Subculture Anime Blog

SUDOH-BUCKS

Summary:

Ryuji enters Taiga’s home with her breakfast as usual, but while waiting for her to wake up, he notices a peculiar box in her living room. Inside, he finds a picture album with photos of Yusaku inside. Taiga is angry to find Ryuji looking through her things, but when he asks if he should take some pictures for her that are not as blurry, she only wonders how many she can request. The two meet Yusaku upon reaching school later, but Taiga can only make an awkward greeting in her nervousness. After Yusaku returns her greeting and leaves, she wonders why Ryuji did not take a picture at that instance. The student body later gathers outside to hear a speech from the student representatives. Taiga becomes angry while observing Yusaku whisper things to Kano Sumire, then getting into a conflict with Sumire by saying that she has forgotten the very procedures that she is scolding the students for no longer practicing. Yusaku takes Taiga away for this, but later in class, Ryuji notices that she is obviously happy for the chance to have gotten close to him.

During the lunch break, Taiga expresses the conflicting thoughts she has had throughout the day about what happened earlier. When Yusaku and Minori show up, they surprise Ryuji and Taiga by expressing their wish to eat with them. When Yusaku asks about Taiga’s bentou, Ryuji panics at the realization that his bentou would be the same as Taiga’s. Yusaku and Minori are called by the softball manager to avoid the conflict, leaving him to wonder if the fluttering Taiga is okay with revealing their secrets to everyone. Taiga meets Ryuji after school, dragging him to the softball field to help her take pictures. Finding that he is too slow, however, she energetically starts taking the pictures herself. This makes Ryuji realize that all of the photos are blurry because of how excited Taiga becomes during these moments. When Taiga shouts encouragement to Yusaku at one point, she is forced to hide herself in embarrassment afterwards. At a coffee shop later, Ryuji notices that Taiga is further overjoyed to have prints made of the photos she has taken.

At home, Taiga decides to help Ryuji make dinner in thanks for his help. After having a meal with Yasuko, Ryuji excites Taiga by revealing that she can have one of her photos laminated. After awhile, however, Taiga becomes upset for reasons that Ryuji does not understand. At school the next day, Minori meets Ryuji with exciting pictures of pudding that she has made in a large bucket. Although not in the way he might have expected, this allows Ryuji to take a photo of Minori as she talks to her friends afterwards. Ryuji again finds Taiga looking through pictures at the vending machine in the halls, but after reminding her that she doesn’t have to worry so much about how many she wants serviced, she only tells him to pick for her. While looking through the photos, Yusaku meets Ryuji while already knowing all about the situation. He reveals that he also has pictures of Taiga, giving the reason that he once liked Taiga as well. He reveals further, however, he was shot down immediately when he confessed to her.

Meeting Taiga on the rooftop afterwards, Ryuji confirms the information he has just learned. Taiga explains that she turned down Yusako because of the suddenness of his confession, but she had come to like him afterwards. Taiga further reveals that out of all the photos she had taken, there was not one that she wanted. She wanted the face of Yusako when he had confessed to her. Thinking about this at home later, Ryuji suggests that it would be better if Taiga and Yusako had just followed their feelings more clearly.

Preview: Kawashima Ami!

Impression:

OHA~! It might be that this episode was based on the original material, where as the last was mostly anime original, but I definitely enjoyed myself a lot more this week. In response to Zyl’s recent thoughts, and the debate in my own previous post, I’d have to say that I don’t believe that JC Staff is a terrible studio because of all the anime original work they do. Out of all the shows I’ve blogged by the studio, Zero no Tsukaima, Kimikiss, Shakugan no Shana, Shigofumi, and Nabari no Ou, the only series that I’ve come to despise is ZnT. It may be the sheer amount of work that the studio does, but JC Staff has pretty consistently remained to be my second favorite studio throughout the years as well. Like the common saying goes, is the studio only as good as their worst work?

The new character in this episode, student council president Kano Sumire, didn’t come off as being nearly as important as I imagined she was going to be. I suppose her role will be a bit more minor, though she does serve her purpose in making Taiga pretty jealous. The story for the remainder of the episode was hilarious, and watching Taiga freak out or melt in various ways just added to my appreciation. As much as the typical anime likes to play on this, do people really go around sneaking pictures of their crushes on a regular basis? I would be too afraid of being labeled a stalker….

The OP and ED are out. I listened to them, and thought they were pretty good, but soon put them at the bottom of my large playlist as a set of songs that I wouldn’t typically listen to. The electronica is silly too.