First Impressions / Hatsukoi Limited

Summary:

As word spreads that Misao got defeated by a junior high school girl, there’s only one other person person who knows that it was Ayumi who did it. That person is Misao’s little brother Mamoru, and unfortunately, he’s also the one that Ayumi likes. She wants to give him cookies for taking her to the infirmary, however it turns out that her older brother ate them already and left her a note saying that they were burnt. Mamoru’s friend Kusuda quickly realizes that Ayumi likes Mamoru, but since Mamoru has no interest in her, Kusuda figures out that there’s someone else that he already likes. Kusuda bugs him about it, so Mamoru takes him to the high school and shows him the beautiful girl that he likes. Kusuda is impressed and vows to help Mamoru, and they go over to Mamoru’s house. What Mamoru didn’t want Kusuda to know, and what Kusuda finds out when he’s at the Zaitsu home, is that the girl is actually Mamoru’s next door neighbor and childhood friend Yamamoto Misaki.

Misaki’s is able to climb over to the Zaitsu home from her house through Mamoru’s window, and she does so because she needs to go talk to his older brother. Misao ends up telling her about how he likes Ayumi, and after Misaki tries to understand what it is about Ayumi that he likes, she admits that love and dating is too much of a bother for herself, so she can’t help him much. When Misaki passes through Mamoru’s room again to get back to her own house, Kusuda stops her and puts her to sleep with a string of puns. Kusuda sees this as their chance, but Mamoru refuses to let him touch her. Unfortunately for the both of them, Misaki is able to pull off some devastating martial arts moves while half-asleep. The next morning, Misaki gets a text message from Misao saying that, even though it’s stalker-like, he went to Ayumi’s house again because he was worried about her. Recognizing how hard it is to like someone, Misaki feels that she’s okay for now without love.

Preview

This was a pretty good second episode, and I liked it more than the first one if for no other reason than the fact that I prefer Misaki’s character over Ayumi’s. That of course wasn’t the only reason. As I said last week, I tend to think of Hatsukoi Limited as a series of short stories or one-shots, however this second episode appears to show that the anime is trying to tie those stories together better than the manga did. The additional scenes with Misao and with Ayumi changed the focus of the episode so that it wasn’t just about Mamoru, and the scene between Misao and Misaki gave a lot of development to both of their characters. That should be a good thing assuming they animate the later Misaki stories as well.

The animation style also didn’t really bother me this week like it did the first episode, so I probably just got used to it. In general, the anime adaptation is about as fun as I remember the manga being, especially with some of Kusuda’s antics, so I’m planning on continuing watching and blogging this. And speaking of which, the production staff appears to be skipping over the next manga chapter in favor of more Kusuda and Kei. It’s probably because this series is only going to be one season long, and Yuu (the girl the next story would have been about) is a relatively minor character, so it’s not a huge loss.

30 Comments

  6. Didn’t get to watch the episode, but if it is like you’re saying, then maybe I should pick it up. The manga was pretty much all over the place, so if the adaptation is better then let’s give a try. XD

    @Camarilla
    Cross Game is a sunday show though… And QB is something to be watched? Or laughed? Seriously.

    Sniperk
    Reply

  16. Wow they’ve given us a look at what happened in Misao’s room (since in the manga all that was shown of it were later discussions about it). And they’ve also shown us that there’s two people who could beat/subdue Misao: 1. Ayumi, and 2. Misaki.

    Oh yeah, interesting call to move the scene of Misao feeding the birds to this part of the story. So I presume that chapter about Misao himself will likely be cut down a bit and merged with another chapter if not removed entirely (and likewise, the rest of the series will be “optimized” similarly, so it won’t quite follow the manga exactly but will cover the story with a nice flow to it).

    Sailor Enlil
    Reply

  19. I never expected to see mma moves in this anime, or any at all actually. The first move she does to the older bro is an armbar, and the second move she does to the little bro is an ankle lock. If you watch promotions such as Japan’s defunct Pride and the continuing Dream on youtube, you’ll find that the Japanese fighters do the ankle lock a lot more than other fighters.

    It’s interesting that these indicate she either watches/does jujitsu or mixed martial arts, but in the past anime/manga had girls who watched/did wrestling moves to hapless main characters. I guess it shows how far the sport of mma has gone.

    If you want to watch entertaining fights, look up Genki Sudo. He’s my favorite all time fighter. Norifumi Kid is an asshole.

    Stargazer
    Reply

  20. Girls who only care about the looks and DRAMA all over the place, it’s like high school all over again. Do not want. I always wondered why do people find such shows enjoyable.

    Zenzen
    Reply

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