And we’ve finally reached the kiss episode! The episode where every kiss happens except the one that you want to!! Well… actually that’s pretty debatable – I guess the better phrase would be the episode in which everyone except the two main love interests kiss. But regardless episode 6 was a really good time.
Personally, I thought this episode was really able to enhance the personalities of all of the characters as they were put through the situations and when it wasn’t focused on a single personality they really nailed the character interactions between each other. Prior to this episode, I really felt like a lot of characters didn’t have a connection to one another, which is weird to say! Ibarada and Kosuke were childhood friends, Yukimura and Himuro are literally the focus of the story. Kanade is the grumpy single friends who is absolutely done with their antics! By all means that should make for a pretty fun and solid cast, but prior to this episode I felt that all of them seemed really separated. But having them all go in and give a kiss to each member of the lab was really fun and engaging for me and it didn’t seem like any of the interactions were forced or necessarily out of character.
I loved the incredible difference between each pair. There was the heartfelt moment between Kanade and Himuro where we got the classic “I’m really happy that you’re my friend! You’re practically my little sister!”, but we also got Kosuke and Yukimura straight up ready to square up at the thought of kissing each other. Ibarada, as always is 100% there to cause as much chaos as she can. Both in pure nonchalantness and in just messing with other people’s feelings. But, when you think about it… she’s the only one that actually managed to kiss someone on the lips so I think she’s the real winner here. But aside from her I just love how done Kanade was when it came to her “kiss” with Kosuke. They didn’t even bother to try and it was great.
By the end of the episode, I was actually pretty peeved that Yukimura and Himuro didn’t actually kiss. But oh man, when Yukimura said that he would give her the kiss with the most theoretical value? In the moment that was the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard, so I guess I can excuse the fact that no kiss actually came out of the episode.
In regards to episode 7… I have some pretty mixed feelings about it. The first half of the episode was really fun and easily had the making of beating out episode 6 for my favorite episode thus far. But for me, the second half of the episode really fell flat. I don’t think I was ever able to get into it. It didn’t get very much out of it and it definitely didn’t leave much of an impression. The second half of the episode genuinely felt like filler – which feels weird to say about an anime like this! Heck! When the ending theme started to play my first reaction was just “that’s it?” (Spoiler: It’s not – there is one more story after the credits if those interest you!)
I guess I thought the scientist spins on the tales were kind of neat? They really didn’t feel all that necessary to the plot of the anime. Rather than trying to trying to get advance their research it felt like they just thought “oh! you know what would be fun? if we put a science spin on these fairy tales”. And personally that would have been fine if they actually attempted to recreate the fables in the name of finding out what love is. Instead it felt like an Omake.
But let’s backtrack to the beginning of the episode because I loved drunk Himuro and Kanade. Himuro saying that she wanted to be an elegant science type but then essentially turning into a child when drunk was hilarious. Especially when she just out right tells Yukimura that she “wuvs” him! It was a nice change of pace from what we usually see from this anime! And then Kanade, god, I just love it whenever she takes down Yukimura. I mean in this episode, we do find out that she wishes that she wasn’t that type of person, but that doesn’t change the fact that she could easily take down anyone in the lab… well besides Mr. Muscles himself, Ikeda. But in all this chaos, Kanade’s character did develop a little bit and I hope they explore her past relationships on a deeper level. I just… really want her to be happy.
I have no idea what might happen in next week’s episode, but as long as there’s a little chaos, I’m down.
