It did come out before I left! YAY.

Synopsis:

If last week’s teaser shot at the end didn’t give it away, this episode of HCII takes a more depressing road. The episode starts off with a monologue from Hagu and some teaser shots of more broken glass. She basically says that when she was small she saw God and that inspired her to begin drawing. Furthermore, that if she ever lost the ability to draw she might as well die at that moment, foreshadowing anyone?

So with the Hamabi festival underway, things are being moved around in preparation. Hagu and Takemoto are reviewing his huge…tower…thing. Hagu praises it and Takemoto blushes like a shy bishoujo in mid-confession. As the conversation switches gears to the future, Takemoto tells Hagu that he plans to join the reconstruction team and travel japan repairing temples and such. Hagu falls into a sense of nostalgia, thinking of how sad it will be when everyone parts ways and won’t be able to see each other anymore and do the things that they take for granted in daily life. Takemoto takes the opportunity to ask her if she really intends to go back to Nagano and stop her art career. Hagu still thinks that it’s unreasonable to ask Shuu-chan to divert his life for her sake.

And so as that conversation ends and Hagu takes a walk, a strong wind picks up and blows a pane of glass into a ledge, shattering it and sending the glass projectiles onto the victim below…Hagu. Slowly the news begins to spread around campus and eventually Shuu-chan gets a call informing him of what happened. Takemoto hears the news through word of mouth and rushes to the scene to see a blood covered sidewalk and news that it was indeed Hagu. Yamada meets Takemoto there and tells him what happened and that Shuu will call them when there’s news and until then to stay on campus.

At the hospital we learn that Hagu needed a considerable amount of stitches to a gash on her head and severe damage to her right hand. Takemoto and Yamada are at her bedside and ask her how she’s doing, she tells them that her head hurts a little but her hand feels no pain…not a good sign >_< And indeed, Shuu tells Hagu that the nerves and tendons in her right hand have been cut and it will take months of recovery and rehab to ensure they heal properly, even then there's no guarantee that her hand will be able to function as it did before. Lesson? Never foreshadow your own downfall.

In other events, Rika seems to be doing much better with Mayama acting as her guard dog. As he distracts the Spanish dude with copious amounts of drinking and arguing, Rika is free to do her work in peace and get a good night's sleep. She also acknowledges the fact that it is probably because of Mayama that she is able to enjoy herself.

As for the Morita brothers, they finally reach their goal, exceeding the 35% share holding of the company that bought out their father's company, they stage a takeover. Kaoru totally owns the guy, he hands him workers overalls, evicts him from his house, threatens him with lawsuits and tells him that his descendants will go through the same hardship as they did, many times over. As with many people who achieve revenge, Kaoru breaks down. With nothing left after directing his anger and energy into seeking vengeance, he goes into a fit and falls apart on the sidewalk. His brother remains quite calm throughout the whole ordeal and consoles his Kaoru as he apologizes to his father for being unable to move on.

Wow, what a ride.

Thoughts:

I didn’t particularily like this episode, it had a whole lot of drama and the plot twist didn’t live up to it. Not to say that I’m heartless though, I really feel for Hagu. The most important thing to her in life is to be able to create art, she even goes as far to say that without it she’d rather die. And what happens? Exactly that. Although it’s not set in stone that she won’t recover, I think it would be too optimistic to think that she will.

The glass shattering scene was amazingly done, even though I saw it coming from a mile away. The angles, reflections, morement and animation of the shattering glass was breathtaking, when it rained down I cringed as I could imagine the pain. This, everyone, is what happens when glass breaks. You don’t jump through a window completely unharmed, you get pwned, there’s blood and pain. It’s nice to see anime being more realistic than Hollywood for once ^^.

As for the MayamaXRikaXSpanish Guy triangle we’ve got going on…to be honest, it’s a rather weak sub plot. It serves the purpose to show that Rika is warming up to Mayama, but then it’s completely refutes it later on by showing that Mayama is still acting like a stalker and that Rika hasn’t fully accepted him yet. As for the Spanish guy, he’s a completely redundant character, although should he prove to be a parallel to Mayama, his worth may be redefined…we’ll see.

And finally the Morita brothers, with their plan executed perfectly, what do they plan to do now? Continue to inflict suffering onto the corporate tycoon who bought their father out and pass the suffering to his kids? That makes them no better than he was. I’m no idealist and I won’t say that two wrongs don’t make a right or any other patronizing falsities, but I will say that what they are doing is not right. The man is a typical business man, he played his cards and came out on top, you did the same and beat him in round two, leave it at that. No need to threaten him and relegate him to nothingness, I understand that they are mad, but it’s business, it’s a harsh world. Not to say that I hate them though, they are admirable in their actions, but they’re just being sadistic if they continue.

All in all it was a well done episode, but I just think that they strayed from the unique feel that only Honey & Clover has, an indescribable drama that rises from a sense of calm. The drama used in this episode was very direct, cause and effect drama. Whereas the rest of the series conveys drama rather subtely, using small yet distinct recurring themes and events to slowly build character attatchment and then uses slight changes to offset the situation and create drama. This episode relies on a direct dramatic turning point to convey emotion and although executed well, it was just too much of a change from the HC that I’ve come to enjoy. It was an excellent episode, it just felt like a completely different anime.

Not much to work with in terms of screencaps this week >.>

Creepy…

So, so creepy >_< Stalker!

Apple juice anyone?

Hagu sympathy…rising….rising…infinite.

Victories

- Glass shattering scene, very well animated and executed
- Hagu drama, although predictable
- Takemoto screentime!
- Hagu screentime!
- Takemoto’s reaction to the accident, shocked and saddened yet unable to cry, poor guy =(
- Hagu’s courage to stand up to reality

Phailures

- Insert song, though it matched, I didn’t really like the backtrack
- Mayama, he’s seriously creeping me out
- Rika, they’ve been making her seem childish lately
- Spanish guy…ok shall we just say this whole arc in general?
- Kaoru’s cruelty and misunderstanding
- Weakness of the foreshadowing

That’s all from me until next week! Ja ne

~ Shirukii ~