| Title: | Suzuka |
| Episode: | 14: Blessing |
| Synopsis | |
| Just where did we leave episode 13? Ah, yes: Yamato kissing Honoka back - and Miki being swept off her feet, watching the new couple forming.
After the Inter High competition the club members ease off in the onsen. Asahina is completely relaxed, and listening to Yamato playing around in the Rotenburo next door like a kid she's relieved that the boy seems to be in high spirits again... thus Miki decides to rather not tell her about her observation. The athletes have spare time on the next morning, and Asahina invites Yamato to join her shopping. But to Hattori's surprise Yamato rejects the offer! Asahina is "not amused" and walks away; soon after this Hattori can observe Yamato and Honoka beckoning to each other [image1], and watching Yamato's smile he gets the message. So it's Miki who has to join Asahina on her shopping spree... and when she starts to select a T-shirt [image2] that would "fit Yamato-kun really well" Miki cannot hold back any longer... and the Ice Queen is struck by lightning. At the end of the afternoon practice session Honoka is portioning out towels for the athletes - only that the one for Yamato has a paper inside, and Asahina is watching Yamato during this scene. After dinner Honoka and Yamato meet at the carp pond again, watching the full moon together - and finally Honoka is able to confess how long she's been in love with the boy already [image3]. One day later Yamato completes his additional training menu late in the evening; once again Asahina joins him and nags about his performance - and makes use of the opportunity to ask the boy about his relation with Honoka. Hesitatingly Yamato confirms that they're together; Asahina tries her best not to show any reaction, helping Yamato with his stretching exercises. But late at night Miki observes Asahina watching the full moon all alone... [image4] On their last day in Hiroshima some club members (including Yamato, Honoka and Hattori) intend to go eating okonomiyaki, with Asahina deciding not to join them and Miki staying at the side of her frustrated friend. Honoka gives a present to Yamato: A cute little dog as cellphone strap [image5] - and she makes a point of telling him that she has the same strap on her cellphone. At 7:30 p.m. the Nozomi shinkansen is bound to leave for Tokyo, and Yamato has a "clever idea": Buying drinks ahead at the station to save money... [image6] | |
| Comments | |
| (2005-10-09, Devil Doll:)
Funniest line of the day: Hattori saying "I want a girl too", right into Miki's face. Coolest line of the day: "How many years do you think I've known this guy?" (Hattori to Miki.) Most important line of the day: "There are no rights or wrongs in love; outsiders should just watch." (Again, Hattori to Miki.) Praise to the womanizer again in this episode! The conversation between Hattori and Miki is the center of this episode: Both are showing their credo about love issues to the audience (which happens to be an interesting compatibility test for these two being a potential couple as well). Hattori as well as Miki lack knowledge about the whole Kazuki issue - but look how differently they handle it! Hattori did interfere already although he's telling Miki it's better to just observe; Miki wants to interfere but doesn't even have a clue, as her primary information source happens to be tight-lipped about her emotions. (Just watch Asahina almost buying a T-shirt for Yamato: Again her instant reaction was to blame Yamato for not coming along... Ice Queen, will you ever change?) Hattori was clearly surprised by Yamato rejecting Asahina's shopping invitation but kept a straight face. He didn't encourage Yamato to continue striving for Asahina any more since the boy got rejected; instead he almost pushed Honoka forward to finally make her move. From his point of view this is understandable: Whatever will happen between Honoka and Yamato it will at least give the boy more experience as for how to handle a relationship, as the lovestruck miko will probably be easier to handle than the capricious high-jumper. Hattori is aware of the pheromones effect on himself - so how could he blame Yamato for acting the same way? Despite his moping around he seems genuinely happy for the new couple - and Yamato acting on his own, without asking Hattori for the next page of the rulebook, must be a success from his perspective: The late bloomer is beginning to stand on his own feet! (By the way, there's an interesting parallel to Love Hina episode 24 when Sakara Kentarou praised Keitarou for going after the "easy prey" - which ultimately made that same Keitarou aware how he lost sight of his primary goal and thus surprisingly turned into a wake-up call...) Miki, being Suzuka's best friend, is blaming Yamato for what happened. But when Yamato stopped attending club practice in episode 10 both Miki and Hattori should be aware that something must have happened between Asahina and Yamato - something so important that it shook the boy to the bone! And it must have been a lot worse than merely being rejected, as this happened before and Yamato wasn't as devastated in episode 6 as he was in episode 10. Still Miki completely failed to get this message - she didn't get it until now, and she's acting on insufficient information. During the forthcoming episodes Miki might become the great random generator of this series unless anyone will brief her about the events (which isn't likely to happen). Hattori shows Miki how little she knows about the situation by telling her about Honoka's feelings - I wonder if Miki got at least this message. Tons of brownie points for Honoka-chan once again. She's working hard for her love, never taking things for granted, earning her time together with her boy and providing "partner look" at least for their cellphones now. Her facial expression at the end of this episode was priceless - the poor miko won't get a lot of sleep tonight... we've seen that hotel episode of Ai Yori Aoshi, right? Despite Honoka and Yamato being a couple now this is in fact an Asahina episode. Let me bitch around a bit now: I'm very pleased with the outcome so far. Asahina didn't want anything beyond a tomodachi relation, back to square one - and that's exactly what she got! Shit happens... it's her problem if she's never happy when she got what she asked for. The Ice Queen has to face that she lost Yamato to Honoka - and she was blissfully ignorant even during her shopping spree. My take is that she's basically frustrated about how things went. All the while she oddly took their possible relation for granted despite all the horrible things that happened: She ordered him to join her for shopping drinks for the track&field club; she hugged him during the thunderstorm, only to tell him not to have any wrong ideas - really, how dense can she be; she told him not to be late for the date or else she'd go alone; she took his hand during the date but rejected him later; she still took it for granted Yamato would go shopping with her in episode 14 and was visibly annoyed when he declined; she did any number of things to make sure she's in control of the way their relation was, and overruled anything that Yamato suggested otherwise. She is the control freak after all, isn't she? It was nice for her to have someone at hand who could serve as lightning rod; she's not willing to accept that Yamato wants a steady girlfriend first and foremost (and she's now learning it the hard way). Yamato dating Honoka makes it obvious that she's no longer in control of the situation - regardless of what the goal of this control ultimately were to be. Then again, Asahina taking the size of Yamato's shoulders into consideration must in fact be the first tell-tale statement of her feelings for the boy. But if so, then she failed miserably in episode 13 after Honoka's desperate kiss: Miki told her that Yamato was frustrated and all she's telling him is to cheer for her? Heavens, how nonsensitive... What's more, I particularly hated Asahina's comment about expecting Yamato would never get a girlfriend: This was an outright insult, not only for Yamato but even more for Honoka (who's fine with that "loser boy", apparently)! So these grapes are sour, foxy lady? What about yourself, Miss Perfect? You may thank your stars that Yamato isn't unforgiving... It's actually not as if Yamato will never again fall for her (and poor Honoka might now be in panic whether this moment is going to happen sooner than we all expect it to). But if Asahina really wants a steady relationship any time in the future she must straighten out the mess of the "Kazuki lookalike issue" before. Yamato will never completely trust her otherwise - and trust is the one field where Honoka is way ahead of Asahina! I like the way Yamato declined Asahina's shopping invitiation. Being so insecure of his own feelings that's the best thing he could do. Imagine Honoka observing Yamato go shopping with Asahina - of all people - right on the next day after Honoka and Yamato practically became a couple! If anyone, then Honoka deserves this honor now. It's not so much that Yamato wants to act icily to Asahina - in his position he should actively support his new and still fragile relation. Honoka is worried about her situation; if Yamato has any grey cells in his brain he should wonder why Honoka talked with Asahina on that way home whose last line he overheard at the end of episode 12. So staying away from Asahina would be something that he should do for Honoka's sake, to show her that he's serious about her. Of course that's completely busted at the end of episode 14, but at the moment of Asahina's shopping invitation it was a wise decision. There's one thing I hate the producers for: Asahina's incomplete sentences. Maybe it's just me... but having Asahina ask "You haven't done it yet?" right after Yamato confirmed he's going out with Honoka may have the audience think of other things than "stretching", given the ambiguity of "you" as for singular/plural... and Asahina really makes a habit out of this, starting with the croquette scene already IIRC (and the episode 15 preview provides another example of this). I know that the Japanese derive meaning from context - but this is a shallow teasing game the producer is playing with the audience. Another version of aural fan-service, so to say. Let's stick with the drama, please! ============================================================================= | |
