Subculture Anime Blog

Opening the vault to someone’s heart.

Summary:

Sora wakes in her room, remembering that she had fallen asleep while exchanging mails with Michiru. After brushing her teeth next to Seiichirou, she is surprised to see Gouta return with a large surfboard. Shiraishi Saori appears to scold him, but Seiichirou convinces her to calm down so that they can enjoy breakfast. At the table, Seiichirou asks Gouta how his surf was that morning. To Sora’s amazement, Gouta seems to be extremely well informed on the subject. Sora meets a woman named Fune later, who usually helps Seiichirou with his work. At the same time, Gouta meets with Saori who recalls that Gouta’s magic capabilities have only recently been realized. Although Gouta has never used magic before, she states that he cannot run away from what he certainly holds. After Sora accepts the request she has been given, she takes the train to the institute. Gouta meets her on the way, helping her inside the train.

Once everyone reaches the classroom, they begin discussing their abilities to use magic. Most of the students have only begun recently. When Kawada-sensei enters the room, she has everyone who has used magic before to raise their hands. Picking on Sora, she asks when she had used magic before the previous test. With this, Sora recalls the truck she had stopped from falling just days before. Kawada further explains that magic used before being accepted into the institute is not recognized, though magic used from now on would be. During their break, Hiyori wonders to Sora if Gouta would be all right. She notices that he does not seem to be able to use magic, after all. Sora begins to wonder this as well after class, mentioning it to Seiichirou on the way to their client.

Upon reaching their destination, Sora is introduced to her client Motohashi Mami. Mami is quickly annoyed with Sora when she sees how young she is, but Sora still does her best to preform as expected. The current request is to open a vault, and because Mami does not hold the key to it, mages are constantly called to open it each time. Sora recalls that nobody really knows what is inside the vault, so she asks Mami why she constantly opens it when she does not have the key. Sora easily opens the vault, but afterwards, she surprises everyone by taking the contents inside. Outside, she expresses her wish for Mami to go outside of her home. Inside the vault’s books are pictures of people important to Mami, but she seems to refuse to actually see them outside of the books. Despite Seiichirou’s attempts to stop Sora, she continues to try to help Mami in her own way. Sora explains that what is important is not locked inside a vault, but Mami’s feelings.

Sora and Mami exchange information about their families afterwards. Mami’s husband had passed away, but when he was living, they would travel to many countries because of his position. When Sora mentions that her father has passed away as well, and that her mother lives alone, Mami seems to understand how lonely her mother could feel by herself. This makes Mami state that she would sometimes feel as if it would be better to have been alone from the start, but Sora is put to tears after hearing such a lonely statement. She wishes that Mami would not say such things, as meetings and memories are so important. In other places, Gouta expresses his frustration with having tried many types of magic but not being successful with any of it. Saori reminds him that no one can use magic successfully from the very start, but Gouta finds it troublesome to be called a mage so suddenly. When Saori wonders if Gouta would rather go home, however, he seemingly already knows the answer.

Preview: Gouta.

Impression:

What a great episode. This week further revealed the responsibilities a mage has, as well as continue to develop Sora and Gouta’s characters. This may be one time where having watched the original series may have helped to understand the plot a bit easier. Not that it was a necessity, but it was nice to know about the magic regulations beforehand. Despite its strong influence on this series, magic isn’t really the focus of the story anyways. Sora picked up her first job this week, which I think may become a regular thing. Although this could be considered episodic, with throw away characters to boot, this week’s story alone was very touching and meaningful. I loved the symbolism with the vault that Sora opened, and how Mami seemed to also be locking herself up. In just the little time we were given with her, it was easy to see how Mami opened up to Sora. Such honest reactions are rare to see, but watching this made me realize that people like this really do exist in the world.

I really loved the beginning of the episode as well, with Gouta’s early surfing trip. This easily fit into the theme of the rest of the episode, as it simply showed the importance of living one’s life. The way each episode is presented just makes me feel this, amazing me each time. Of course, by now, it also seems obvious that Gouta and Sora may be developing feelings for each other. Gouta’s character is quite interesting in itself, as he has been forced to become a mage against his will. There is also the question with his father, however, and why he does not seem to like him. Next week may answer some of these questions, especially with the title being his name. On a side note, I still think that Morishita (the assistant teacher) is hilarious. People like this really exist as well.