mono no oware … 物の哀れ

NHK ni Youkoso - 22

Since ep19, NHK ni Youkoso! has been showing excellent episodes in my opinion. Ep22 was no exception: the atmospheric music conveyed heavy emotion, and the episode subtly chronicled Satou’s improvement over his hikkikomori status: despite given the chance to sink Kashiwa into a quagmire of desperation with her thoughts about conspiracies, he placated her and told her that being happy’s all right. Despite his libido, he wanted her first and foremost to be truly happy, and to do so he had to sacrifice his drives and urges. His maturity simply shined through the episode. Personally, I wouldn’t want to see this improvement dissipate. I don’t want to see him just like he was at the start of the series, having gone so far and experienced so much pain and suffering.

Satou being more mature

The episode also shows Misaki’s dark side. It seems she doesn’t want to see Satou break free from the bondage of his hikkikomori state, because then she’d be alone. Yet her desires are normal; it is the desire of almost everybody to be needed and to be wanted, and as she could not find it in her aunt she tries to find it taking care of ‘garbage’ like Satou. However, if Satou no longer ‘needs’ her, she would be alone once again, and she doesn’t want that. I hope she and Satou talk about it, and I hope they’d have a happy ending. I don’t mean that they have to end up together, but at least make them both realize that even though life’s full of trials and suffering, it doesn’t follow that they have to sink in depravity and decadence themselves. I hope they see that life’s full of hope, because it really is.

Satou reining in his libido

I also realized that NHK’s OST is among the most powerful ones I’ve heard in my entire anime otakuism; I like it so much that I’m downloading it right now: doing that has been long overdue.

Sad goodbyes (above and below)

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge – 09

ep9 was among the more recent episodes that were decent. Basically, the group goes to a hot springs because Ranmaru’s lover has invited them for a three-day, two-night stay with everything free. Noi and Sunako plot to separate Kyouhei and Takenaga so that Noi can spend more time with Takenaga. For Noi’s end of the bargain, if Sunako is able to separate Takenaga and Kyouhei she would be able to enjoy staying in her room without any interruption because Noi would move in to do Sunako’s housework. Kyouhei immediately sees through their plot and invites Sunako to play ping-pong with him; the prize is the money that would allow Sunako to go home. Both play heatedly and energetically, but in the end no one manages to emerge as victor because the ball has moved so fast that Yuki couldn’t tell who won.

Turbo ping-pong

Sunako challenges Kyouhei for a rematch, if only to fulfil her end of the bargain. Later on, she does a desperation move as she is about to lose, but Kyouhei tries to counter it. The end result is that they end up kissing, and that marks their first kiss of the series. As usual, the episode (as well as the series) remains quite shallow, but I guess that’s what to be expected from a comedy series. I do wish it were better directed, though.

The only reason why this episode needs to be seen

In the end, a murder occurs, and it seems that Ranmaru is the suspect. The resolution will occur in the next episode, I guess. The episode lacks non-SD Sunako goodness, and it fails in that aspect.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 10th, 2006 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Anime, NHK ni Youkoso, Serious, Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.