This episode started off good, maintaining the will-he-do-anything-will-he-not-do-anything tension of last episode, up to a point, and that point was Urabe, awkward cardboard robot version’s entrance. From that point, ‘til about the final few minutes of the episode, it all got a little bit boring… I mean, I understand what they were trying to do, resolve the issue of Hayakawa interfering in their relationship by showing her the bond between Urabe and Tsubaki, but this is something that’s happened a couple of times now, to different degrees. Sure, so now there were two naked girls, instead of just the one, but so what? Naked girls do not make a masterpiece, at least not in anime. Greek sculpture maybe, but not anime!
It was also a bit boring that I was right about Hayakawa all along- she was just on the rebound and looking for someone to help rebuild her self-esteem, which doesn’t really do it for me- the ‘aw, they were just lonely’ card has been played far too often for it to work on me anymore… I was kind of hoping, given the extreme nature of the measures she took to try to seduce Tsubaki, that she was just nasty to the core and was doing this for the giggles or something- I’m quite partial to the amoral villain! But I guess that was too ambitious a hope given the highschool setting of the show…
Still, it was nice to see Urabe and Tsubaki reunited- even as cynical and grumpy as I am, I do still enjoy a happy ending every once in a while. I hope that this experience (which put their bond to the test only to have it triumph and resolve this issue) means they’ll be less possessive over one another now, which is something those enjoyable final few minutes of the episode, as well as the result of the less enjoyable Urabe/Hayakawa showdown, seemed to imply. Urabe was quite clever in putting Tsubaki in her shoes. Hopefully he’ll remember how he felt when Urabe told him she’d probably have secret trysts with her old flame too next time he fancies perusing through those darn photo-books of his!
Something else I liked was the use of the eye throughout the last two episodes. Knowing Nazo no Kanojo’s partial to a bit of symbolism I spent a long time pondering over what that could represent. I doubted it was simply just their school logo, I mean what kind of school has an eye as their logo? It had to have a deeper meaning than that! Then it hit me half-way through this episode. They’d cut to the eye (which is curiously similar to that of Urabe’s, is it not?) whenever Tsubaki was thinking about doing something/actually doing something dubious with Hayakawa, perhaps as a reminder that there were eyes everywhere and that they were bound to be found out somewhere along the line, which is exactly what happened. Sometimes I think people (including myself, of course) get so distracted by the actual story (and, in this case, naked girls) they fail to notice little details like that. If I were to turn this into a sandwich metaphor (the best kind), details like this are the sweet-corn in the sweet-corn and tuna baguette, the tomato in the BLT, the raisins in the coronation chi- wait, no-one actually likes the raisins in the coronation chicken sandwich… Anyway, these details, like these sandwich fillings, may not be the main event, but they certainly add to the flavour of the story!
Not sure what I want next from the show- I was kind of expecting this storyline to see us through until the final episode, but it was resolved quicker than expected. I guess they’re gonna have to find some new problem to solve in two episodes that’s gonna feel forced and rushed… Goodness gracious I’m pessimistic about finales… Usually by this point in a highschool romance I’ve decided I’ll be happy as long as there’s a kiss (yeah, I know, I’m not all that difficult to please, huh?), but I kind of feel as though it wouldn’t really mean that much were Urabe and Tsubaki to kiss- it feels as though they’ve moved past that stage already, I mean, they’ve already said they L word, and the trust between them seems to be at an all-time high, and besides, the drool thing totally works as a way of showing their affection for one another- yet they’re not at the stage where they’re ready to sleep with one another either, so… more gropage? Eurgh… can’t believe I just said that… Definitely need to work on these predictions…
Anyway, let me leave you with the following screenshot, which was my favourite from this episode, and one which I was dying to use, but it wasn’t really suited to be the header image of this post…