I’m baaack baby!
Oh God, what have I come back to!? Their relationship’s just getting progressively worse, isn’t it? Well, I suppose that’s to be expected- we’re reaching the climax of the series now, need to have some kind of a huge problem rear its ugly head and have it resolved in preparation for a nice, fluffy finale… tra la la la~
You know what I wasn’t expecting though? Tsubaki not to have learnt his lesson from that last episode. For shame. Urabe made it pretty clear that she didn’t like Tsubaki looking at other women, which, whilst a tad bit of an unrealistic thing to want from your boyfriend, shows inconsideration on Tsubaki’s part to continue buying the photo-books when it clearly upsets her. So what was he thinking by going off with Hayakawa, his old crush of three years, in the knowledge Urabe gets upset about him mooning over inanimate women!? And then he went on to lie to Hayakawa, saying he was single. I mean, the only reason you’d ever deliberately say you were single when you weren’t was if you were too embarrassed to acknowledge your relationship, or if you wanted the other person to think you were available in that instant- given the history between these two, I doubt you need me to say which is more plausible in this situation! It seems to me as though episode 9 would have been more appropriately placed after this episode (although I understand why that might not have been feasible if, as I suspect, the problem of Hayakawa is the climax of the series), ‘cause here’s a nice, legit reason to get all possessive and insecure over your boyfriend! I know, I know, Tsubaki didn’t actually do anything with Hayakawa, but the fact that he was totally going to taste her drool at one point (which, in retrospect, I put more down to curiosity than actually wanting to share that kind of a bond with another girl, but he was still being a bit inconsiderate), and felt the need to hide all this from his girlfriend is definitely not a good sign…
I’m pretty sure all those still watching this series have agreed on this point already, but I’d thought I’d say it anyway (my blog, I’ll do what I like be-atch!), Hayakawa is a creepy, rebound bitch! She’s nasty, manipulative, and gleefully undermines the sisterhood. And you know what? I had her pegged as such within minutes of her reappearing! My suspicions of her were confirmed when she asked Tsubaki if he had a girlfriend, and once again when she revealed her boyfriend had broken up with her. I don’t know if you guys (man-type guys, fyi) know this, but when a girl goes through a particularly nasty break-up with a guy, generally this is, one of the first things they do is run to the arms of another to renew their shattered self-esteem, and who better to do this for Hayakawa than the guy who’s adored her for three years straight? As long as the guy knows they’ve got themselves a rebound-er, this is kind of acceptable- the only one that will get hurt is him, and he’s made the decision to be with the rebound-er in spite of this, but if the guy has a girlfriend, as in this case… well, then he’s not the only one who’s gonna get hurt! And what makes this situation worse is that Hayakawa’s doing this knowing he’s got a girlfriend and is deliberately trying to throw a spanner in the works that is their relationship. Her use of sneaky psychological tactics such as pretending her ex is abusive (which is horrible because no-one will believe her ex were she to directly accuse him of such a thing, and undermines the suffering of people who have actually been in an abusive relationship) and using context reinstatement (using sensory cues, in this case, the visual cue of making herself up to look like how she used to look) to aid in the recall of old emotions and memories make her out to be a complete and utter psycho-bitch! Whilst not your typical villain, rather, just a highschool girl, the show has done an excellent job at making Hayakawa completely irredeemable! I can’t wait to see her get taken down a peg or two!
The only thing which managed to quell my girl rage during this episode was the conversation Hayakawa and Tsubaki had over the things they used to do in regards to their old crushes. Indirect kissing (Hayakawa’s revelation) is nothing new- all girls have thought of/done it at some point, but I was completely taken aback by Tsubaki admitting that he kept a strand of Hayakawa’s hair! I didn’t know that guys did weird little things like that too! I thought that was a special sort of crazy reserved for girls! And are all guys that fascinated by girls’ hair, or is it just Tsubaki? Anyway, that was sweet, kind of weird, but sweet…
This was a fairly conventional episode really- probably because of the succinct lack of Urabe! This is the kind of thing you see happening so often in cliché American teen dramas, yet still can’t help but find yourself completely absorbed by, wondering at what point they’ll find out that they’ve totally been having sex sharing drool this whole time. Then again, you don’t get wonderful, wonderful derp faces like this in American teen dramas… much!
Where is he even looking?
