First Impressions / sola

Summary:

With Matsuri getting settled down in his home, Yorito is ready to go to school again, but he panics when Mana drops by to pick him up. Fortunately, Matsuri hides herself, so Mana still doesn’t find out that Yorito has a guest. After school, Yorito goes to see his sister in the hospital and presents her with another doll that she doesn’t like. He doesn’t stay long because he wants to get back home, but this causes Aono to be unhappy. When Mana tells him that he’s acting strangely, Yorito denies it and hurries off. Mana meanwhile heads to her job as a waitress at a family restaurant, and she runs into Tsujidou and Mayuko eating there again. She assumes that they are a family, but Tsujidou reacts with surprise to being called Mayuko’s father. Back at home, Yorito finds that Matsuri has bought a ton of avocado-flavored ramen. Their conversation is eventually interrupted by the doorbell ringing because Mana is here to cook for Yorito. He tries to keep Mana out, but she’s concerned about him and forces her way in. Matsuri again manages to hide herself before Mana can see her, though Mana does find all the ramen in the kitchen instead. After Mana starts cooking nikujaga, she discovers that Yorito’s is out of numerous kitchen staples including sugar and salt, all of which Matsuri had spilled earlier. After making Yorito leave to go buy more, she heads upstairs to see if he’s hiding something. However, she doesn’t find anything strange in Yorito’s room or any of the other rooms.

The surprise comes when she returns to the kitchen and finds a hungry Matsuri eating at the table. By the time Yorito gets home, the two girls have already started getting acquainted with each other, but that doesn’t prevent the subsequent dinner from being awkward. Having a hard time coming up with excuses, Yorito tries to tell Mana that Matsuri is his cousin. When Mana asks who Matsuri really is in relation to Yorito, Matsuri thinks about the question for a long time, but doesn’t come up with anything. Mana ultimately concludes that Matsuri is something like a stray cat, and when she presses Yorito for the truth, he admits that he didn’t tell Mana because she’s a blabbermouth and he didn’t want to worry his sister. Mana agrees not to say anything about all this and accepts Matsuri, though it’s Matsuri who then leaves the room to give Yorito and Mana some alone time. Wanting to talk more with Matsuri, Mana goes after her, but finds the girl gone. Mana becomes very worried because of this and tries to make Yorito go look for Matsuri. He never manages to get past the front door because Matsuri soon returns with all her luggage. She thinks that the two of them are going on a date, so Yorito and Mana have to clear up her misconception that they are lovers. The next day, Yorito arrives in time for school and greets only Mana, causing her friend Sae to get suspicious that something happened.

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Well the first half of the episode wasn’t that interesting, but the second half after Mana discovered Matsuri was much more fun to watch since the two girls and Yorito interact in a very amusing way. This episode is the first one so far not to have any action scenes (which I suspect we might not be seeing again for a while), so it comes off feeling much more slice-of-life and less mysterious (though there was the oddity of Matsuri staring at the sky from inside the house near the beginning of the episode). Overall, I don’t consider that a bad thing since they pulled it off pretty well, though I do feel that Mana finding out about Matsuri could have taken less than an entire episode.
Next week’s episode looks to be about Aono and Koyori, and the preview had a very cute tongue twister by the two of them.

23 Comments

  9. well every “sad” anime seires (assuming it will be a sad ending) need a couple of light hearted eps..or else it will be too tragic and not balanced enough..well thats my take on it…ne ways i do hope that this series wont dissapoint…since it started out fairly strong…

    iRoar
    Reply

  10. YES As you all could imagine a FAT OTAKU(not me of course ) like the satou san from NHK saying :

    ” AHHHHH KONEKO CHAN TACHI !! KKAAAWWWWWAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!! ”
    T_T -> 😛

    tensai_otaku
    Reply

  14. @Omni
    Matsuri just haven’t seen the sky “underneath” it… It haven’t said that she haven’t seen it behind the glass or something.
    So nothing odd there I think…

    Hilarious…completely hilarious…jokes felt so natural to me here…no nerve breaking characteristics or mannerisms…

    Anacone
    Reply

  19. “This anime’s concept is made by Naoki Hisaya (main writer of Kanon).”

    He was the sub-writer, actually. Kanon’s main writer is still in charge of operations at Key (Air, Clannad, Little Busters).

    “No this is a senin mean for guys age 15 and over I think.
    After all this is the daioh and the are famous for making BIshoujo mangas.”

    Yes, there’s kind of a culture clash here.

    Over in Japan, there’re plenty of romantic stories aimed at male otaku who aren’t bound to Western perceptions of masculinity. Remember that these products are often criticized for being exploitative (i.e. sexualization of schoolgirls + any associated character stereotypes), so female audiences aren’t even part of the marketing plan.

    glacier
    Reply

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