Some shit went down in this episode. Natsume finally pushed Subaru to his limit and got himself punched in the face. However, that didn’t stop him from confessing to Ema that he liked her, in front of his brother. And that only caused their relationship to get worse. It must be difficult for Ema. At first, she was just being backed into a corner with these brothers’ overwhelming feelings and now she witnessed an all-out fight (or at least something close to that). Subaru, control your emotions!! How can you lose it in front of the woman you love?
They were really close when they were younger. Natsume was apart of the track team and Subaru’s idol but never wanted him to face (or know of) the hardships that reality would bring. He tried to be the ideal big brother but stopped his activity in track. He didn’t tell Ema anymore than that but it seems it became too hard for him to continue, and so he dropped whatever passion he had for sports. And I guess that’s why Subaru yelled at him about running away in the past. Subaru also said he wouldn’t lose to him. As a matter of fact, none of these brothers want to lose to each other.
Azusa is willing to wait for Ema’s response to his confession after her exams are over. Subaru expects the same. I’m guessing Yuusuke will just wait until their in university together to confess to her.
Iori…I have no idea what his plans are since he just popped into this episode with his iris, which Louise delivered to Ema in the first half of this episode.
Iori has basically been a ghost throughout this series. Why did they even bother to make him appear in the second to last episode? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Or was it to refresh the memory that he’s actually apart of this love puddle? Well he’s not a character I care about because the anime placed little to no focus on him. And I cannot fathom why he’d be in love with her? I doubt he has been around her over the course of her stay. So the fact that he comes in with an iris as a symbolic confession of his love for her is completely out of place and generic. It would have been better if he stayed out of it, or probably they should have given him some amount of screen time when they went to the vacation house.
Otherwise, this episode was okay. I liked the flashback scene that showed the relationship Natsume had with his brother before it all became sour. Subaru, on the other hand, told Ema to forget about everything he’d told her in the last part of the episode. Right now, I just think he is too overwhelmed by his mixed feelings for Natsume and what he wants to pursue with Ema.
She teared up as he left, so…I’m not sure how I should look at that? Maybe she didn’t want him to leave with so many things on his mind. Maybe she thinks it’s all her fault why Subaru feels the way he does. Maybe she wishes she wasn’t there in the first place so that the brothers could continue with their normal lives and not face conflicting emotions of love that cause them to act irrationally because of her??
It’s one of those. I’m sure.
So I’m guessing in the next episode, she will tell the brothers exactly how she feels when it comes to them.
And if she doesn’t say that she wants them to just be a family. Natsume is the one.
And that is all.