You know, honestly, there really is only so much you can do when the source material you’re given is cringy and obnoxious. To the reboots credit, it honestly tried to do something good with this episode and the visuals of Matoko’s nightmares were absolutely amazing to look at. The end of the episode dream with Hana and Megumi laying down the curse upon Matoko was really funny and i enjoyed the over the top chanting.
Still, the only part of this episode really worth salvaging is the lesson that Hanajima learns at the end of it. That caring for someone is hard, if you force your feelings for someone on them too harshly. They may come to hate you, it’s also very easy to resent someone without a good reason. Her love for Tohru, the jealousy she feels to the Sohma family. If not kept in check, could become as gross and ugly as the outward jealousy that the Prince Yuki Sohma fanclub feels towards Tohru for ‘taking their precious prince’ from them.
That being said, here it is, the dreaded fanclub episode.
I hated this episode in the original and sadly the reboot couldn’t do much to make me tolerate it either. The girls in the Yuki fanclub ask for an invite to Saki Hanajima’s house to find her ‘weakness’ so they can exploit it and get her out of the way in their attempt to get to Tohru.
“Arisa Uotani is scary, but she’s human. So we can deal with her.”
They fear Hanajima and her powers and thus they try to come to Saki’s house and find a weakness. They claim they are doing a news paper report on Hana’s ability, and Hana agrees to let them come over. She doesn’t buy for a single moment what they are selling, but she’s also not afraid of them.
Okay, I lied. There are two things worth salvaging from this episode.
1. The lesson that Hana learns
and 2. Hanajima’s brother Megumi
Megumi is absolutely the little brother that everyone would want. He is supportive, he’s all there for his big sister. The way he gets the fanclub girls is also brilliant, by hiding in the closet.
To be entirely fair to Megumi, Hanajima warned them when they entered the house not to speak their names no matter what and they like, immediately go against that as soon as they think that they’re alone in her room. So it should really be no surprise to them when they get ‘cursed’ by Megumi.
Well, at least I can say with confidence that this is the most painful of the Yuki fangirl content. The rest of it is actually pretty tolerable and i’m sure the reboot will be able to breathe some life into those segments better then it could this one.
The only thing I can say I miss from the original anime version of this episode was the one member of the fanclub who was called by her code name and thus avoided getting cursed and celebrated as the others feared what was coming for them.
I couldn’t exactly tell what kind of episode we’re expecting next week. The quote was “Because I was happy” and it sounded like it was Hanajima’s voice perhaps? So they might be moving Hanajima’s backstory forward in the series like they did Arisa’s. It would be an interesting follow up to the Yuki fanclub episode.
From what I’ve heard, the plan is to have 3 seasons, each about 20+ eps long.
Apparently the anime’s only done about 7 out of 23 manga volumes.
The furthest it’s reached for content is volume 8 for Ritsu’s introduction, chapter 44. They’ve also skipped all of volume 6 for the time being. So they’ve covered 5 volumes with chapters from 7 and 8. I’m excited to hear we’re getting three seasons though ^^!