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「昭和ブルース」 (Shouwa Buruuzu)
“Showa Blues”
In order to understand Arashi better, Hajime travels back in time to the Showa Era with the help of Yayoi. In 1940, Arashi is the same age as Hajime is now and got into her fair share of scuffles with punk kids. Not exactly what you would expect from a young girl from a wealthy family, but Hajime tags along and becomes a key memory of Arashi’s past — her first love.
Too bad we can’t all go back in time to make someone fall in love with us from the very beginning. Now wouldn’t that be a convenient use (abuse) of time travel? While that wasn’t Hajime’s intention, it’s what he ended up doing by putting his life on the line to protect Arashi. He was pretty smart about it too, believing that he’ll succeed since the future Arashi doesn’t have any injuries to show for this incident. His own safety wasn’t guaranteed, but he did make good on his determination by taking out the finger-chopping leader with a mere bokutou. I love how he feigned having a kendo background afterward too, just to help scare off the rest of the losers once he picked up the katana. This isn’t exactly the kind of cool character you’d envision from our glasses-wearing Hajime, but it was enough to impress both Arashi and her older brother Rintarou (Koyama Rikiya). Story-wise, watching Arashi take Hajime’s broken glasses as a memento and kissing him was really cute, especially when she added how he can kiss her on the lips in return when they meet again. With Kaya and Jun retrieving those glasses from Arashi’s past, she’s now well aware she’s already fallen in love with someone before, and that person was none other than Hajime himself.
Although things wrapped a bit quicker than I would’ve liked, this was a nice turn of events between Arashi and Hajime. Arashi was absolutely adorable when she was a somewhat rebellious kid, and I found myself seeing her current self in a slightly different light after learning how she was then. I’d say it’s akin to finding out something about someone that you wouldn’t have expected after talking about their childhood. Except here, I’d imagine things are much deeper and meaningful since Arashi’s past is actually linked to Hajime. After seeing the two of them timeslip together again followed by the “The End” 「おしまい」 on the tree, I felt this would’ve been a good way to conclude the season, especially once Shiraishi Ryoko’s “One Summer Experience” ending theme from season one started playing for the credits. SHAFT didn’t pad the time with Kanako/Yayoi stories nor their messed up orders, so we actually got a full twenty or so minutes of meaningful content too. I just hope they can build on this type of story in the remaining few episodes.
ED2 Sequence
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ED2: 「ひと夏の経験」 (Hito Natsu no Keiken) by 白石涼子 (Shiraishi Ryoko)
Watch the 2nd ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼
Preview
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FIRST!!!
Seems like a nice episode.
I think it’s likely that the last few eps will be standalones, like the last ep of season 1.
my favourite episode of Natsu Arashi so far….i loved d look of the salt guy…that was priceless ……
A full episode of this show with meaningful content? That’s a shaft crime punishable by constant placard death. Sentence to be carried out in episode 11
They should make more episodes like this, where the time travel is really used as a plot device to develop the relationships. Now all thats left to be desired is continuity between story arches.
Chibi-Arashi was so cute and so funny to watch =D
i felt the arc a little rushed and would have liked it to by a little longer, but it was cool. I hope the following episodes will continue like this.
Great episode!
3 things to watch for in this episode:
(1) Kaya’s reaction…priceless <3
(2) Street Fighter Ryu/Ken Losing pose…almost fell off my chair when I saw that
(3) Horse’s expression when Arashi’s brother showed up out of nowhere
And for once Sayaka is in a great dress without camera focusing on her boobs.
tbh, I would like to see romance between Hideo and Sayaka (don’t hit me, Kanako fans!)
It was a great ep; however I think they did rush it. Hajime was great, after the bashing he got at the beginning. It was nice to see him use any trick to win his fight. He did got punched heavily so he gave his all. The way they tie up the time traveling paradox, by bringing back the glasses for Arashi, was very well done. It brought memories how they did it with Hideo in sea. 1 I have a bad stress thinking about when the end of summer comes. Will all this love will be lost? I was expecting an HajimexJun ending but now I have doubts! They just can’t vanish all the girls I refuse an ending like that.
Show Spoiler ▼
cutemi2:
Are you that eager to read my post about SoraOto 10 or something? Just can’t wait any longer? =P
That’s not proper kendo, I tell you.
Can’t figure out who Renton is fighting in the cameo. The ponytail is so familiar but I just can’t place it. Grr!
Even if the humor this season kinda sucked, I’m glad to see that the drama is still done well.
One question : What is the insert song in the first appearence of young Arashi ?
“Sailor-fuku to Kikanjuu” 「セーラー服と機関銃」 according to the credits, which translates to “Sailor Suit and Machine Gun”. It’s sung by Shiraishi Ryoko (Arashi) here, but the original is by Yakushimaru Hiroko.
Thanks.. that song remained in my head for about a week…
when this song Sailor-fuku to Kikanjuu – Shiraishi Ryoko come out??
Sweet! I am not watching this anime, but now I want to watch the whole series just to reach this particular episode. it is just so lovely 🙂