Through the looking-glass, and what Chika found there.
Impression
Good. Very good. Haruchika is definitely getting better. Well, it’s either that or the Stockholm’s syndrome is beginning to set in. Like with last week, I enjoyed this episode – and I was helped along by a Kakuma Ai-voiced loli and lots of twins screen time. I want them to alternate between whispering in my ears.
Anyway. I was surprised that this episode had them actually head over to the district contest – for one, I’d completely forgotten it even existed, and for another I didn’t think they’d do it this early, because that would mean spending more than one episode on the same setting. And that’s never happened before, everything up until now has been strictly episodic. So this is starting to look like -as hard as it might be to believe- something plot-related. Actual plot! It ended up straying its focus about halfway through, but you could definitely see hints of things that will definitely become relevant in the near future, such as how lots of reporters have been crowding the hall supposedly to interview Kusakabe-sensei about his former genius pedigree and why he’s decided to become the advisor for a no-name high school brass band. All the reporters seem to think that they’ll get through because of Kusakabe-sensei, but I’m really not so sure – more like I have no idea, rather. Haruta and Chika have been in a brass band, but because of the lack of focus on the actual music side of things I have no idea whether they’ve worked hard and improved themselves (like in Euphonium) or whether they’ve just been messing around and not getting all that much better. Especially Chika, who’s still making the same mistakes in the same places. At any rate, there is no dud gold unlike in Euphonium, where winning a ‘gold’ is necessary but not sufficient because the decision-making process for proceeding to the next round is separate from that of being awarded a gold.
As for the Tibetan mastiff and the mystery over who its real owner was, I have to say I was horribly biased in favour of the loli to begin with. I think anyone would be, really. A timid-looking, innocent loli who’s plucked up her courage to come to talk to a high school kyuuto gaaru, compared to a dodgy-looking young man who gets defensive and rude when questioned a bit – of course you’d back the loli. The way they solved this mystery was the major flaw of the episode I think (like basically every other episode) – it was a bit of a stretch to use a mirror (that Chika conveniently had) as a solution in an analogy to Through the Looking-Glass, but I’ll allow it. It’s not the worst thing this show has pulled out of its ass (although the rational part of me is saying it doesn’t excuse anything to be slightly not as bad as its predecessor) and Chika was hilarious when they were testing out various names related to the book. “Tweedledum!” “Tweedledee!” and Chika intelligently goes “Alice!”. Chika is wonderful.
So the loli won, and all is right with the world. As a little add-on because I really have nothing left to say, it’s really weird to hear of a family law system where the mother is the one who generally loses out during divorce. That’s totally different to Western common law systems, where the mothers indirectly tend to ‘win’ the most because everything is viewed from the lens of what is best for the child’s welfare – the mothers are usually the primary carers, and the idea that children should be kept within their current domestic environment results in the mothers keeping the home and the child and the fathers having to move elsewhere while retaining contact with the children. It’s bizarre that the mother here can’t contact her daughter at all. And no distinction between the father traditionally being the breadwinner and the mother being the primary carer is made any longer, because both are seen as equal contributions to the matrimonial home and that’s reflected in divorce proceedings. Of course, if it’s private arbitration like this loli’s parents went through then who knows, anything could go.
Oh yeah, one last thing. Even as a twins devotee I found it super adorable when they cut to Narushima saying ‘mou!’ at the end. Narushima is cute! CUTE!
