Akebi’s Sailor Uniform – 08 – Feels Like Summer

Exams are over and the athletics festival is nigh. President Tanigawa and Vice President Tatsumori Ai assign everyone the sport(s) in which they’ll be participating. Not only is Akebi (as well as Tanigawa) in the cheer squad, but also on the relay swim team. She’ll be swimming with Ohkuma, Tatsumori and anchor Minakami Riri, voiced by Ishikawa Yui affecting a Kansai dialect. Erika suggests Akebi should also be considered for the anchor position

It’s decided that Akebi and Minakami should race, one-on-one. Minakami makes it interesting: if Akebi wins, she’ll do anything Akebi wants. If she wins, she gets Akebi’s sailor uniform. It’s the closest thing to conflict and discomfort that Akebi has yet faced, and as her mother is prepping a summer sailor uniform for her, she can tell her daughter is troubled. I mean, the anime’s title might have to change!

If Minakami believes that since Akebi smiles too much she won’t take this seriously, she has another thing coming. Akebi ranked fifth in exam score in the whole class simply by studying hard, having never been ranked. She’s also never measured her times, but the focused, defiant look she gives Minakami says it all: she’s not surrendering that uniform!

The race commences, picking up where the cold open left off, and as expected, the water and swimming animation is a cut above. It’s almost not fair how good this show looks doing whatever it wants; I almost wish the school had a spaceship in addition to a pool! Erika’s role in this episode is small but important; the race might not have happened had she not spoken up for her friend, and she alone starts to cheer for Akebi, loudly and proudly.

In the end, Minakami wins, but it’s bang-bang at the wall due to her quicker wall touch, a product of her experience. Akebi’s eyes fill with tears, but Minakami stretches across the lanes to give her a hug, overjoyed to have been so seriously challenged. I mean, she was in the nationals, and even going all out Akebi almost beat her. When Akebi mentions the uniform, Minakami puts her hands together in apology: she was just joking about that; rattling Akebi’s cage to ensure she’d give this her all.

Minakami is more pumped up than ever to compete beside Akebi, Ohkuma and Tatsumori. The only problem is, unlike them, she did horribly on her exams, and needs some help. Cashing in her win over Akebi, she asks her to help tutor, but Tatsumori and Tanigawa also help, and Minakami presumably passes her make-ups, meaning she can train with the others for the festival.

It was nice to see Akebi make friends in a different way; with Minakami initially starting out as the closest thing to an antagonist before revealing that she meant well all along and is truly looking forward to swimming with—and being friends with—Akebi. After the credits, her mom finishes the summer uni, and her dad and sister are blown away—as Akebi says, it’s a “whole new level of cuteness”!

But the cutest and most heartmelting moment is saved for the end, when Kao sneaks into Akebi’s room to try on her sailor uniform. When Akebi comes in to tell Kao their bath is ready, she sees Kao, swimming in the huge pullover and looking very blue because she “doesn’t look as cool” as her big sister.

Akebi, once again demonstrating what a good big sis she is, promises Kao that when she’s a little bigger she’ll definitely look cool in a sailor uniform. Until then, she ties her winter bow around Kao like a scarf, so she can look cool right now. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must step out into the cold so my completely melted heart can re-solidify!

My Dress-Up Darling – 08 – Love at First Fries Thrown at Hawk

Wakana is impressed and Marin is in awe of how talented and mature Sajuna’s little sister Shinju is, and how adept and knowledgeable she is about photography. By the same measure, Shinju really comes out of her shell when bombarded with questions about something she loves to do.

Indeed, Shinju resembles a magical girl with her complex flowing locks when she brightens up about how much she loves her sister and the “Juju-sama” identity she created for her. Despite looking the part, Sajuna ironically has no interest in cosplaying herself at the moment, wanting to focus on taking photos of her sister.

Chatting with Sajuna gives Marin and Wakana a lot to think about going forward with their own cosplay photography venture. Wakana in particular really gets loud when he finds out how expensive cameras that don’t even come with lenses can cost, which in turn causes Marin to burst out laughing, since Wakana is so rarely so loud!

The four really hit it off, to the point Sajuna invites Marin and Wakana to join her and Shinju as they scout an abandoned hospital that resembles the place in the anime where Shion does some soul-searching. Marin and Shinju run ahead and have a lively conversation about lighting, but Wakana stays back as he notices Sajuna doesn’t do very well at all in dark, creepy places.

He offers to scout the place for her, worried she’s pushing too hard, but Sajuna tells him straight up she has to do this. She asks him what his dream is for the future, and Wakana has it locked and loaded: the guy who paints the faces of Hina dolls. Sajuna admits it’s a beautiful dream, then tells him hers: to be a magical girl. As she grew older she learned that magical girls were make-believe, but then one day in middle school she discovered one could cosplay as Shion.

She snatched up the pre-made dress in the store, locked herself in her room, and donned the ill-fitting costume with a sloppy wig and no makeup. As Sajuna recalls, it looked awful, but at the same time, she’d never felt happier. Her dream had come true! Then, much later, after she’d been established as a social media cosplay star (thanks to Shiju), she found those photos of Marin in the Shizuku-tan cosplay Wakana made…and she was jealous.

Sajuna surprised herself with this jealousy, but knew she had to find the person who made Marin’s outfit and have them make one for her. Sajuna struggles with the words to describe how she felt, but settles on “love at first sight,”, which not only resonates with Wakana, but takes him back to that very same pivotal moment when he first laid eyes on his gramps’ dolls.

He knew right then and there he wanted to follow in his footsteps. A weeping Wakana takes Sajuna’s hand to thank her, unaware that since she attends an all-girls school and has never held a boy’s hand! Combined with her lingering fear of the abandoned hospital they’re in, she promptly passes out!

I for one was charmed and moved by Sajuna’s story, and loved how it butted up against Wakana’s since both of them can track their passions back to their exact moment of origin. But as much as I’ve come to love the Inui sisters, I was also miffed by the relative lack of Marin-and-Wakana time. Thankfully, the remaining third of the episode is all them, as they go to the beach after school.

It takes a minute for Wakana to realize there’s no practical purpose for going there, nor any reason related to their cosplay venture. Marin just wanted to go to the beach…specifically with the man she wuvs (not that Wakana is aware of that yet).

The two deal with a hawk stealing Marin’s burger, then they share the second one (which technically counts as indirect kisses). Then Marin ditches her socks and wades in the cool water, and when Wakana joins her she learns he’s never been to the beach.

Wakana is happy he came, which is to say he’s happy Marin brought him, since it fulfills his gramps’ wish that he’d get out in the world and observe more to become a better dollmaker. Tickled pink by Wakana’s sentiments and how she helped him experience something for the first time, Marin blurts out that she wants to invite him everywhere this coming summer…just the two of them.

And while I’m not 100% sure Wakana fully understands that heartily agreeing and stating how happy it makes him essentially means he and Marin are going steady now, I’m sure he’ll find out before long. Even if Marin runs away to hide her red blushing face, shocked, surprised, and delighted that she managed to say what she said. We’ve got ourselves some solid forward momentum!

Vanitas no Carte – 19 – Quelqu’un avec qui se Blottir

The prison Chloé has found herself in for centuries was never entirely of her own making. Its bars were forged in part by her love of her father, and his lifelong devotion to returning her to human form. As much as she loved her father, the human Chloé d’Apchier he loved was gone and could never come back. Because of this, the vampire Chloé always felt alone, even before her father and the rest of the d’Apchiers died.

Astolfo is also in a prison, albeit one that doesn’t also hold everyone else: his anger over being betrayed and grief over the slaughter of his sister and family set him on a laser-stright “Kill All Vampires” path. Noé may have suffered equal or greater torment, but has Vanitas by his side to tell him not to lose himself in that rage, even if he can’t back down.

…But back to Chloé, who only got more and more sympathetic and compelling as her arc progressed. Within the prison built in part by the loneliness of a father who couldn’t accept or love what she’d become, she chose to stay there, but now that it’s crumbling around he she has a choice: stay within its bars and vanish into oblivion, or take the hands of the two people who do love her for who she is—Jean-Jacques and Jeanne—and let them pull her to freedom. Chloé wisely chooses the latter.

As J-J and Jeanne pull her from the black cage, Vanitas uses the book—and begs for Luna’s strength—to obliterate that cage and the false world of endless winter around it, as well as reveal Chloé’s true name: Canorus, “she who makes music with snow flowers.” As the cursed world vanishes to reveal blue skies and patches of astérique flowers, Astolfo finds some relief in the arms of his senpai, Roland.

Chloé finds herself in one of these astérique patches, and her first action is one of anger, slapping and then uppercutting J-J for letting himself get so brusied and bloodied. But once that passes, her eyes fill with tears of relief and joy. The flowers remind her of when she looked up at the sky with lil’ Jeanne, thinking if she could die, it would be on that day. But now she wants to live, and J-J is there to love, accept, and be there for her, warts and all.

Seeing Chloé and J-J embrace, Jeanne’s thoughts turn to Vanitas, and when she finds him, she can’t hold back her relief, gratitude, or joy. Their relationship may have started out fraught, but all Vanitas has done since then is what he said he’d do. She thought Chloé was beyond saving, but he showed her there was another way. He also saved her from the regret of not having saved Chloé befoe. Jeanne celebrates by lustily drinking Vanitas’ blood, and then planting a pure yet passionate kiss on his cheek.

Nobody may yet live happily ever after. There’s the looming threat of Ruthven’s control over Noé to kill Vanitas, Vanita’s spreading affliction, and the consequences for Chloé, Jeanne, and others by the powers that be. But right now, none of that matters. Jeanne’s radiant smile says it all—Everyone can relax, at least for a little while, with the clear blue sky above them the pale blue flowers below, and the ones they love beside them.

When Vanitas and Misha were little, Luna told them that everyone, be they human or vampire, is alone, and most of them go their entire lives never understanding themselves. That’s why they reach out for someone to snuggle with and keep them warm in a cold world; who will accept and love them for who they are, and thus no longer feel as lonely. Chloé and Jean-Jeaques have each other, while Vanitas now has two such someones in Jeanne and Noé.