TONIKAWA: Over the Moon For You – S2 07 – Staying Cool In a Bigger World

When the summer heat arrives, Tsukasa and Nasa realize that the air conditioner in their little home doesn’t work at all. Nasa naturally knows enough about air conditioners to quickly pick one out, get it delivered same-day, and install it.

He needs to borrow some tools from an old friend from middle school, Nakiri Ouka. As Tsukasa learns, Nakiri quite pretty herself, but she’s so shocked by the news that Nasa married, her reaction is extremely, rudely, hilariously delayed.

With the new A/C installed, Tsukasa and Nasa kiss and go to bed, but Tsukasa feels it’s too hot, so Nasa sets it to stay on for an hour. When 26 degrees ends up being too cold for both, he ups the temperature to 28 degrees.

When he does this, he sees that it’s still a bit too warm for Tsukasa, who has pushed away her covers in her sleep, so he lowers it to 27. Then Tsukasa wakes up, tells Nasa she loves him, and kisses him. Since this heats them both up, they reduce the temperature down to 26.5.

The next segment has nothing to do with air conditioning or temperature compromises, but involves a new character voiced by Kuno Misaki: Kagami Kyuuma. Kyuuma is a beautiful but presumptuous girl who is a bit of a space cadet.

When Kaname isn’t around, she pretends Tsukasa is Kaname, even asking if she’ll put her hair in pigtails. Tsukasa is put off by how pushy and odd Kyuuma is, but her opinion softens when Kaname arrives, Kyuuma rushes out to buy ice cream for them both, and Nasa reveals he knows her too.

Kaname all but admits she puts up with Kyuuma’s weirdness because she’s cute, but she’s also capable of kindness.

Finally, when Nasa returns to Nakiri’s to return the tools she lent him, she asks him about what’s good about married life. He tells her how his wife smells great, how she drinks warm water, and how being married has expanded his world immeasurably.

This all sounds great to Nakiri…who then starts thinking favorably about getting a wife of her own! We’ll see if he and Tsukasa end up inspiring Nakiri, like they did his former teacher, to expand her world too.

Koufuku Graffiti – 06

After having a blast compressing a Summer’s worth of activities into one day at Shiina’s estate, this week finds the girls mired in acute Summer Fatigue, a state that would have had more impact if I were watching this in the actual Summer, rather than in the dead of winter with sub-zero winds howling outside my window.

After snapping a rare picture of Kirin with no appetite, Ryou decides that broiled eel is the answer: a tasty meal that will give them the stamina to stand up to Summer. Personally, I’m a huge fan of eel (I usually acquire it in the form of unagi maki rolls) and this dish looked as delectable as ever.

But even after the eel, Kirin still feels like her “body is asking for something” she hasn’t yet eaten. Then the A/C goes out, and they retreat to the bath to wash off their sweat. Kirin then gets the idea to eat ice cream in the bath, which is, as she says, a very luxurious thing to do, like doing anything in the bathtub that isn’t bathing (watching TV, for instance, is pretty fun. Just keep the cord away from the water!)

Yet even that doesn’t hit the spot bothering Kirin. Once out of the bath, she spots a can of sweet beans and Ryou makes her a quick Azuki bean soup with mochi, which turns out to be what her body was asking for. Ryou acts against her better judgement and tries some soup too, and pays for it with a stomachache. There’s no way eel, ice cream, beans and mochi will go well together in any stomach (other than Kirin’s, which seems to be perfectly fine.)

This episode was more about the tastes and textures of food, but the whole sensory experience of cooling off in the Summer, which consists of a variety of specific sights and sounds. The color of the sky, the smell of a mosquito coil, the sound of a wind chime, the waving of a fan; all these little things contribute to the cooling sensation that made non-A/C Summer days and nights not only tolerable, but pleasing.