Paradise Kiss – 03

Summary:
George gets Yukari’s telephone number and promises to call her sometime soon. Yukari thus becomes fixated on her telephone, and, in the meantime, decides to reunite Miwako and Tokumori under the pretense of having tea. She panics when George passes her and Tokumori walking down the street together and tries to call out to him, but he doesn’t respond. The two arrive at the cafe, and Miwako is very surprised to see Tokumori. Yukari leaves the two of them alone and goes to the studio, wondering if Arashi and Hiroyuki fought over Miwako in the past. She runs into George, and, when he walks past her, she asks why he’s ignoring her. George claims it’s jealousy, so Yukari tries to explain that Tokumori is just a classmate. George pulls Yukari in and almost kisses her, but his cell phone rings. He leaves after answering it, promising to continue this later. Back at the cafe, Hiroyuki and Miwako’s conversation is relatively short, climaxing after Tokumori says that he’s gotten over what happened two years ago – when Miwako told him that she doesn’t want to see him again. After Yukari gets out of school that night, she sees Miwako waiting for her. Yukari notices that something is wrong and asks Miwako about it. Miwako admits that she didn’t want to talk about Tokumori because she thought that Yukari also liked him, which Yukari denies. They go to a restaurant where Miwako pulls out some magic medicine which Yukari identifies as candy. After telling Yukari that Arashi and Tokumori gave that to her, Miwako confesses that she’s stuck between loving both of them, but ended up choosing Arashi. Yukari tells Miwako that since she chose Arashi, and since she’s happy with him now, she should keep Arashi as her most important person. Miwako is happy to hear that and returns to Arashi’s place that night. The next day, Yukari gets fed up with waiting for George to call and calls him herself. George wants to meet with her, so Yukari goes to the studio to find him waiting. George gives her one last option out, but Yukari refuses to take it, so George kisses her. George’s phone starts to ring again, and he picks it up only after Yukari mentions it.

Well this episode is certainly disappointing. There was a bit of speculation last week on how this series would finish all five volumes if it moved at a two-to-three-chapters-per-episode pace. This episode certainly answers that question by covering a little over five chapters. That’s great news for them for getting through all five volumes in the 12 episodes….BUT the amount of stuff they cut out is starting to take away from the story. For instance, I don’t feel like the anime has nearly as many moments talking about how Yukari loves Tokumori (in the beginning) as the manga does. This is a critical contrast when she is falling in love with George. Another example would be when Yukari arrives at school the day after consoling Miwako. Her conversation with Tokumori ends with him realizing that Miwako told her everything. The manga continues on with Yukari asking Tokumori if he knows that Miwako still loves him very much, though he avoids answering.
The other major complaint I have with this episode is where it chooses to end. I think they could have gotten a much more dramatic ending, akin to last week, if they had stopped at the end of chapter 10, with the kiss. Instead, the scene extends into the beginning of chapter 11 with George picking up his phone. To me, this ruined the mood of the first kiss scene.
The animation and direction style is about the same as last week. There are plenty of close-ups, distance shots, and random scenery, but not much in between. Not sure whether it’s intentionally directed that way or whether its due to cutting corners (or both), but I’m still having problems with this “style.” And as usual, there is no preview, so who knows how far they’ll go in episode four.