s help), Hikari and Akira continue to make their way towards Kei’s room. Tadashi suddenly comes flying along in a motorcycle, inadvertently interrupts a moment between Yahiro and Megumi, and catapults Hikari into the main tower. When Hikari comes to her senses, she realizes that she’s in Kei’s room.

Sensing that someone is coming by, Hikari hides in the Yappi rabbit suit, only to realize that it’s Kei, who still doesn’t want to see them. Questioning if that’s really true, Hikari tries to take off the head piece, but Kei stops her and asks her to leave as she is, claiming that seeing them would be too painful. Relieved to hear this, Hikari gives Kei a present and wishes him a happy birthday. Speechless, Kei decides to take off the head piece so that he can see Hikari’s face and recalls how she always gives him presents on his birthday. Kei then wonders if she realizes how much he eagerly anticipates them, how happy they make him, and how much he thinks about her. Opening the present, Kei finds dolls of each member of the S.A class, after which Hikari challenges him to continue the contest. Stating that there isn’t much time left in the day, Hikari stipulates that he has to return without any complaints if she wins, which Kei accepts, saying he’ll take her as his prize if he wins.

Seeing Kei chasing after Hikari, Aoi decides to call off the guards, informing them that there’s no end to this with how persistent their opponent is. Back at Hakusenkan, Sumire receives a phone call requesting the readmittance of the seven S.A members, which she happily accepts. Chasing Hikari all the way up a clock tower, Kei questions if she really hates losing to him that much, so Hikari says it’s because he’s special. With his ability to do anything since they were kids and her inability to beat him no matter how hard she tries, Hikari explains that he’s more amazing than anyone else and that she respects him as much as she hates him, before declaring that Kei’s her eternal rival. A gust of wind then comes by, blowing the bunch of flowers from Hikari’s pocket, so she leaps out for them. Instead of going for the flowers himself, Kei jumps in between, catches Hikari in his arms, and kisses her.

Back at the Hakusenkan greenhouse, Hikari shows everyone her test score where she got an extra 20 points for finishing 30 minutes early, making Akira think that she’ll beat Kei for sure this time. However, Kei arrives saying he finished the entire test in a minute and was awarded double the number of marks, before smiling at Hikari and calling her “Rank 2”. While frustrated, Hikari smiles back and tells Kei not to call her “Rank 2”.

 

Impressions:
Given how the last episode ended (and how they recapped it at the beginning of this episode), I have to admit that I’m slightly disappointed with the finale. The main reason for this is that they spent the majority of the episode emphasizing the strong bond between the S.A class. Once in London, they systematically had each of the members stay behind one-by-one so that Hikari could make her way towards Kei. While i could understand (and appreciate) the effect that they were going for, the whole endeavor came off a lot more silly than touching. In short, they were trying to highlight the nuances of each character and have them all work together to bring Kei back.

This includes Ryuu’s affinity with animals, Tadashi’s ability to survive any form of abuse (including lasers), Jun’s other self, Megumi’s singing (and speaking), and Akira’s overall love for Hikari. What I did enjoy though was how Yahiro and Sakura made appearances during all this, even though their presence there was never really explained. Yahiro reminded us of the role he played in the series, helping Tadashi for Akira’s sake and Megumi for his own, whereas Sakura triggered the other Jun in order to distract all the maids. All in all, it was cute how they brought everything together, but it wasn’t until the last third of the episode that they showed us what I really wanted to see—Hikari and Kei.

So as such, half of the screenshots that I decided to include were taken from the last third of the episode. It was only then that things really got good, with Kei wondering if Hikari realizes how much he looks forward to her presents, how happy it makes him regardless of what it is, and how much he thinks of her all the time. (Aww….) I actually teared up a bit seeing how taken back Kei was when Hikari gave him a present and wished him a happy birthday. Since Kei cherishes every present that Hikari has given him to this very day, including the pencil she gave him when they were kids, it speaks volumes about how much anything Hikari-related means to him. Kei even keeps the Yappi the Rabbit costume that Yahiro gave him, just because Hikari wore it once before.

As nice as that mood was, I found it befitting that they ended things with a contest, with Kei more interested in getting through to Hikari this time around rather than winning. While Kei probably could’ve easily won and had Hikari all to himself, I don’t think he wanted to force himself upon her, so it was nice to see things come full circle with the “Nii-tte Yuu na!” (“Don’t say rank 2!”) line. Except this time, Hikari seems a lot happier about hearing it.

 

Final Impressions:
Being a slice-of-life romance comedy with an excellent cast, Special A couldn’t have done much wrong in my eyes, regardless of whether it strictly followed the manga or not. Each of the characters were introduced and built up in such a way that made them easily amiable, despite the whole premise of the S.A class resembling the elite and arrogant F4 “class” in Hana Yori Dango. While I’m well aware they couldn’t include a lot of the material from the manga, including Finn (the girl for Ryuu), I think the anime on its own works pretty well. I’m still kind of iffy about how they decided to allocate the time in the last episode, but I’m pretty content with the actual ending itself. For a series such as this, it only makes sense to me that they end up where they started, except with most of the characters being closer to someone they care about. Since anime adaptations are usually intended to help promote the manga, I think this series has done a good job in that regard. In fact, I find myself wanting to read the manga just to see where Hikari and Kei’s relationship is now.

Looking back, I kind of wish that the production on this series was a bit better, since I feel this series deserved at least that much. For one, it wasn’t produced or aired in high definition (HD), nor did most of the episodes compare to the quality of episode seventeen. With that said, I don’t foresee a sequel for this series, but I guess DVD sales will ultimately decide that. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my coverage of this series as much as I did watching it and thanks again for reading!

 

Cast:
– Hanazono Hikari (華園 光) / Gotou Yuuko (後藤 邑子)
– Takishima Kei (滝島 彗) / Fukuyama Jun (福山 潤)
– Toudou Akira (東堂 明) / Nabatame Hitomi (生天目 仁美)
– Karino Tadashi (狩野 宙) / Shimono Hiro (下野 紘)
– Yamamoto Megumi (山本 芽) / Takagaki Ayahi (高垣 彩陽)
– Yamamoto Jun (山本 純) / Yonaga Tsubasa (代永 翼)
– Tsuji Ryuu (辻 竜) / Horie Kazuma (堀江 一眞)
– Takashima Sui (滝島 翠) / Shimizu Kaori (清水 香里)
– Saiga Yahiro (雑賀 八尋) / Taniyama Kishou (谷山 紀章)
– Ushikubo Sakura (牛窪 桜) / Kuwatani Natsuko (桑谷 夏子)
– Ogata Aoi (緒方 蒼) / Yusa Kouji (遊佐 浩二)
– Karino Sumire (狩野 菫) / Tanaka Atsuko (田中 敦子)
– Hikari’s father (光の父) / Imaruoka Atsushi (伊丸岡 篤)
– Hikari’s mother (光の母) / Nabei Makiko (鍋井 まき子)
– Butler (執事) / Sugisaki Ryou (杉崎 亮)

63 Comments

  2. Wonderful summary as always, and I’ll be sad to see that this is the final one for the series. 🙁 If you didn’t notice it when you first watched it, Finn appears for a brief second near the end when the screen pans to Ryuu looking up (at the clock tower, I think) and she is looking out at the window. I don’t think she was looking at him exactly, but that one second was still really cute!

    I enjoyed the ending for this series since, as you said, it fit so well. The anime definitely made me go out and buy the volumes and Show Spoiler ▼

    I wish the kiss wasn’t so bright (and sort of hard to see), though… I’d have liked to see it… but all-in-all, I was waiting for that kiss. 😀

    Lina
    Reply

  6. It wasn’t that bad, once it got past the one-shot challenge stories and began connecting, but the major criticism I have in this series is that the central focus tends to shift a lot. It’s like they were trying to develop the romantic relationship between Hikari and Kei and also the romantic relationships of the other characters, as well as them as individuals, and the S.A class as a cohesive unit.

    That’s all very fine to want to do that, but given the length of the series, I felt the distribution of character development as a little lopsided, mostly because the relationship of the two leading characters was rather rushed. And the pacing felt somewhat inconsistent (but maybe that’s my bias because I’ve read the manga). However, the competition ending was a nice way to bring it full circle, given how the series developed.

    Michiko
    Reply

  7. Thanks for blogging this series Divine! I myself am still waiting on vertigo and vnmanga to release the missing chapters, but the manga is really awesome..but up to where i’ve read..this doesn’t happen…sooooo…yeah! but the anime was pretty good! my only complaint was that there wasn’t enough of akiraxtadashi! (favourite couple!! 😉

    alliecatt
    Reply

  17. I enjoyed the series more than I thought I would, even though I knew I’d probably be disappointed with the ending (which was pretty predictable).
    However I didn’t expect neither Sakura nor Yahiro to show up, so that was fun.
    I was rather surprised at the forwardness Yahiro showed toward Megumi. Even though I like Megumi, I’m still hung up on the failure of YahiroxAkira… *sigh*
    And as always, I love the scenes with Ryuu and his animals…

    fiori
    Reply

  18. “However, Kei arrives saying he finished the entire test in a minute and was awarded double the number of marks”

    Seriously, this guy is just impossible… (ONE FRICKIN MINUTE TO FINISH AN EXAM???!!! The speed that he used to write the answer must have burned the exam sheet!!!)

    I am pretty sure that Kei and Hikari’s child must be super-Godlike… Only thinking about it starts creeping me like hell now.

    Kaitune
    Reply

  26. Wow, I waited a whole week for THIS? This is the most generic ending I have seen recently. Every single moment of this episode stank of generic cheesiness. Starting with the whole series of “Go ahead, I’ll take care of this (ugh, where have I seen that before…?)” and the random appearance of Yahiro and Sakura to the whole Deus Ex Machina…. When they finished with the whole “Niite YUUNNAAAA,” I just about had enough. Sure, it’s nice, but it’s almost like they didn’t even try to make this finale exciting at all.

    I’m so angry because this was one of my favorite anime I have seen in a while and they ended it in the most generic way possible.

    TMFAN
    Reply

  28. Just hope the sales are good enough and maybe we’ll get a s2, but the way it did end I don’t think so. The manga still doesn’t have kei and hikari together, and the anime just got them together, so doing more would be like a restart for them.

    GP
    Reply

  29. not being negative and all…it looks like there wouldn’t be a second season for this series. like ouran high school host club, there seems to be a closure already.

    how i wish that the ending would have had more focus on kei and hikari but since this was the last episode, the studio might have been thinking that they must have focus on S.A. as a whole.

    waaaaaah! this is making me feel so down!

    i’d like to thank divine for the awesome blogging! arigatou gozaimashita!

    i’m looking forward to the other anime you’re blogging!

    m(_ _)m

    Eri
    Reply

  30. @ fiori

    i know how you feel about the yahiroxakira pairing…i was pretty disappointed at first. afterwards, i started to understand why it hadn’t developed…

    CAN SOMEONE MAKE A FAN-FICTION OF THE YAHIROxAKIRA PAIRING?! CALLING S.A. FANS WHO ARE WRITERS OUT THERE!

    there. i somehow got my feelings out. lol.

    Eri
    Reply

  31. @ GP

    Kei and Hikari are boyfriend/girlfriend by chapter 54 of the manga (if I’m not mistaken).

    I guess looking forward to a second season will be wishful thinking based from the ending shown by the studio.

    Eri
    Reply

  32. thank you for the oh so complete summary. i hope this will keep me going till the subbed version is up.. though i think it will take about a week or so 🙁
    i heard a lot of ppl that read the manga are disappointed in the anime. i wonder why? maybe i should just read it and find out, since i’m left wanting more from this series anyway

    thanks again

    atori
    Reply

  40. Bad ending. They could have done so much better than give us the cheesy ‘I’ll handle this, you go get Kei because only you will be able to get through to him~’ crap. Kei x Hikari interaction in London was cute though but the ending was… anticlimatic. The Ni tte iu na!!! tirade is already used for so many times, it doesn’t leave a good impression.

    The hope for 2nd season is as tiny as hoping for Ouran HS Host Club Season 2. But I will cling to that hope. XD Kei x Hikari was sooooo cute!

    yuKime
    Reply

  42. noooo! it ended already oh my! oh my! i’m going to miss this a lot… but then the ending is great it’z so nice though.. awwwtz i didn’t even see Finn in here wich is actually the partner of Ryuu… haiz…i hope that there is still another season of S.A. i’m gonna miss this so much…i started reading the manga first and looked in youtube if there is a series of this then hwallaa!!! it’z here but now that it’z finished already i felt so sad absolutely sad… haizzz..

    aira
    Reply

  44. @aira

    Finn was there!!! A 2 second show of her by the window when Ryuu looked up towards the window. The guy (actually a girl) standing there was Finn! Pause the episode and you can tell by his (her actually) hair~

    Lol. Yahiro trying to kiss Megumi and Tadashi interrupting was sooooo cuute! X3

    yuKime
    Reply

  48. Special A finished in a way that without a second season, it still has a nice ending, but still left room for there to be a second season if the demand is high enough. The extra details they added about Kei’s grandfather, the president of Takashima Group (who eventually also tries to ruin Hikari and Kei’s relationship)and the brief picture of Finn (who is “the one” for Ryuu) will fit nicely if they decide to do a second season. I’d imagine it would cover Ryuu and Finn’s relationship, Hikari becoming so flustered with her relationship with Kei that she is on the verge of being kicked out of S.A for her dropping grades, and Kei’s grandfather. But if they don’t, the series had a nice ending with just one season too.

    killbethy
    Reply

  52. This show is pretty underrated, it had me laughing every episode.
    But i can’t believe that you liked ep 17’s animation, i thought it was horrid. The faces looked crooked and weird all the time.

    MegumixYahiro ftw btw, DO WANT MegumixYahiro OVA or just a second season.

    illusion
    Reply

  53. *cries silently*
    It’s over…Special A…

    😀 Hah! Of course I just mean the anime (well, duh!). But it’s still sad that it’s over. I’m looking forward to the upcoming manga volumes since I read the manga first.

    But I’m still tearing up *cries*

    ichigo_daisuki
    Reply

  54. I really enjoyed watching special a, mainly because of the whole ultimate rival thing but also because of its cuteness as well. I quite enjoyed this episode but I wish it had concentrated on Hikari and Kei a bit more. And I wished we could have seen the Megumi and yahiro kiss (stupid tadashi).
    And, as for the final kiss between hikari and kei, (i don’t know if they followed the manga on this one) but thw whole jumping of the tower thing was a bit unrealistic, no matter how superhuman Kei is. It was weird seeing them fall and watch them hug, think, and kiss all in the small period of time that they were falling. And I would have liked the kiss to be abit more visible, because all I saw was Hikari closing her eyes and then the actuall kiss a couple of shots later (maybe because the whole freakin thing was in light).
    Still, i loved it and thought it was a nice touch. A pretty good ending to special a. I think we will all remember the ‘nii’san’ thing.
    And, lets keep our fingers crossed for season 2 (hopefully)

    Random person
    Reply

  58. Yup, I am also a bit disappointed with the ending because I wanted more KeixHikari on the last episode… Anyway, it was a good finale of Special A, and though there’s a little possibility that it won’t have a season 2, I’m still hoping and praying that it still would… 🙂

    Turtle
    Reply

  62. really, really, really love this cute love story of the high school students…. I really hope there would be season 2….for I will really watch it even though in my most busiest moment in my life…….

    genuine_perfect14
    Reply

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