AHAAAA IT’S HER BROTHER. The angry boyfriend-looking guy was Nana’s brother. The ol’ sibling bait-and-switch. I knew they’d pull something like that. There was no way they were going to throw that ship out the window, and it’s not the sort of show to have a love triangle either, so this was inevitable. I don’t mind, but it’s kinda cheap to make a cliffhanger out of something like that. You don’t need to clickbait us, Doukyonin, you already have our attention. But what do you know, Yuugo is a great guy as well! Another good friend acquisition for Subaru. Although they haven’t quite gotten there yet. This episode was a little bit “two steps forward, one step back” for Subaru. He was totally overwhelmed by the impromptu fan interaction (if you can call it that) with Yuugo but I feel like he made a mental breakthrough, even if he didn’t necessarily show up in his behaviour right away. He didn’t exactly ace his last stab at social interaction, but he seems ready to try again, which is the most important thing.
The flashback to Subaru’s childhood was intriguing, too, in that it’s the first time he’s seen actively hoping for any form of social interaction. It’s also nice to see his love of books being combined with his newfound forays into speaking to human beings.
Despite the decent amount of character development for Subaru, though, this was another episode that by-and-large belonged to Haru, whose backstory is now entirely revealed, near as I can tell. I loved this flashback , but I got such a fright when I saw the big Oliver and Company-style box of kittens, though, I was worried they were all going to die horribly. Luckily, only one of them does. And Tora and Kuro, I assume. RIP, by the way, they were great. Such classic “tough but honourable stray” characters. I’ve never read or had any desire to read Warrior Cats but I’m weirdly familiar with it because it was shilled hard on Neopets c. 2007 and I feel like these guys would fit right in if they hadn’t been viciously murdered by crows. I’m kind of sad that the crows are so mean, actually. I like crows. Not these crows, though. These crows are bastards.
Such malice in those cold, dead eyes. Rest assured, this soulless killer and his hoodlum friends do not represent the corvidae family as a whole.
On a happier subject, I love Roku. I knew I was going to but he’s even better than I expected. He’s such a dork. I can’t wait for he, Hachi and Haru to have low-risk crow-free neighbourhood adventures together.
Next episode is going to continue the examining fan interaction theme, with what looks like some sort of fan event on the cards (no doubt Yuugo and Nana will be in attendance). I’m interested to see how Subaru will handle this, because it seems like a huge step for him to take at this relatively early stage. I predict he’ll briefly lose it and almost bail, but Yuugo, Nana, and Atsushi will talk him down and Haru will be cute and all will be well.