“What comes of snow when it melts.”
“When snow melts, spring comes.”
I’ve been both looking forward to this episode and dreading it.This episode is special to me, Hatori’s backstory is the content I watched most from the original anime. So of course, I was both excited and nervous to see how it would be handled in the new anime and I am happy to say that it turned out absolutely amazing. It did exactly what I thought it would, which is combine the two Hatori chapters into one. Chapters 10 and 12, it seems as if the content for chapter 11 will be covered in episode eight.
Hatori invites Tohru to the Soma estate to discuss her living arrangements. He warns her not to get more involved with the family then she needs too, that the family is ‘Monstrous, lothesome, cursed’ and he recommends leaving for her own good. He suspects that Akito is using her for something.
At this point, he has to excuse himself to the door and leaves Tohru with Momiji. Up until this point in the episode, Hatori comes off as somewhat antagonistic. Tohru even comments that his voice makes it sound like he is always mad about something. However, as soon as Hatori is excused from the room. Momiji clues us in as to why Hatori would say things like this to Tohru, that he is just trying to protect her. That he doesn’t want to see what happened to the love of his life happen to someone else.
He had a lover named Kana. They were so happy together, and eventually, they went to Akito to ask for permission to be married. Akito freaked out and injured Hatori, and then blamed the injury on Kana. Due to the nature of the curse, Hatori couldn’t blame Akito.
Kana blamed herself, she grew depressed and eventually Hatori had to erase her memories of their relationship. As it cuts from the flashback, Tohru begins crying because she feels bad. She was so scared of coming to visit, she was so scared of Hatori. When all Hatori wanted to do was protect her from getting hurt. She says, that even if something happens to her. She doesn’t think she’ll ever regret meeting the Soma family, not Yuki, not Kyo or Shigure…none of them.
Momiji stops her and questions about himself, if she’ll be happy that she met him.
This hurts, this hurts so much for reasons I can’t even begin to touch upon here. This is one of the little things that they added to the episode and it shatters my heart.
Shigure drops by to check out the New Years preparations at the end of this and Tohru starts to head home, so Hatori walks her to the gate but along the way. Tohru slips on the stairs and falls, Hatori goes to catch her but that only leads to him transforming.
His zodiac spirit is something of a sore spot for him, as most of the members of the Zodiac turn directly into the animal they represent. His is a little less impressive, it’s more of a play on words. ‘Sea-horse’ and ‘dragon’ are the same word in Japanese and so, when Hatori is transformed. He becomes a seahorse, Tohru freaks out and it reminds Hatori of how Kana freaked out when he first transformed in front of her. We get a much more detailed version of the backstory, and it’s painful.
It’s so painful to watch and that’s what makes it beautiful. When it finished, Hatori transforms back and they talk a bit, Tohru leaves for a moment to get Hatori’s shoes and in those moments that she’s gone. Kana walks by, talking about her new fiance and how happy she is with him. Hatori smiles and is glad that she is happy, even if it’s not with him. Once Tohru comes back, they meet again with Shigure and they get ready to leave the house but as they go.
A car passes by and…alright, hang on, i’m going to fangirl for a moment here.
of course Akito is in the car, but NEXT TO HIM. Next to him you can see him! One of the very important characters that was cut from the original anime. He doesn’t draw a lot of focus and if you don’t know who he is, you won’t notice or care but he is very important.
I love little things like this that prove their willingness to tell the whole story this time.
This episode was fantastic, everything I wanted from this reboot and more. Next episode, we’ll be looking at the New Years episode and the first appearance of a fan favorite Zodiac member.