Subculture Anime Blog

Contains Yuuko in her underwear.

Summary:

Past:

Yuu falls into a rage after separating from Yuuko, realizing that it is his fault for letting her go. Yuu attempts to stop Yuuko when he sees her heading back to her house, wondering if she truly wishes to return, but she can only ask why he is suddenly bringing this up. In other places, Akira burns a drawing of the young sister he once knew. As Yuuko implies the sort of revenge she has placed on Yuu for abandoning her in the past, she presents a knife to him. This was one that Akira had given her, with the message that she could kill him if she ever wished to. Yuuko seemingly gives the same message to Yuu, but he only walks ahead of her in response. Arriving at the Amamiya household, Akira quickly guesses that Yuu has come to kill him. He soon makes him realize that Yuuko is afraid of being alone, however, then bringing up the several things that would happen if Yuu were to kill him. Even after Yuu suggests that this is not the place for Yuuko, Akira easily sees that he had come without being truly prepared to kill him. Akira reminds Yuu of his advice to be prepared if he wished to be with Yuuko, then warning him that he would kill him instead if he returned in the same way the next time.

Present:

Taking a large amount of pills, Kuze decides that he will only obtain things he believes he can reach. If it seemed as if he could not obtain something, he would not desire it in the first place. With this type of reasoning in Kuze’s mind, Nagi can only wonder if he truly believes that his previous actions were correct. Of course, Kuze agrees while sitting across from her. In other places, Mizuki decides to see her usual dream again while falling asleep in her sadness. Yuu meets Nagi later, then mentioning his overhearing of her lying about being Kuze’s fiance. This was obviously her way of having Mizuki leave Kuze. Yuu is surprised to hear that Kuze once had interest in Nagi, and Nagi further explains that he did not pursue her simply because he knew that she had interest in Yuu. Nagi suggests that Kuze simply did not want to go into a fight that he knew he would lose, then realizing that he was much like her past self. When Nagi wonders about Yuu’s past, he can only state that his objectives have not yet been completed.

Mizuki visits Yuu in the church in hopes of learning more about Kuze, but he can only wonder why she doesn’t go directly to him instead. After seeing Mizuki’s determination, Yuu only tells her to remember that Kuze is a liar. Mizuki denies this as she leaves the church, however, suggesting that Kuze is simply so honest that his words seem as if they are lies. Kei messages Hiro about Kuze when she meets with Mizuki later, finding that he is surprised about the situation as well. Kei then brings up that Hiro was actually quite a fan of Kuze, believing that his music displayed a vibrant amount of colors. Although Kei does not believe that she herself understands this, Mizuki states that she does. However, the colors that Kuze has currently been displaying do not contain their full range. After getting a message about Hiro and Miyako’s search for their own colors, Kei simply suggests that there would probably be no one who could be calm if they knew that they were going to die.

When Mizuki visits Kuze’s house again, he can only wonder why she has reappeared before him. After asking such questions to her, Mizuki leaves with the belief that she does not currently have the answer. Kuze continues to wonder why such things have happened to him while alone afterwards, and after feeling a pain in his heart, he is forced to consume his pills in a desperate state. Kuze finally expresses that he has many things he still wants to do, admitting to himself that he does not wish to die yet.

Impression:

Ahh! Art majors, name the gestalt principles! Or should I really be calling for the psychology majors? As far as the Yuu and Yuuko side of things go, we picked right back up from the end of the last episode this week. I did enjoy Akira’s making Yuu realize how troubled Yuuko would be without a place to belong, and the visuals were quite nice as usual (loving that stylish knife too), but the “you weren’t prepared to kill me” thing is just something that I’ve seen far too much in anime already. Even while Akira was beating Yuu up, I felt like I had somehow seen this all before. Either way though, I’m still very interested in learning more about how Yuu and Yuuko’s feelings develop to the point they reach in the present. After Yuu’s subtle suggestion in this episode, I can only guess that we will learn even more about them in the present time frame later.

After taking a break from them last week, we finally got back to Kuze and Mizuki this time around too. While I’d agree with Aroduc that some of it seemed like rehash, I wouldn’t say it was a complete rip off. Besides, hasn’t every arc in ef so far had a similar scene? Miyako’s would obviously be the most memorable from the first season, but Chihiro’s chains played a similar role. I also felt a relation to most of Kuze’s dialog, and I assume that anyone else who has fallen into deep depression before would feel the same. The question of “why?” is easily the first of many that people in such a state would ask. Kuze’s revealing that he did not really want to die by the end was obviously predictable though, as he would have already done something about this before if he did. It’s also notable that Nagi revealed that she was lying to Mizuki about being Kuze’s fiance. (I’m pretty sure we all expected this already.)

The OP was inverted in several places this week, but as the OP changes so much this season, I did not bother capping any of it. I’m really loving the soundtrack for this season, and it might be one of the rare ones that I actually pick up to listen to later.