Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun S2 Ep 11

Boy am I’m glad I separated the posts ahahaha because, wow, ever since the last episode, the story just gotten so much deeper, in such a great way. I feel like in more ways than one, the author of JakuChara has broken through the fourth wall, but the standout instance was when the following was said: “This story was really about how Kris lives her life. Not about who ends up with who.” And they are right about that. Sure this is a romance, but that’s a subplot to what’s actually going on here. Take Kris out and replace it with any character’s name, and that’s JakuChara. A story about how everyone is trying to find their place and roles in this world.

While I do get that Aoi does have her hands full with Student Council responsibilities (especially with the Cultural Festival preparations), I’m not gonna lie, I sort of got the impression she wants to actually avoid Fuuka as much as possible during this period so that she can’t study her more closely for the script. But luckily for her, Fuuka drew the line last week and called it off.

And perhaps this may have been in part of why the script had shifted in a radically different and sadder direction. The conclusion Fuuka had written for the story wounds up deciding to run away from the castle (where she was treated like baggage) and get a job at the market, where there she will grow and learn on her own.

This is essentially what Fuuka is doing right now. She sees Fumiya has his hands full with both juggling the class play and doing the comedic routine with Minami, so she’s trying to take care of things on her own so that she doesn’t become a burden to him.

So when Fumiya reads the the completion of the script, he’s stunned by how it has taken a completely different direction than he had anticipated. He finds it too sad because he feels as though it invalidates Kris’ life within the castle walls. And if you were to look at it from the way Fuuka is suddenly behaving, one could say it’s the same as invalidating the skills she has acquired as an author from quietly studying people from afar.

This is why ever since Fuuka had finished the script, it has left him feeling very uneasy about it, so he had asked Fuuka to set it aside for now, let her mull on it a bit longer. And I feel the same as he does. Fuuka’s sudden shift has made me feel terribly anxious. It feels as though she feels she needs to change quickly, or else she will feel like she’s holding people (like Fumiya) back, and find herself left behind in the dust.

Now of course we all know it can be a good thing to change, because growing as an individual is always a good thing–but to do it so fast, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get the results you want. Fuuka considers “Popple” an ideal for the world because of its ability to being able to form relationships through the power of language and effort. It reminded her of Fumiya and Aoi, and how she’d like work hard to be like them.

And then the conversation between Fumiya and Mizusawa happened, and that’s when things got even more interesting, but also more troubling. Mizusawa had picked up Fuuka is not quite acting like herself (though has given her points for trying), and when Fumiya explained how she feels like she has to do these things to fit this ‘ideal’, that’s when he realized that he had misinterpreted what form of ‘Ideal’ Fuuka has been referring to.

Fumiya’s perspective of ‘Ideal’ is about the things he wants to do, but that’s not he case with Fuuka. Instead, she takes on a bird-eye’s view (as Mizusawa so eloquently had put it) and is choosing to act in a way she believes the way the world needs her to act. This explains why Fumiya felt her explanation of ‘Ideal’ made him feel so uneasy.

Ever since Fuuka and Fumiya closed the case of investigating Aoi’s character further, things have suddenly shifted to where we’re seeing now seeing Fuuka attempting to mimic Aoi in order to build her character up. It’s sort of a monkey sees, monkey do situation we got here. Although she doesn’t know everything about Aoi, Fuuka still believes the ‘character’ Aoi portrays the the ‘ideal’ character she aspires to be, so she’s trying hard to be like her. We saw this unfold when she had struggled with being the director, and then followed up by following Aoi’s example.

He did bring this up to Fuuka, and she explained that rather than a player’s perspective, she likens her view as an author’s perspective as opposed to a player taking on a character.

But even though Fuuka says she’s fine with holding onto her author’s perspective, Fumiya’s still worried about it. So to get a better understanding of what’s going through her head, he went as far as to grabbing a copy of Andi’s book The Popple on Raptor Isle, to find out why it resonates with with her so much and stayed up all night reading it. His efforts were not in vain though, as he believes he had finally found a clue that could give him an answer to why she’s acting this way.

Finally last but not least, I really loved the conversation Minami and Fumiya had together about Aoi. Minami absolutely nailed it on the head, though it’s sad to hear how she describes herself to be hollow. It’s sad but often times too true how the ones who portray themselves to be happy and bright are the ones who are also the most hollow inside. They are people who are looking for that void to be fulfilled in any sort of way. Minami believes Aoi is similar to her, where she needs to be first place so she can be special. And sadly because they are like that, it’s unlikely that like Aoi will never come to anyone for advice on her own.

In the mean time, Fumiya still doesn’t know where his feelings lies for Minami at the moment, but at the very least he does consider them to be good friends. And they certainly are, because Minami is a great girl who’s always ready to lend an ear when she sees a friend down.