Impression:
Hakuya to the rescue!
Left to her own devices in the wake of Mashiro and Hakuya’s disappearances, Kobeni worries. And then she worries some more. You see, what came to light in this episode is that Kobeni fears abandonment – and I love that. Not that she has a perpetual fear of being alone, but that she, Kobeni, has yet more dimensions to add to her character. Now that we’re here, at the end, I can safely say that Kobeni is not the cliched slice-of-life female character that I thought she’d be. As cliched as this is, we’ve watched Kobeni grow over the last twelve episodes, in love and in character. She’s no longer her sisters shadow. In fact, Benio barely even appears in this episode and, in my opinion, it was better that way – no Benio to overshadow Kobeni with her (to be quite frank) disturbing antics…although we did receive a nice Benio moment near the end of the episode to act as the ‘cherry-on-top’, so all was well for Benio fans. However, going back to my original point, we haven’t seen Kobeni’s ‘mundane life’ since all the way back in episode 1, so it was interesting to finally witness the full extent of the contrast between pre- and post-Mitsumine family shenanigans.
When Mayura tells Kobeni that’s it’s okay to be selfish and go in search of her husband to be, Kobeni takes the initiative and sets off to the mountains…then only to be caught in a snow storm. In truly Mikakunin de Shinkoukei style, another ‘plot twist’/spanner in the works arises as it turns out Hakuya and Mashiro only returned to the mountains to show their mother their reports cards and collect edible wild plants because Kobenio noted in episode 11 that she wished to try cooking with some. I’ll admit it, I chuckled at how laid-back the Mitsumine’s seemed when we were introduced to them once again – so clueless… Kobeni (cutely) calls out for Hakuya, he then heeding her call and finding her, explaining everything, only for Kobeni to then fall ill. As Hakuya rushes to find help and Mashiro goes to find firewood, Kobeni wanders off, almost falling off a cliff…that is, until Hakuya saves her, memories from before firing him into action to prevent that which had happened once before…and it was good. Really good. It was the most emotionally saturated moment of the entire series, Hakuya diving off of a cliff to save Kobeni and she then to tell him, “We’re engaged, after all”… My heart can’t take this Kobeni cuteness… It was the moment we all wanted and we got it – the moment Kobeni came to terms with her actually being engaged.
Finally, the ‘dinner party’ (Suetsugi redacted). The dinner party tied the comedic and romantic ends of the show together, the whole cast (Suetsugi redacted) coming together for one final moment of cute Kobeni/Hakuya love. It was a great end to a great show, and, honestly, I was surprised by just how good it was. Now obviously I’ll go into more detail about the goodness of the show in it’s entirety in my overall review, but episode 12 as a singular gave us many things – a well matured romance, comedic enterprise, and a well rounded plot that neither desires a second season but also yearns for another. I want a second season, but I don’t think it’s (strictly speaking) necessary…
I guess I’ll leave that question to you, the readers. Second season? Yay or Nay?
– Chris.
Overall Review (Coming Soon)
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