Tonikaku Kawaii S2 – 02

「幸せについて」 (Shiawase ni Tsuite)
“On the Subject of Happiness”

I love that Tsukasa’s goal in life is to spend as much time with Tsukasa as possible rather than working towards more money and status. He’s got a point. Life is short-why spend most of it working yourself to death for more money, only to miss out on special moments with the precious one for whom you’re working for. College isn’t for everyone and it’s silly to pressure people to get so deep into debt and stress for something that they might not need for what they would like to do (there are trade schools and other no degree required work). Having a college degree does broaden one’s outlook on the world and is absolutely needed for some fields (not to mention that taking classes is fun, for those who like to learn like I do). However, he’s still got plenty of time to decide on that-you can still go to college much later in life, if you want to go at all.

How heartwarming, Tsukasa and Nasa’s adorable bliss inspired Yanagi-sensei to go out and find her own happiness. While it’s important to do your job properly and care for the people in your life, it’s also important to take time for yourself. It’s pretty exhausting and depressing if you’re so busy living in other people’s lives that you don’t make time to live your own life.

The attitude “My future self will figure something out” reminded me of the mantra my friends and I would repeat when stressed about meeting all our deadlines in grad school “That’ll me the future me’s problem” (but Nasa’s version is much more positive-sounding). And indeed, things always worked themselves out and stressing too much over the future invariably made things worse. All you can do is live in the present day.

Tsukasa may be cute, but boy is she fierce, holding down the fort against the yazuka-wanna be, who happens to be none other than Nasa’s cousin. His galactic name was a dead giveaway that they were related (seriously, what’s with the Yuzaki family and outer space), but the family resemblance stops there. I can’t really tell if Ginga-kun is actually from a yakuza family (which would be a shocker, given how polar opposite that would be to Nasa and his parents) or just watches too many yakuza flicks. Regardless, what follows is a series of gangbuster double entendres in a style reminiscent of Gokushufudou.

While he’s rough on the outside, he’s still a blushing high school boy at heart, inexperienced in the some of the ways of the world (though he’s in good company, as Tsukasa and Nasa are too). And we have the old “The proof is in the kiss” bit, which frankly, is an awkward position to put anyone in, no matter how in love they are. But seriously, who could say no to that face? Thankfully, Nasa’s not only madly in love and break the class curve smart, but also sensitive to his wife, respecting the fact that she might not be comfortable with that then and there-nice to see a male character wait for the cues from his partner.

By far my favorite part of the episode was the last bit, with the arrival of the new Yuzaki, Toast. Such a freaking adorable name for a freaking adorable cat. Nasa’s math is correct- “cute plus cute equals double cute”, though he forgot to add himself into the equation, which makes for triple cute. I laughed so hard at Toast waking Nasa up for an early breakfast. When I had cats, I would wake up to those paws and intensely staring faces every Saturday morning. I wasn’t as easy going as Nasa, however, and would always roll over and pretend to go back to sleep rather than let the cats feel they won the battle (for the record, I did feed my cats, just on a strict schedule according to what other experienced cat caretakers recommended). Though I would still feel those intense gazes boring holes into my back. Nasa figuring out that Toast was just using him as its servant boy and actually preferred Tsukasa’s warmth was hilarious. It was also amusing to see Toast try to get in on the newlywed love-looks like Tsukasa and Nasa will need a cat-sitter or at least temporarily bring out the cat carrier.

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