I’m… conflicted. This week was another wonderful episode full of fantastic character interactions, but something about it makes me feel a little bit uneasy. I love Haru a lot, she’s a really fun character and while we’ve seen in previous episodes that she’s an interesting character, this episode hinted that there is more to her than just her cheery, and mysterious personality. She’s incredibly animated which makes her stand out from the entire cast. There’s a lot of potential with her growth as well as her conversations with other characters. Any time she can speak to someone else, there’s just something about her that really makes you think. For example: What is Love? (Baby don’t hurt me–). In all seriousness, it’s a very big question that’s very hard to answer and if they do decide to explore that question in the anime, I’m excited to see what message they try to send.
That being said, my biggest conflict with this episode was just how the drama played out. There was really no way to have this happen without someone being hurt, but man I feel so bad for both Rikuo and Haru. I feel bad for Haru, because she finally has a date with the guy she’s been going after for a long time, but he ultimately misses the date and she’s stuck in the rain waiting for someone who will never come. I’m honestly surprised that prior to the date the two of them didn’t think about exchanging phone numbers. So yeah! It really sucks that Rikuo showed up late because he had fallen asleep while taking care of someone who was sick. Especially, when that person is your rival. I get why she was mad! And I feel so bad for her!! But! at the same time Rikuo hasn’t really made it clear that he’s interested in being in a relationship with Haru, heck he’s barely even interested in a friendship with her (but, that’s definitely changing, the more that she’s around him), so the fact that he even agreed to go to the movies with her is honestly impressive. Though, he really doesn’t seem like the type of person to say “yes” or “no”. I really don’t think Rikuo did anything wrong, aside from not setting an alarm and waking up in time to make his date with Haru. There’s nothing wrong with helping someone who is sick, and it wasn’t as if he had let anyone know that he had a date the next morning, so there wasn’t anyone to keep him on track. And at least he tried to go and find her! If he wanted, he could have just gone home and called it good and then when the two met up again he could have pulled the “I forgot” or something like that. Granted, that would have been so much worse than what actually happened.
There was no positive way that situation would have played out. Someone was going to be upset and there was potential for a fight to start. Best case scenario would be that Rou would have stumbled across some part of this and probably offered consolation. But the reason I feel bad for Rikuo is that at least he was honest about why he was late. He probably already feels, really bad about what had happened and man, the best thing to do is be honest in your communication. At least he didn’t try to sugar coat it… I get why Haru was upset and why she yelled at him, but man…. I just… I just don’t know how I feel. It was a genuine and real reaction as opposed to hiding the disappointment and sadness, but it wasn’t like he wanted to hurt her on purpose ;_;
Thankfully, the two of them have a fateful encounter while Haru is out for delivery and they’re able to meet again. I think this was a really nice way to end the episode, because it definitely let’s Rikuo say his apologies, and Haru to get out of her frustration with him. Plus, with the proper introduction it feels like a fresh start, sort of a “Hey, let’s forget about what happened before, we’re starting over right here, right now.” And that truly feels like the start to Haru and Rikuo’s story and I’m interested to see how that story unfolds.
