OH GOD NANAKA IS HOT!

Well this episode certainly made up for last week’s lack of Nanaka, not only did she get a bunch of screen time and character development, there was even some fanservice. Good stuff. It was also a very well paced episode, doing great in terms of covering some ground in terms of character and plot, the ominous foreshadowing of the episode suggests Myself; Yourself may be heading down a darker path…

Episode Rating: 9/10

The episode starts off with Nanaka practicing the dance she’s to perform at a festival in a few days. She’s interrupted by her uncle, who is glad to see her practicing seriously, he tells her that the stage will be lit with bonfire simulating lights, as Nanaka seems to have requested. She then politely excuses herself and asks to be left to her practicing.

The next day after school, Shuu suggests they all go for karaoke, but when Nanaka is asked to tag along, she declines, saying she has to practice for the festival dance. Having forgotten about it, everyone reminds Sana about the dance at the sakura festival that they used to watch when they were kids, the temple hasn’t held it for about 10 years, but now that Nanaka is helping as a priestess there, they’re finally able to do it again. Nanaka modestly says she’s just helping out her uncle because he’s letting her stay with him, but when Sana asks why Nanaka is staying with her uncle at the temple, everyone goes silent…

Later that day, Sana happens to run into Hoshino as she’s out shopping. She explains that she volunteers at an elderly home during the weekends and recently they took in a stray cat, they named it Poe and she’s out looking for a collar for it. Since the cat is a boy and she’s afraid she’ll pick something to feminine for it, she asks Sana to help choose, and in the end she asks him if he would like to help out at the elderly home the coming Saturday, he agrees.

As luck would have it, Nanaka happens to be out running an errand for her uncle and sees Sana and Hoshino shopping together. The three run into each other outside the pet store and Nanaka is thankful to hear that it’s nothing like a date, they just happened to meet coincidentally. Sana takes the opportunity to invite Nanaka to the home to volunteer, but quickly remembers she has to practice the dance for the festival. But surprisingly, Nanaka says that she wants to come anyways, since she has most of the dance memorized already.

That Saturday they all meet at the elderly home, shocked to see that Shuri also volunteers there, and was actually the one who first invited Hoshino to volunteer there as well. It turns out that they’ve been wanting to get a young man to volunteer there, but for quite an odd reason, so that one of the residents there has a partner to play video games with. Meanwhile, Hoshino is busy helping out and trying to solve a mystery, there used to be a sparrow named Pi-chan that the home kept as a pet, but recently it’s gone missing…

As Hoshino helps out in the kitchen, one of the workers there ends up talking about a resident at the home named Kaji. She caught a slight cold lately, but what she’s more worried about is her mental condition lately, apparently she had recently lost her granddaughter to a tragic car accident and has been acting odd ever since.

In an attempt to cheer her up, the whole gang goes to visit her, but when Kaji sees Nanaka, she jumps out of her seat and starts walking towards her, under the impression that she’s her late granddaughter Motoko. After they calm Kaji down, she explains that Nanaka resembles Motoko, and the similarities go even further when it’s revealed that, like Nanaka, Kaji’s granddaughter also played the violin. But when Sana suggests that Nanaka play something for them, Nanaka has a small panic attack and declines.

Afterwards, Sana walks Nanaka home and apologizes for the violin incident, though not exactly understanding what happened, he says that he’s sorry for thoughtlessly insisting she play. Nanaka tells him that he didn’t do anything wrong and runs home.

The day of the festival arrives, and on Shuu’s recommendation, they head there extremely early, because he’s been excited about it all day. Something that Aoi seems to share in common with him, not wasting any time rushing to the booths the second they get there. First up, Shuu challenges Sana to the rifle game, ending in Sana winning the largest prize there and Shuu walking away empty handed (or maybe with one of those crappy consolation prizes).

Later that night, Sana spots Nanaka at the temple’s booth and goes to talk to her. She notices the prize he won, a big plush yeti, and asks him about it, Sana tells her how he won it but finds it a hassle to carry around. Just when Nanaka is about to ask for it, Hinako runs up and has a kawaii-gasm at the plush yeti, remembering that she collects them, Sana offers it to her, much to the jealousy of Nanaka.

Before Nanaka’s dance, Shuri takes the opportunity to explain the legend behind it. There used to be twin hills in the town, and the legend goes that if the sakura trees were to blossom on both of them, your wish would come true. The sakura festival’s dance is a charm to make this even come true, but rumor has it that in ancient times, they used to offer live humans as a sacrifice instead.

After Nanaka’s performance, Sana finds her sitting at the back of the temple and compliments her on her dance and how surreal it was watching her. Nanaka goes all blushy and thanks him, but suddenly something darts across the field, brushing her leg and running into the bushes, causing Nanaka to suddenly grab onto Sana in fright. She’s quite embarrassed when she realizes that it was only a raccoon, but the two laugh it off, and just as the mood between them starts to lighten up, Hinako shows up to drag them back to the rest of the group.

The episode ends with a freakishly ominous scene of Kaji watching Nanaka’s performance at the sakura festival on tv. Alone. In the dark. Stroking Poe like one of those evil villains in a movie. Creeeeeepy.

Thoughts

It’s time to theorize! Given how predictable Myself; Yourself has been so far, I believe there’s a high probability that what I’m about to say, or at least something close to it, will come true, so possible spoiler warning?

Given how much emphasis was put on the legend of the twin hills combined with the sinister foreshadowing at the end of the episode, I’m thinking that old lady Kaji is about to go batshit insane. What I’m thinking is that given her knowledge of the twin hills legend and her mental instability, she’s going to try and use Nanaka as a human sacrifice to revive her dead granddaughter Motoko. Now you may think that something so violent wouldn’t happen in what appears to be your run of the mill school drama, but the question I have for you then is…what happened to Pi-chan?

Maybe I’m taking the Higurashi-esque feel that this episode had a little too seriously, but when I think about how everything fit together, it’s the outcome that strikes me as the most likely to happen. It would also serve as a good buffer into tying up the end romance, we could have Sana play the knight in shining armor role who rushes in at the last second to save Nanaka, which would set the stage for their final pairing. Wishful thinking? Perhaps.

Speaking of Nanaka, this episode has me curious as to what exactly Nanaka has been through these past five years. She’s now living with her uncle, presumably instead of her parents, the rest of the group seems to know the reason, as they fell silent when Sana asked about it, but we viewers were left in the dark too. Then there’s the whole deal with Nanaka’s implied fear of fire. When asked to play the violin for Kaji, Nanaka had a vision of a flaming scene, and there was the whole deal with her insistence of using simulated bonfires instead of real ones. It’s clear that she’s under a lot of stress, made evident from the water splashing scene (delicious fanservice :3). And lastly, what was the whole deal with Sana and Nanaka almost linking hands at the end of the episode o.O

Nanaka love comes at a price though, not many other characters got notable development this episode. As expected, Hinako seems to have been relegated to a cameo character after having an entire episode dedicated to her, Shuri continues to be the blunt and sarcastic character of the bunch, and Aoi has been degraded to little more than a moeblob (whose voice seems to be becoming higher and higher pitched with each passing episode).

EDIT: Scratch that, I checked out the preview for next episode, and it looks like Hinako is getting another episode dedicated to her. From the looks of it, she’ll be moving in with Sana, for god knows what reasons.

I take back what I said about Myself; Yourself at the beginning, it’s shaping up to be a lot better than just generic harem. Actually, if you take Hoshino out of the picture, I wouldn’t even classify it as a harem anymore, as neither Shuri or Aoi seem to have romantic interest in Sana, unless Hinako switches her love interest from Shuu to Sana.

Hopefully the coming episodes don’t completely pass up the potentially awesome build up they’ve done with Kaji and the twin hills legend. Nanaka’s going to get taken home!

~ Shirukii ~