“We were friends, but I didn’t think we were ‘just friends’” – Hajime Kujō
Impression:
I’m conflicted. When it was revealed that Fujimiya was hit by a car because some of her friends bullied her, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. The episode ended and I sat there for at least five to ten minutes mulling over that had happened in the episode, this then leading me to the conclusion that my notes were useless and totally subjective and that I needed to watch the episode again so as to glean a better understanding of what I was being told and what I was seeing. Girl’s can be terrible (so can guys, by the way, before you start labeling me a misogynist). Everyone who’s been at school for any period of time knows that girls can be bitchy (in general and to each other) and that girls especially deal poorly with their emotions when it comes to boys and ‘love’ (again, not a latent fact, but a selective observation). Thus, it’s totally understandable why Fujimiya would be so wholly distraught by the fact that her friends – who, again, are not atypical of girls of their age – had abated her for doing something that, to her, was nothing more than sweet and childish and natural. It’s hard to remember sometimes that One Week Friends isn’t some deeply philosophical series full of mind blowing plot twists and profound messages left and right: it’s a series about friendship and how friendship is more complicated then simply two people getting along.
But I digress. That paragraph was much too long.
This episode set about explaining to us, firstly, the reason why Fujimiya ran blindly into the road that Sunday and, secondly, how Hajime ties into the whole affair. That said, it’s actually quite surprising how little happened in this episode. I mean, it was pretty easy to guess what had happened to Fujimiya from those small flashbacks last episode and thus the bulk of this episode served only to flesh out and ‘dramatize’ better said events. Yes, Saki has begun to avoid Shogo over last episode’s pseudo-marriage proposal debacle and that’s important ‘n all, but I felt as though it was there more to set up the events of the final episode instead of acting as a ‘plot point’ on its own. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that nothing (a part from the ending) in this episode was really all that important and that this episode 11 was here to prepare the viewer for the final episode instead of acting as an episode on it’s own. Adversely, it could be argued that, because each episode thus far has been its own contained story (beginning, delving into its own inclusive plot, and ending conclusively (more or less), the carry over from this into the next episode is going to be more disconcerting, creating a feeling of incompletion. I suppose only episode 12 can provide the answer as to whether or not the plot point introduced was weak or whether it’ll develop into something so much more (would I be asking for too much if I wanted a whiff of romance?)
Finally, Hase’s decision to draw away from Fujimiya is without a doubt, his most interesting and, perhaps, most thought out thus far. Obviously he’s making a bad decision, don’t get me wrong, but it’s good to see Hase thinking logical without too much to Shogo’s influence. He understands what happened to Hajime could happen to him and he realizes that he may unintentionally end up hurting Fujimiya – he’s taken everything into account. We’re going to be seeing Hase attempt to take a few steps back from Fujimiya in the next (and final) episode and that means a lot of emotional turmoil on both ends… Let’s just hope Hase will find a way to resolve…well, everything (or maybe not everything if that means another season)…
– Chris.