Glasslip – 03

Despite the tumult teeming just below the surface of Touko, Yana and Yuki’s feelings, they can still go out and have fun on a summer hiking trip and cookout, owing in part to the fact they’re very much still treasured friends to one another, but also to the “anchors” of their group not involved in the triangle: Hiro and Sachi.

While the trip has Yana confronting Touko about the confession she witnessed, and Touko formally rejecting Yuki, Hiro and Sachi are the small warm fire in the middle, drawing everyone back together. Of course, Hiro is also trying to eventually confess to Sachi—and comes tantalizingly close. But even if he comes up a bit short, their interactions throughout the episode were very soothing.

Unfortunately for Hiro, Sachi and his entire day with her was also replete with death flags, things you don’t usually pay that much attention to in breezy slice-of-lifes, but this is a slice-of-life with a clairvoyant. Earlier in the episode Touko lamented to Okikura that she saw a vision of Yana crying in the future, and assumed it was because of her.

It could be that Yana was crying for a different reason altogether. Even if Sachi gets down the hill in Momo’s banged-up car perfectly safely, her unspecified health condition still looms over her head, and a new vision from Touko suggests that condition could worsen, making Sachi’s gifting of a book to Hiro and her text to Touko that much more ominous.

Touko tells Yana she’s committed to supporting her, and Yana vows not to give up on Yuki. Yuki also takes the rejection well, considering. Things aren’t exactly peachy for all, but it could be worse. Losing the group’s anchor in Sachi (if that’s where the show decides to go), would be far worse than any love triangle fallout.

Stray Observations:

• After telling her parents not to go in the studio for some made-up reason, we half-expected them to mutter “She brought a boy over” in unison a beat after she left.
• Okikura visiting Touko’s glass studio and watching her work reminded me of the scene in Whisper of the Heart where Shizuku watches Seiji working on a violin. Nothing like sitting back and admiring the girl or guy you like working hard at his or her craft!
• Bringing a hair dryer to a hiking trip? Yikes.
• Momo’s car is getting more and more beat-up, but I hope the the show will turn what’s been played up for comedy into a serious accident. I’ll admit, it put out some weird vibes.
• Yuki just HAD to stumble upon the two girls in his triangle chillin’ in their skivvies, didn’t he? And yea, the anime gods were propitiated.