Episode 2
These two are so cute. Koharu insisting they do the Titanic pose had me in a fit of giggles!
It was nice to learn more about Koharu this week, such as we learned she wasn’t born blind, but something had happened that caused her to lose sight. That’s why she knows what fireworks looks like, and where to look when she hears the sound. She’s also a talented pianist, who was able to to play complicated pieces as early as fifth grade and competed in recitals. It’s thanks to that she has a very well trained ear. But it appears she doesn’t seem to play the piano much anymore, as she mentioned the pieces she plays nowadays are the pieces she has memorized by heart.
I really adore Koharu. It’s pretty clear from the get go she has quickly grown fond of Kakeru, and I have to give her props for being the proactive one of asking if he’d like to hang out and such.Thanks to that, she has been steadily making great progress with him. In this episode, she had even asked him if it’d be alright for them to call each other by their given name. Kakeru was so flustered about it, so he’s sticking to the surname until further notice, but at the very least he has given Koharu permission to address him with his given name.
As such, Kakeru has grown a bit more comfortable with Koharu, but we definitely still see how shy he is, such as he was the one to tell her it’s okay to message him on LIME (since she was worried if she’d be a bother if she did). A considerably big step for him since he’s been the type to try avoiding people in general. He was really trying to keep himself ‘sane’ by convincing himself this is merely the “suspension bridge effect” he had just learned about in psychology class.
That said, the loveliest part of this episode was really just Kakeru naturally trying to help Koharu get the full experience of things like enjoying the old ship that’s on their campus. And this is really where you could see him come out of his shell because let’s be real, this might be the most Kakeru has ever spoken in a long time. He would go into lengths of identifying in the space, where things where, what their colours were, what’s the view, and so on forth. By doing so, he was able to paint a really clear picture for Koharu. We also got to see him getting more and more comfortable with just stepping up now when he sees Koharu could use a little hand. The instance where she was going for a walk in the rain because simply she wanted to, but with how windy it was out, it made holding her cane and umbrella at the same time rather troublesome. So when Kakeru saw that, he actually stepped forward to offer a hand. These are things he would’ve thought twice about doing a month ago before they met!
Episode 3
Oh my gosh, that was the fastest 20 minutes of my life I had in a while! Where did the time go for the episode?!
It has become a routine for Kakeru and Koharu to hangout whenever he has time after class, the two have become close and good friends. Kakeru’s now very comfortable around her, and can exchange some friendly banter and so on forth. But he’s still his quiet self, to the the degree she has to ask if he’s still there because he’s a quiet guy at heart, and has that habit of blending into his surroundings.
Besides the fact he had given her permission to refer to him by his given name in the last episode, Kakeru has shown to be comfortable enough to do things he previously wouldn’t have dared to do before– such as finishing a drink she had already drunk from when she asked if he’d like to finish it for her. He was self-conscious of the fact, but he overcame that hurdle and did it anyways.
He has also been a lot more willing to put himself out there, such as participating in karaoke with Koharu, Yuuko and Ushio. Everyone was such great singers, and then there was him, who knew very well that he could not sing. But he and everyone else was a great sport about it, and he realized that it wasn’t so bad, especially since it made him happy to see Koharu having fun.
Unfortunately he did have an unlucky mishap with Koharu’s yellow bookmark (which she had made herself). She had just challenged him to learn how to read braille, but then the wind took it away with it. It looks to have gone onto the roof of the building but there’s no telling if it’d still be there by the time he gets up there (if he had any access to it anyways). So what’s written on the braille remains a mystery.
Though I’m not going to lie, I am just a bit concerned what might be written on it, because just before that happened, Koharu had suddenly dropped the bomb on him about whether he has ever thought about things he’d like to do before he dies, ‘because you never know when you’re going to die’.
This made me I think, “She’s not… dying is she?” but honestly, I have had this fear since the first episode, especially with the opening hospital scene…
In addition to that, Kakeru had never read The Diary of Anne Frank, so he doesn’t know the full context of it, but Koharu mentioned what drawn her to it was Anne living courageously, that’s why she reads it over and over again. And there are certainly some passages that I can see Koharu resonating with, but man… That is rather ominous when we know that Anne Frank died from typhus while at the concentration camp.
It’s really admirable how committed Koharu is to wanting to light-up fireworks, but in her situation, it is really a safety issue that makes it not very likely, let alone wise to do. She’s very passionate about it, so she was quite excited when she had came across learning there’s actually a fireworks research club at their campus. It’s run by one guy Kotomugi Yuichi, and when he heard that Koharu wants to light one herself, he immediately tried to shut that down, because he knows just how dangerous it is. Even someone with sight like himself still gets hurt, and he has suffered from burns as result. However despite knowing that she’s blind, he fails to explain he himself has suffered from burn injuries himself, but also simply didn’t want to bother doing so, hence the cursed “forget it” to end the conversation.
So when Koharu later told Kakeru how it makes her sad when people give up explaining things to her, I felt that in the depths of my soul. It’s frustrating and really discouraging when you want to get the full picture of something because you’re missing out on context, or simply being a part of a conversation and people just give up because it’s a hassle. As Kakeru said, Koharu probably would’ve understood his point had Yuichi just explained to her that he has personally gotten injured himself. It was Kakeru who filled in the blanks after they were done speaking with them because Koharu had noticed she was missing context for the conversation. Just because she can’t see, doesn’t mean she can’t pick up on conversational beats.
To wrap things up on a lighter note, Koharu had actually asked Kakeru out on a date, which is hilarious because he had no clue of such until she called him later that evening. It was very cute how embarrassed the two of them were, especially how flustered Koharu was since calling by phone is especially embarrassing to her, probably because Kakeru sounds so much closer to her this way! Since she put it that way, he became so self-conscious about it too! Needless to say I’m quite looking forward to their date!
With that said, I’m not sure yet if I want to continue the coverage. I’m going to give it another two episodes before making a decision. I do feel this show is one I’m more comfortable covering on a biweekly basis, but I fear I may become more challenging to write about if I run out of major things to talk about. It’s undoubtedly the type of show I’d enjoy best just watching, but there’s also a part of me that feels like I should continue covering it. Anyhow I’ll keep you posted, unless next week’s episode has enough substance for me to write about for a single entry, the final decision will be made in two weeks time!
