First Impressions / Special A

「敏感・鈍感」 (Binkan / Donkan)
“Sensitive / Thickheaded”

Still curious as to what Yahiro said to Hikari the other night, Kei continues to ask her, but she refuses to tell him. Later on, the S.A class is arguing about what they should do as a retreat together, so Kei suggests settling this with a competition. When Tadashi says that Kei will just win anyway, he tells the others that he doesn’t care where they go, so he’ll pass the decision to second place. In return however, he tells Hikari that if he wins, he gets to order her to do something. Unable to refuse a contest, Hikari accepts, but the others feel like they’re being used just so that Kei can ask Hikari something. Akira is bothered by this and him messing with Hikari again, so she declares that the competition will be tomorrow and that she’ll determine the details.

The next day, the match turns out to be a race, but several “handicaps” are in place for each contestant. For Megumi, Jun, and Akira, their handicaps turn out to be either nothing or an advantage (mountain bike, inline skates), whereas Tadashi and Ryuu have weights plus a 30 second delay, and Hikari has weights plus a one minute delay. Kei on the other hand has weights, is strapped to a chair in a straight jacket and hood, and has a two minute delay. Shortly after everyone has started aside from Hikari and Kei, Akira radios Tadashi to commence her plan to make Kei lose. Megumi and Jun on the other hand decide that they’re happy as long as Ryuu doesn’t come in first or second, so they feign injury, then cling onto him for an afternoon nap. Meanwhile, Hikari has started running and Kei easily breaks out of his restraints and takes off as well.

While Tadashi doesn’t think Kei will fall for such obvious traps, Kei is easily suckered into traps with Hikari’s home-made onigiri and a picture of her. However, Kei easily breaks out of the traps (including jumping out of a 50 meter deep hole) and continues along as normal. After a gigantic robot fails to stop Kei as well (which was supposed to resemble Hikari by the way), Akira resorts to using wild beasts to fight a wild beast (i.e. Kei). Things of course don’t go quite as planned as Kei even befriends a lion that was sent to stop him, so Akira attempts to kill him by detonating a cliff that he’s standing on. Kei surprisingly survives along with his new lion friend and proceeds to catch up with Hikari in the race. At this point, Tadashi has given up saying Kei’s not human, but Akira sends him out on another attempt.

At the greenhouse (which is also the goal), Kei has won the race so he asks Hikari to tell him what Yahiro said to her the other night. Always willing to uphold her end of the stakes, she begins to tell him, but Tadashi comes crashing through the window in a motorcycle, drowning out her words. Kei saves Hikari from being run over, then proceeds to beat Tadashi to a pulp. With Tadashi down and out, Kei asks Hikari again, so she tells him that Yahiro told her that he likes her. Hearing this, Kei is relieved that Hikari finally understands his feelings, but she quickly dismisses the thought saying that they’re rivals and that it’s not possible. Kei on the other hand is amazed that a human can be this thickheaded and sighs to himself.

 

Next Episode:
「旅・犬」 (Tabi / Inu)
“Trip / Dog”

Impressions:
LOL, Akira is so freaken psychotic that it’s awesome! I couldn’t stop laughing when she detonated the cliff Kei was on, said she had no choice, gave Kei a quick mourning (“I’ll never forget you”), and then started to laugh sadistically while claiming that Hikari is all hers now. Having Tadashi there to throw in the wise-ass remarks at all of Akira’s failures just added to the hilarity throughout the episode. While it was nice to see them continue the story from last time with Kei trying to find out what Yahiro said to Hikari, I really liked how Akira and Tadashi took center stage. Nabatame Hitomi in particular, really brings out the wackiness in Akira, which is similar to how she portrayed Suou Mikoto in School Rumble. Shimono Hiro on the other hand, was basically trademark Touhouin Ikuto from Nagasarete Airantou this time around with the extra screen time Tadashi got. In Hiro’s case, I like the fact that he can play more serious roles such as Hirono Hiro from ef – a tale of memories., but I love his random outbursts in comedic roles. While Tadashi usually gets abused by Akira, he sure got a thrashing from Kei at the end of this episode.

As for Kei, you just have to feel sorry for him for liking Hikari. He may be an invincible super human, but Hikari sure destroys him from the inside out. I wonder how much more he can put up with before he snaps from all these roller coaster ride emotions she subjects him to. I for one thought Kei was going to lose it at the end of this episode after Hikari dismissed the idea that he could really like her. After all, he sure looked like he was close to the breaking point. Speaking of Kei, he’s always so serious, but that in itself is pretty funny at times. I found it pretty hilarious when he was in a straight jacket with a hood over his head and breathing like Darth Vader. Kei was such a good sport about his “handicap” and didn’t even complain once about it. He even responded calmly when talked to. =)

The episode as a whole was absolutely ridiculous with the competition that Akira set up; however, when I watch Special A, suspension of disbelief tends to get the better of me, at which point, it’s just darn hilarious from there on in. Once you get over the fact that Kei is super human and can survive anything, watching Akira try to capture (…kill?) him using his only weakness (Hikari) is just fun times. Next episode looks like they’re going on the retreat they were competing to decide for and Hikari (coming in second) has decided to go to either a beach or a tropical resort of some sort. Given how this episode went, I hope the next one will have its moments as well.

 

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)
– Saiga Yahiro (雑賀 八尋) / Taniyama Kishou (谷山 紀章)

31 Comments

  2. Akira=Win.
    “Kei~~~~ I shall never forget you~~~”->Sadistic Laughter

    Also, those animals were
    “I dropped by Ryu’s place yesterday”
    The more amazing thing is that Ryu hangs out with all those animals.

    Rauzes
    Reply

  6. I think knows about what he feel.

    She doesn’t know how to react so she just say’s she can’t imagine it 😛

    you need a “Thickheaded” to know a “Thickheaded” 😛

    teutates
    Reply

  7. @teutates

    Nah, what she needs it Kei to just grab her, and kiss her. That will drive the message home in a flash. But then I suppose Kei wants her to figure it out herself also. *sigh*. Just go plant a big one on her and take it from there.

    GP
    Reply

  10. @ GP

    Show Spoiler ▼

    spoiler tags added by divine

    Michiko
    Reply

  22. @rawfish
    Some people prefer the anime’s drawing style over the mang’s, but personally I feel that the manga is quite funnier and not as cheesy as the anime. Umm… But that is personal opinion though.

    Kaitune
    Reply

  25. @Copier:
    Thanks for the heads-up. That site’s just blatant plagiarism of Omni’s Macross Frontier posts and my Special A ones. He’s using all our screenshots as his own too.

    I’ll talk this over with Omni.

    divine
    Reply

  28. For the first time ever since watching this series, I actually laughed. A lot. Out loud. Kei’s first handicap in the race was definitely one of the major highlights for me. And just for that, this is my fave so far.

    Now if only they could get rid of the lame-o watercolor scenes…it really breaks the flow of the entire ep =/

    colpol
    Reply

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