Subculture Anime Blog

More tsundere than twintails? T…t…t….TWIN DRILLS.

Episode 10 Summary:

• Yumi initially chases after Touko after the election results, but surprises Noriko by deciding to leave her alone soon afterwards. Noriko starts to believe that Yumi is abandoning Touko, but this is actually quite the opposite. Noriko attempts to figure out Yumi’s reasoning behind this throughout the day, but only feels as if she is drifting further away.
• Sachiko finds Yumi’s actions strange as well, and upon reaching home, she finally learns from Suguru that Touko had visited Yumi’s home before xmas and even the rosary presentation. Sachiko also sees that Suguru likes Yumi, though this is a different kind of like than he usually implies.
• As Mami appears at the Rose mansion later, she announces the upcoming Valentine’s event that would be repeating from the previous year. As this involves the hiding of cards, Noriko and Shimako both suggest each other for positions that are not quite clear in writing. In the end, the two girls reveal that they simply wanted the chance to find each other’s cards.
• After the meeting, Yoshino finally takes the chance to express and ask about Yumi’s current calmness. She relates this to her relationship with Touko, so Yumi simply implies that she no longer feels the need to rush things to get what she really wants. Yoshino takes this to heart, even hoping that Yumi wouldn’t leave her behind in turning into an adult.
• Alone with her in the Rose mansion one day, Noriko finally takes the chance to ask her if Yumi likes Touko. When she confirms, she is relieved from all the worries she had been carrying throughout the previous days.

Episode 11 Summary:

• Touko stays by her struggling mother’s bedside at night, then greeting her father who worries about Touko’s guilt. He suggests that Touko find her own path.
• Touko eventually returns to school, and is offered to become the drama club manager’s imouto. Touko has to decline despite the circumstances she suggests, as it would be wrong to do this simply because of Yumi.
• Suguru meets Touko at the school, but during a drive with her, he becomes angry towards her actions. He realizes that she likes Yumi, but also that she is purposely running away while hoping that someone would catch her. Before they part, Suguru also confirms that it is okay for Touko to be happy.
• When Touko sees the card flyers around school the next day, she recalls the first time she saw Yumi during the previous year’s event. At that time, she was amazed while watching from afar. Touko feels clumsy as she takes one of the flyers, and receives another one from Noriko later.
• When Yumi sees Touko after classes, she offers to walk home with her. She also takes the chance to apologize for her earlier actions, deciding that it would be fine if Touko was just herself. Touko eventually takes Yumi’s earlier offering as action taken because of her family, however, taking severe offense to it.
• Touko confronts Sachiko later, wondering if she had told Yumi the truth about her. This was that her parents were not truly her own. Sachiko had not known about this though, and as Suguru did not seem as if he told Yumi either, Touko is then overridden with guilt because of her misunderstanding.
• Counting to 100 as Yumi had earlier instructed her, Touko starts to feel as if she is losing everyone. When Noriko reaches her, Touko given a huge relief in tears.

Preview: I wonder who’s gonna find the card. Fufufufu.

Impression:

Uh oh! The dere alarm goes WEweweWewEwEwew~!

I’m starting to feel really out of touch with this series. The pacing seems extremely whacky right now, going from a slow and mostly unneeded episode 10 to the emotion-fest that 11 was. It’s much easier to understand Touko’s feelings now, but I still feel like a lot of the direction is really forced at the moment. The animators are obviously struggling with their budget in attempt to add drama to scenes too, as a lot of episode 11 seemed to come out of one really bad Code Geass episode. Touko’s feeling dirty about Yumi had me giggling for quite awhile, and I liked the majority of her despairing climax, but I ultimately feel like everything was rushed. Though I’ve already seen a lot of Noriko fans popping out in recent weeks, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of her character either. It would have been better if it was Yumi who greeted Touko in the end! ….Ah, but we’re obviously going to have to drag on for a bit longer to see that happen…. Knowing the inevitable makes it all worse!!!