Deredere Nanaka = love

Myself; Yourself continues to impress me in that it follows nearly every typical harem convention to the letter, but remains interesting and doesn’t give me the feeling I’m watching a copypasta of say, Shuffle.

Lots of development in the NanakaXSana relationship this episode, as well as some hints to Sana’s past (CRAAAAWLING IN MY SKIIIIIN). And of course, some fanservice.

Episode Rating: 9/10

While doing some exercise, Shuu and Shuri think about what to do with Sana and Nanaka, as everything seems to be going wrong between the two. The next day at school they reveal their plan, a trip to the river where the five of them used to hang out a lot at as kids and a trip to the newly opened spa afterwards. Aoi offers to make lunch for the trip but Shuu insists that he’ll reel in a ton of fish at the lake and all that will be needed is some tea and rice balls.

As the four of them head back inside after lunch, Nanaka is sitting in the classroom when a couple of students horsing around bump into her, making her drop her mirror. When Sana walks into the class, busy talking to everyone else, he ends up stepping on it by accident. He apologizes profusely but gets the usual cold attitude from Nanaka, who says that it wasn’t particularly expensive anyways and walks off. To make things between them even worse, Nanaka spots Sana in the shopping district that day after school, with Hoshino of all people.

But the next day, Sana redeems himself by giving Nanaka a new mirror to replace the one he broke. Not only that, but it also helps relieve Nanaka’s jealousy when she realizes that the reason Sana and Hoshino were together yesterday was he was shopping for the mirror. Shuu and Shuri take advantage of Nanaka’s positive mood and invite her to the trip.

That night, Nanaka admires the mirror that Sana bought her while reminiscing about their past visits to the river and how she made cookies for everyone when they went one time, eventually deciding to make the cookies again even though it’s been a while.

However, Nanaka’s change in heart doesn’t last long as the next day when everyone gathers and is ready to set off, Sana tells them that he happened to invite Hoshino along as well, much to the annoyance of Nanaka and the dismay of Shuri. Things get even worse when Hoshino pulls out the exact same mirror as Sana bought Nanaka, telling Shuri that Sana bought it for her when shopping the other day for helping him choose one out for Nanaka. Nanaka overhears this and goes back into ice queen mode while Sana has no idea of the mess he’s just made, casually laughing it up with Shuu.

Once they get to the river, it doesn’t take long for nostalgia bombs to start pouring in, as Shuu remembers one time when they visited and Sana tried to start a fire by rubbing wood together. When Shuu sets up to start fishing, Sana pulls out the lure that he gave him before leaving and tells him to put that on his fishing rod. Shuu is surprised to see Sana kept everything from five years ago so well, even Shuri’s one sided glove. Aoi is disappointed that her present wasn’t a longer lasting one, a cake being gone forever once it’s eaten, but Sana says that no matter how long gone the gift, the memory still remains, causing Nanaka to remember the song she wrote him. The all laugh at Sana for being so lamely conceited with his speech and go back to fishing.

Sana and Shuu try to teach Aoi to fish, but it ends up in disaster. Aoi manages to hook the back of her skirt when she goes to cast her line and exposes her pantsu when she goes to cast. At the same time Sana hooks a fish and the whole mess results in a back and forth of Shuu yelling at Sana to pull his line, Sana yelling at Aoi to not pull hers and poor Aoi confused in between the two.

After all the fishing, it turns out Shuu’s big talk about his fishing confidence stayed just talk, as they only manage to catch one fish between the three of them, Sana being the one who reeled it in. But fortunately, Aoi didn’t trust in Shuu’s fishing abilities and brought along some meat for the barbecue, preserving the trip but destroying Shuu’s confidence, knowing that Aoi didn’t believe in his fishing ability.

When preparing the barbecue, Hoshino guts and cleans the fish that Sana caught, but when Sana sees the blood on the knife she’s using he has a panic attack and funs off to calm down. While recovering, he finds a shiny rock along the riverside and pockets it before Shuri finds him and drags him back to help prepare lunch. The six of them, Shuu in particular (despite not having contributed much) enjoy Aoi’s barbecue, Aoi helping the cause and giving the fish Sana caught to Nanaka. After eating, Shuu notes that some dessert would make things perfect, Nanaka goes to get her cookies but stops when Hoshino runs to her bag and brings out a…pie? flan?…dessert of some sort, and after seeing how impressed everyone is with it, Nanaka decides not to show them her cookies.

Next up is the spa part of the trip, being more of an indoor pool than just a spa. This leads to the classic bathing suit revelations and oppai comparisons for the guys. Aoi dominates the group with her massive chest, Hoshino being surprisingly well endowed herself, and Shuri, realizing her inadequacy, apologizing for being a consolation in the contest. As for Nanaka, it’s not so much her endowment that stands out when she comes out of the changing room, rather the focus is on her swimsuit, not having any others, she uses a school swimsuit. Which is fine too :3

After everyone is pretty much done playing around in the pool, the group sits down to rest a bit when Shuu notices that Sana is awfully attached to his wristwatch, not even taking it off to swim. Sana says that it’s fine because it’s water proof and refuses to take it off to let Shuu see it. Shuu suggests that maybe it’s a present from a girl, that’s why he won’t take it off. Hearing that, Nanaka excuses herself to go swim some more and Shuu gets a kick in the shin and a stare down from his sis.

With the day over, the group splits off leaving Nanaka, Aoi and Sana heading the opposite way from the rest. Suddenly, Aoi brings up their past visits to river again and remembers that the day after Sana couldn’t get the fire started that Nanaka shared some cookies, recalling how delicious they were and how she’d love to eat them again. So imagine their surprise when Nanaka tells them that she actually made some. The three of them end up going to Aoi’s house to eat the cookies and have some tea, although Nanaka says she’s not confident the cookies will taste good, Sana and Aoi love them and devour the entire plate. As a way of saying thanks, Sana pulls out the rock he found at the river and gives it to Nanaka. Aoi thinks it’s pretty and wants one too, but Sana apologizes, saying he only found one and that it’s not something to be too thankful for anyways, but Nanaka is happy anyways, having gotten a present from Sana just for herself. She spends the night admiring the rock, which unlike the mirror, is unique to her.

Meanwhile, back at Sana’s house, he gets another call from his mom, checking up on him. But instead of his usually dreary tone when she calls, he sounds a lot more lively this time, something which his mom picks up on and wonders if something good happened to him…

Thoughts

Crank up the Linkin Park (or for the indie kids: Rites of Spring, Sunny Day Real Estate, Texas is the Reason, etc.) and sharpen your razors, Sana is, or at least was, an emo kid.

Or so goes my theory, which is pretty elementary and obvious when you look at the events of the episode. First off is when Sana sees the blood from Hoshino cleaning his fish, he gets all queasy at the sight of it and runs off to calm down, all while sporting a pretty melancholic expression.

And then there was the whole wristwatch business, Sana’s refusal to take it off suggests that he might be hiding something, and it’s quite clear that Sana is your typical dense male harem lead, so it’s definitely not a girl as Shuu suggested. More likely is that there are scars from him trying to kill himself hiding under that watch.

Finally, it explains Sana’s mom frequently calling Sana to make sure he’s going to school, eating properly, etc. She’s checking to see that her baby hasn’t tried to off himself again. The whole point of Sana coming back to his hometown may have been to try and cheer him up and lift him out of depression.

Seems to be working too, as he seems happy to be back with his friends. And then there’s the whole thing with Nanaka that will probably get rolling soon, since it’s painfully obvious that she is and always has been in love with the guy. Her behaviour is typical tsundere and I love it! Seeing her reduced to a blushing mess poking at the stone Sana gave her was so much win.

Although, I think her ice queen nature is a little harsh. Take for example when Shuu jokingly suggested that Sana’s watch may have been a present from a girl. It was a pretty harmless and common joke, but Nanaka took it way too seriously, walking off without waiting for Sana’s response, or for him to realize why she was mad for that matter. It’s tolerable at this point and heavily overshadowed by her AWESOME deredere, but I just hope Nanaka doesn’t ruin herself by going Suzuka level ice queed (read: bitch).

On that note, I hope the other vertex of this love triangle doesn’t just take it and play dead, Hoshino needs to put up a fight. It’s all well and good when your pick, in my case Nanaka, wins, but it’s even more satisfying when she overcomes a boatload of drama and rivalry to do so. Nanaka ftw, but some competition from Hoshino would make it that much better.

Then again, that all hinges on Sana realizing that they’re in love with him, which he doesn’t seem to be aware of yet. He’s not the densest of harem leads I’ve ever seen, but inviting Hoshino along when Nanaka gave so many hints that she doesn’t like her was pretty stupid, as was buying the same mirror for her. Meh, he’ll figure it out eventually, they all do.

As for Aoi, she’s just been reduced to the fanservice/gag character. The fishing scene was proof positive and they carried the momentum by highlighting her healthiness in the swimsuit lineup. Everything about her relegates her to the position of fanservice ammo, the meganekko, large breasts, childish personality, superior cooking skills, the list goes on. For the few of you out there praying on the faint chance of an Aoi victory, don’t get your hopes up. I still can’t get the image of Azu’s Chiyo out of my head when she talks anyways.

I don’t know how it’s managing to do it, but Myself; Yourself is really winning me over, despite belonging to a genre which I have by all rights overkilled to hell and back. But I guess I shouldn’t be complaining about enjoying a show, haha. It probably has to do a lot with Nanaka, who is one of my favourite chars this season, at this point being below only Clannad’s Kyou and maybe DCII’s own Nanaka, depending on how much screentime she gets.

Lastly, sorry for the lateness of this entry, midterms > me.

*awaits the inevitable meme-gasm*

~ Shirukii ~