Episode 07 – Tears and More Tears – 涙と涙 (namida to namida)
This episode felt a lot more shojo than shonen, which might deter some people from this episode. However, I personally thought it was a pretty decent episode, helping flesh out the Mashiro x Miho relationship that’s been a central part to this anime so far. The thing is, even though their relationship has been crucial to this show so far, there actually hasn’t been much development provided with regards to their relationship, and this episode does a decent job of giving us a general feel for them.
This episode had a huge focus on Mashiro and Miho’s relationship after getting assigned seats next to each other, and I found it rather cute how they would write little notes to each other during class. They were all lovey-dovey for most of the first half of this episode, which obviously is set to look more like an idealistic romance.
There was a bit of drama in the second half, where Mashiro’s thoughts about what could happen to their relationship throwing Miho into tears, but that was all neatly resolved within 10 minutes of screentime or so. What I consider much more significant than the tears is that, throughout the entirety of the episode, Mashiro and Miho did not speak a single word to each other. Just by writing little notes to each other, they seemed to have quite a deep understanding of each other, and definitely says a lot about their relationship.
In the end, I guess you could say that a idealistic romance is boring (because it doesn’t really change nor have much drama), but I certainly think it fits well with this particular anime. The romance serves to both motivate the main characters, as well as not distract us too much from the main focus of this series; the drawing of manga.
And this episode also provided some interesting tidbits of information regarding our duo’s manga career. It’s not surprising that the unfortunate news from Hattori was that their series didn’t make the cut, but rather than depressing our main characters, they decided to try even harder, and attempt to win the Tezuka award. For those that aren’t aware, the Tezuka award is an award handed out by the people in charge of the Shonen Jump Jack manga magazine, and is a major indicator of upcoming mangaka. Seeing how they fare with the Tezuka award should be interesting, not to mention with their newfound rival Eiji finally looking like he’ll be playing a larger role in this series.
Overall Enjoyment: 3.9/5
Screenshots are later in the post.
Next Episode Preview: Uncertainties and Expectations – 不湾と期待 (Fuwan to Kitai)
Distant Paradise 