| Title: | Suzuka |
| Episode: | 3: Sympathy Visit |
| Synopsis | |
| It's Suzuka's and Yamato's first high school day - and Suzuka isn't particularly happy that both Yamato and Yasunobu will be her classmates. But she asks Yamato to go shopping sports drinks with her (for a senpai of her track&field club) after classes, as the boy doesn't appear to have anything else to do.
While Yasunobu has his local friends, Asahina has made contact with other track&field buddies, and most of his new classmates seem to know each other already, Yamato feels like a big loner at school. But to his surprise a beautiful girl [image1] approaches him, asking whether he remembers her and the secret they share... Sakurai Honoka would rarely start a conversation with a boy, as Yasunobu explains to Suzuka [image2] (who noticed she forgot to tell Yamato where they should meet for the shopping); Yasunobu knows this girl from middle school, and he teases Suzuka that Yamato the Late Bloomer must be hit on by a girl for the first time today and they're probably already talking about a date - so would Suzuka like to go out with him instead? After classes are over, Yamato tries to ask Suzuka where he should wait for her, but before she can give him an answer, Honoka appears - and Suzuka walks away, telling Yamato she'll do the shopping alone. Now Honoka tells Yamato how years ago she met him at the shrine where she lives and where the boy used to pray often - and how he saved her when she had broken the shrine's bell. Honoka remembers how Yamato loves to eat croquette at the temple, and she asks whether he would visit the new okonomiyaki restaurant at the station together with her today. When Suzuka's track&field training is finally over and she curses Yamato for not helping her with the shopping, she hears a sneeze [image3] - Yamato has in fact been waiting for her (for five hours!) and caught a cold in the process. And as his reward, Suzuka calls him an idiot for doing so. Yamato is unable to attend classes on the next day, but all that Suzuka is worried about is that the cold won't be passed to her, right before a forthcoming competition. After school, Honoka insists on Yasunobu taking her along for a visit of the patient [image4], and only now Honoka learns that Suzuka is living next door to Yamato. As the sick boy needs to eat properly she volunteers to make him a meal; just when she's leaving to get the ingredients she meets Suzuka in front of the boy's room [image5]. But Suzuka says she didn't intend to visit Yamato... So after Gorou-chan the cat ate Yamato's lunch, which of these two girls will manage to save feed the starving boy: Honoka with her amazing cooking skills or Suzuka with her brand-new microwave oven? [image6] | |
| Comments | |
| (2005-07-31, Devil Doll:)
As in so many other romantic animes, the lead boy will now have a confidante who's in unrequited love with him and too shy to tell him. But Honoka (a combination of Kanako and Maehara Shinobu) might confess at some stage, giving the boy a hard time sticking to his love... Yamato fixing the bell for Honoka in the past is a variation of Kaoru fixing Aoi's shoe when they were children. Many of the mechanisms (including the yubikiri) appear to be standard patterns, but the recipe works once again due to the interesting characters. Yamato isn't the complete loser we know from similar series; Suzuka is stuck up, tartly and moping easily - "the princess and the pea". Honoka, on the other hand... just look how she praises Yamato for being nice and earnest because he turned her down (and one scene cut later Suzuka calls Yamato an idiot for the very same thing)... now whom are we going to root for? Then again, Suzuka doesn't look that angry when Yamato can't see her face... at the very least she must be flattered by the boy's behaviour. I'm not really sure about Yasunobu's motives. He sure has noticed Suzuka and wouldn't mind going out with such a cutie, but his comment on Honoka had an unexpected impact on Suzuka: She almost acted jealously! How could she do so if she considers the boy such a failure? Well, Yamato actually means a lot to her already: He's "family", the one person where she doesn't have to hide her emotions, who can share he secrets, who saved her from the sauna and cheered her on when she was down - and who can even serve as punching ball. Just like what Keitarou means for Naru. Then again she's completely unaware of this, and she shouldn't learn her lession too late, because... ...Honoka is systematically exploring the playing field already, looking for the boy's name in the list, trying to find out whether Suzuka is his girlfriend (and we can see how relieved she is to learn that Yamato considers Suzuka a "tomodachi"!), and even asking the boy out on their first day at school. (Note the expression "pestering" that Yasunobu is using to describe her wish to visit the ill boy - Yasunobu is teasing again but he's absolutely right in principle.) All symptoms of a childhood crush are in evidence, reminding me of what Sakuraba Aoi might have possibly done in the same situation... this temple girl is determined to go after her boy - and she might be the competitor Suzuka needs to make up her mind in a later stage, just like Narusegawa Naru needed Otohime Mutsumi and Urashima Kanako. For now, Suzuka is completely unreasonable, unfairly blaming the boy for not keeping his promise (which might at least gnaw a little at her's conscience later in this episode). Her statement that she would have been able to do the shopping alone almost sounds like a repression reflex - Suzuka would hate to be dependent on this boy in any way. But note how Suzuka tried to ring the doorbell for Yamato's room but disclaimed her intention to visit the boy when she met another girl there! What a pity that Honoka didn't notice this, as she would have taken it as an open challenge. Note how Yamato informally addresses the new girl as "Honoka-chan" already (accepting her as a childhood friend) while he'll continue to formally refer to Suzuka as "Asahina", using her family name. Honoka will address her boy as "Akizuki-kun" for the time being, friendly but not too intimate - the moment when she dared to use "Yamato-kun" should be an alarm signal for Suzuka; our little princess informally addressed the boy as "Yamato-kun" right from the start but refers to Honoka respectfully as "Sakurai-san". ============================================================================= | |
