Tonikaku Kawaii S2 – 06

「月影の上で」 (Tsukikage no ue de)
“Underneath the Moon”

So much drama around a single question that isn’t even “Will you go out with me?” or “Will you marry me?”-two questions which they’ve already gotten past or even skipped over entirely. Nasa even points out the obvious to himself, there’s nothing wrong or “illegal” with taking an onsen trip and shared bath with Tsukasa because they are married. Though the way Nasa reacts to his yukata clad wife, you’d think such cuteness should be illegal with the near death state it induces him into-hilariously cute. Though even if they weren’t married, it would still be perfectly fine.

I get it, I suppose things can be a little awkward or embarrassing when first starting out in a relationship and trying to gauge the couple dynamic and how you feel about each other. But they’re way beyond that at this point. I mean, if they didn’t want to be with each other like that, they probably wouldn’t have gotten married-just a friendship or even roommate-ship would have done. Plus, if he read Tsukasa’s signals, it’s clear she’s just as interested though embarrassed as he is, so really, no need to be nervous about asking. At the same time, it was cute to see them nervously blushing and dancing around the dilemma. I never cease to wonder at how such a frustrating set up always succeeds in being so adorable every week-truly the charm of Nasa and Tsukasa.

Surprisingly, we didn’t get any more hints into Tsukasa’s background after the landmine of hints from last week. When Nasa asked how old Kusatsu was, I was expecting Tsukasa to drop another personal historical anecdote with Yoshimune or the like, but she ends up reading the 300 year history off of the plaque. It was amusing that as knowledgeable a guy that Nasa is, some things escape his notice like the existence of onsen salts. Like wedding planning, if it never captured his interest or wasn’t something he wondered about before, then it’s non-existent to him. Not that I blame him really, I didn’t know about onsen salts either. We do get some progress with Tsukasa opening up for, I think, the first time, shedding a little light on Tokiko’s role as her guardian. Tsukasa, the proclaimed “Ice Queen” simply needs time to warm up. And what better place to turn up the heat than the open air bath inside their room (cue the blushes).

Everything leads up to the open air bath and unlike the manga that Nasa browses, no swimming suits are included (I mean, obviously, since it’s a bath). They get their long awaited for moment in the moonlight with an exchange of “I love you” (or in indirect terms a la Natsume Soseki, “ the moon is pretty”). Even Tsukasa sums up the courage to express her feelings into words-though not after Nasa fishes around for it. This was a bit of a break through episode for Tsukasa in that she’s learning to become more open with Nasa, both in affection and in opening up about herself personally.

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