This turned out to be one of those anime that I don't feel like picking back up if I take a break - however, after watching an episode, I want more. It's not perfect, but it still has a good hook.
This episode was pretty heavily centred on Kaname, beginning with a
goukon that Chizuru decided to hold with the group (including Masaki). Due to the uneven numbers in gender, Chizuru decided to have Yuki and Shun pose as girls. His drive for the goukon was simply that youngsters needed to do it - I think he meant "socialize", but even then this was ridiculous. I wonder about Kaname's underlying sadness; such a thing can't be good. I hope he's just ennui in the sense that some people tend to blow up their emotions even though it's not that serious; otherwise, I wonder why he's so depressed.
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| That's all it takes to fall in love. |
It turned out that Kaname knew his teachetr, Azusa-sensei, from a long time ago, based off the flashback to their days in kindergarten. (There's been a lot of those so far; now that more characters have been introduced, I wonder if they'll be more included from now on in these character-building side stories.) Basically, Azusa-sensei did some kind of "co-op" at the kindergarten when he was in high school, and Kaname saw him as a threat for Kaori-sensei's love. It doesn't look like Kaori-sensei ended up with Azusa-sensei or anything (I have this thing against teachers ending up together; it's just a little too well packaged...), and neither Kaname nor Azusa-sensei seem to understand that they met before (maybe Kaname does and just doesn't point it out).
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| Rich housewife? |
Predictably, Kaname came down with a cold after the goukon from earlier in the episode was washed out. I say "predictably", but it's always annoyed me how easily some characters in anime get sick after being drenched with water. After just watching another episode of
Working'!!, it's just a burning question in my mind. Can people really get so sick so easily? And on such a regular basis? That aside, Kaname was so sick that he couldn't go to school and the others (except for Masaki, whose role in this episode was minimal at best) came to visit. Shun thought that Yuki and Chizuru had taken notes, but it turned out they hadn't. (In fact, the two had really just come to "borrow" Kaname's notes.)
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| I wonder where Kaname gets his personality from. |
It's interesting to see how young Kaname's mother looks and acts; is she actually a young mother, or just a wannabe? (If Kaname's family is rich, like the insinuations, then could this "mother" actually be the trophy wife?) The funny thing is that being so clingy with your son looks cute on anime, but is actually kind of creepy in real life. However, Kaname seemed to handle his mother well enough, and was all-too-happy to have her head off to the supermarket. On her way out, she ran into the childhood friend - Aida Hisako, who seems to clearly have a crush on Kaname. It's really nice that Chizuru is new to the group, because then the introductions don't feel forced at all (plus, the writers need to come up with less quirky ways of revealing characters' names and "positions", meaning less room for error).
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| He does like older women, after all. |
This episode seemed to have the theme of "love" (or something similar), seeing as how it showed blatant hints of Masaki's crush on Shun during the goukon scene and made it kind of clear that Kaname had a crush on Hisaki's older sister, Shizuna. I wonder what kind of development I can expect with this series; I deeply want Shun and Masaki to be together, but I'm not really that invested in the other characters' relationships (yet). I do hope there's at least
some development with this anime; as nice of a change of pace as it is to see a group of boys instead of a group of guys, I still don't want it to be about
nothing.
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| Go get him, Masaki! |
So, the episode right after Chizuru's big introduction included some other introductions too. I guess the character list isn't over yet, despite all the characters from the OP already being around. The next episode seems to feature the typical summer festival. My only question is
when will Shun get his hair cut?
~Aaro
