The Gist: Tsumugi and Kouhei grab dinner at an okonomiyaki restaurant but it goes completely sideways when Tsumugi’s expectations are not met. To patch up their hurt feelings, Kouhei sets up an okonomiyaki date with Kotori, who brings all of the major characters together in one big event.
Megumi, Kotori’s mother, finally meets Kouhei (and Yoki, who’s a big fan of her on TV but she totally doesn’t notice he’s there) and there are hints of a potential romance or, at least, friendship between the single parents. However, the episode closes without anything concrete being in place beyond a happy time shared by two teens, 3 adults, and a small child.
The Verdict: another solid, emotionally nuanced episode under the belt, another recipe we could theoretically reproduce, and some parenting lessons we could consider. Finally bringing the cast together, and the possibility of a long term plot goal between the adults, is a long step closer to earning a perfect ten.
But this week didn’t cross that line yet. All the ingredients are nearly perfect — from charm to specific behaviors and effective rendering and framing. But only nearly perfect, due to a very consistent (but not especially wow) color pallet and no official overall arc.
We’re in the final run of the show and the question remains: what will the payoff be? Are we past the point where a twist can work? Will a romantic pairing feel tacked on? Or will the lack of a long term goal lock AtI in as a solid 9 that didn’t totally become excellent?
Next week will tell
RABUJOI - An Anime Blog 
As far as I know, this is the last episode. Is there a special in the works we don’t know about?
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I just made a post about this show… the ending is so jaringly not an ending that I just assumed there was another episode :( nope it’s over
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As far as I know, this was the last episode.
I burned through the manga about a week ago. From what I can tell, it moves in something close to real time. As such, it would be a bit misguided to try and apply a clear arc, complete with some kind of climactic resolution, to this adaptation. Like life, it moves forward in small, meaningful ways.
Tsumugi is now out of kindergarten, Mikio (the crying, badly behaved boy) is actually becoming a bit “cool” by acting up in different ways, Kotori is in a full-on panic over going to college or taking over the restaurant, and so on. We’ve also seen both sets of Tsumugi’s grandparents and had further dealings with her conception of the afterlife.
That said, they probably could have picked a better story to wrap things up with, like the one that ends with Tsumugi running off to elementary school with her red backpack.
But I think they wanted to avoid skipping anything in case there’s a second season. There are several issues dealing with Tsumugi coming to terms with the fact that she won’t be with all of her friends as much.
I’m hopeful for a second season. The manga has started to vary the formula more. There’s no longer that sense that every crisis will lead to Kotori’s kitchen. If they do a second season, hopefully that and the aforementioned lifestyle changes will give more of a sense of “progress.”
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yeah i’m on board with that and i get why they’d roll the dice for a second season but yeeeesh. As much as I loved this show, cutting 3 episodes out of it to do something to place an arc across the season would have been superior. As is, AtI surpassed Flying Witch in lovely charm but fell short even of that with purpose. The inconsistent color pallet and backgrounds didn’t help either.
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