The Eminence in Shadow – 07 – Making Friends

Ever since she received the gift of chocolates, Sherry’s head has been in the clouds. She’s moved to action when she tastes one of them, and finds it irresistibly sweet. Nu shows off her disguising abilities by posing as an academy student to give Cid her report; they couldn’t get anything out of the brainwashed “Child of Diabolos”.

A “Named” Child (one who has kept their personality through the cult conditioning) has been sent to the capital, surely to continue sullying the name of Shadow Garden. There’s a sad little moment when Nu briefly daydreams about a normal high school life of fun and dancing, only for it to turn into a nightmare.

Cid has a nightmare of his own on his hands: he’s been entered into a fencing tournament against his wishes. He makes lemonade from lemons when his opponent is Rose Oriana, Princess of the kingdom of art and culture and also the academy’s top swordsman.

Because Cid is Cid—pathelogically devoted to playing the nobody—he uses this opportunity to be defeated in the most embarrassing “bloody” ways imaginable, only to get back up and demand the fight continue. Rose slashes him and he goes flying every time, but she can sense his fire…and likes it.

When she finally admits she was underestimating him and takes the kid gloves off, the ref jumps between them before she can lay down a strike. Rose is technically the winner, but she feel like a loser because Cid never gave up in the battle of spirit.

Despite trying to come off as as pathetic a loser as possible (and has practiced 48 different ways to do so), Cid inadvertently gains the ungrudging respect of Rose, an unquestionably powerful “main character”—not exactly what Cid was going for!

In that same vein, Cid didn’t put any thought into whom he gave chocolates to, but by giving them to Sherry Barnett, he picked one of the rare girls at the academy who admired what she saw of him out there in the arena. Recognizing him through his (fake) bandages, she seeks him out and invites him to coffee.

There, Sherry presents him with a bag of homemade cookies as a thank you—even though Cid doesn’t remember giving her chocolates. When he casually agrees to her proposal that they “start out” as friends, and then learns whose daughter she is, Cid is immediately apprehensive; should a background character such as he really consort with such heavy hitters?

He has no idea how happy he made Sherry with his acceptance of her offer. But when she still can’t concentrate on the artifact research, she pays a visit to Alexia, and over an extremely sweet and milky cup of coffee (contrasted with Lexi’s black) asks if she and Cid are still dating. When she says they’re not, and never really were, Sherry can’t contain her elation, which gives Alexia quite a bit of pause!

After befriending Sherry, Cid uses his “injuries” to justify staying away from classes for five days. Upon his return, Rose (the student council president) and her apparent Veep pay his class a visit to talk about elections. But just then, Diabolos commences an invasion plan by cloaking the entire academy with a magic-dampening field.

Among his classmates, only Cid seems to notice the change, and even senses when danger is approaching before it does. When Rose draws her sword to challenge the invaders, she’s unaware of the field, and almost gets seriously hurt. Instead, Cid comes between her and her charging attacker…and gets badly slashed across the chest.

As Sherry takes her coffee with a heap of sugar, I’m inclined to take Cid’s injury with a grain of salt. His performance at the tournament showed that he can an elite dark knight and a stadium full of people into thinking he’s getting seriously hurt. This seems like another opportunity to show everyone how very good he’s gotten at looking so very bad.

The Eminence in Shadow – 06 – Blood and Chocolate

While a monotonous impostor is going around town killing people saying the same phrase over and over again: “We are Shadow Garden,” things are kept light at the academy, where Po and Skel urge Cid to visit a new store that sells strange new things like “chocolate.” We learn the pink-haired girl Cid bumped into is Sherry Barnett, a fellow student and expert researcher tasked with studying a Diabolos artifact by Iris.

There’s an 80-minute line to get in the store, which gives Cid a bit of nostalgia of home due to its similarity to malls and department stores in modern Japan. Sure enough, an employee invites him (and only him) to a “survey”and ends up taking him to the opulent private top floor.

There he encounters Gamma, perhaps the smartest (and least coordinated) of the Seven Shadows. She reports that she took the stories of what stores were like in his old life and built this place, which is now raking in gold to finance Shadow Garden.

Cid, still somehow convinced this is all a big game, is impressed that she built him such a beautiful “set” (which is actually a legit throne room). Gamma also introduces him to the newest Shadows, appropriately enough named Nu.

While running home to beat curfew, Cid suddenly stops and acts out an elaborate, postcard memory-filled farce about having to poop so bad he has to duck into an alley, and asking Po and Skel to go on without him. It’s pretty hilariously executed, particularly when he drops the act the second they split.

In that alley, Cid sensed combat, but his suspicion that the random killer on the loose was Alexia gone bad turns out to be false; she’s fighting the true killers, who number at least three. When one of them slashes her arm, he intervenes and causes them to flee. When Alexia asks Cid what he’s after, he merely tells her to stay out of it and chases the baddies.

Those baddies find that trying to escape the clutches of the Eminence in Shadow is quite impossible, as they’re cut off by Nu, who is eager to show her bonafides to her boss. The next day, rumors of Cid’s outdoor pooping somehow spread, but he still gives Po and Skel chocolate; the latter striking out spectacularly when he tries to give it to an upperclasswoman.

As for Cid, he gives it to the first girl he sees, which turns out to be Sherry in the library. Later, her father (also head researcher of the academy) tells her what chocolate is and that receiving it from a boy means that boy probably likes her. That said, Cid’s two interactions with Sherry thus far have been purely incidental. We’ll see if that becomes a recurring gag, or if there are more meaningful dealings between them to come.

Komi Can’t Communicate S2 – 10 – Tomo-Choco

The first day back from the school trip, everyone’s got a little Komi in them, as everyone tentatively approaches the new friends they made in Kyoto in the much more familiar setting of their classroom. Tadano can tell Komi wants to go talk to Mikuni, and watches her go from normal to negative to fired up to negative again. All she needs is a little push, which he literally gives her, enabling her an Mikuni to reconnect. Ayami soon joins them when she sees them talking.

We shift to a pair of Komi’s older friends when Onemine invites her and Kaede to her house to make chocolates for Valentines Day. Her many younger siblings are bemused by Komi, so beautiful yet so quiet. Once she does say something, they praise how lovely a voice it is. The three girls and Onemine’s fam exude warmth and good vibes, and that chocolate cake looked hella delicious.

The rubber meets the road the next day at school, when Valentines is in full swing. The three lads envision how different girls in their class would give them chocolate, but those are just delusions. Ren has to make things gross and weird, but Katai makes up for it by getting chocolate from Mikuni and then giving friendship chocolate to Tadano.

Little did Tadano know it would be the only chocolate he’d get that day. Komi was going to put some in his shoe locker, but he showed up before she could do so and she scurried away and things were awkward between them the rest of the day. It isn’t until he goes out on an errand for his sister and mom that he bonks Komi with his door.

They go to a park, where Komi reveals that the thing she brought for him was a printout for when he wasn’t in class. They part ways, but thankfully Komi summons some courage and runs back to Tadano’s place, even calling out his name with the loudest voice we’ve ever heard from her!

She almost punks out again when she says it’s just “friendship” chocolate as opposed to the other kind, then makes the caveat that she made sure Tadano got the best of the batch she made. I’m not sure why Tadano would ever think this girl hates him…She yelled for him, for goshsakes!

Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san 3 – 11 – Merry Dried Sardine Day

Last week might’ve been the last “standard” episode of Takagi-san,  because this week is anything but normal. It’s suddenly Valentine’s Day, and for much as Takagi and Nishikata interact, there’s hardly any teasing. It’s pretty clear why from the moment Nishikata opens his locker and finds three boxes of chocolates from three different kouhai. For as predictable as Nishikata is, we’ve known Takagi long enough to know what’s up.

Major Kudos to both the animation team and Takahashi Rie for making it plain that Takagi is just a little “off” this week. She came to school early so she could put chocolates in Nishikata’s shoe locker, only to find three girls had beaten her to the punch. That Nishikata tries to hide the fact he got chocolates only makes things more awkward, even though he tries to find the right opportunity to tell her.

Meanwhile, Houjou interrupts Hamaguchi talking with the boys to nonchalantly hand him a bar of store-bought chocolate before sauntering off. Hamaguchi assumes the worst, since he spotted her at the grocery store buying ingredients for homemade chocolate. If he gets a Meiji bar, that means she doesn’t love him! Of course, even here, I knew Houjou must’ve just screwed up the homemade chocolate.

Oftentimes predictability can make a show boring or unengaging, but the opposite was true here. As we watch Nishikata struggle to tell Takagi about the other girls’ chocolate, even trying to intentionally lose a contest to cheer her up, it is wonderfully, heartwarmingly plain that winning and losing those little games doesn’t matter to him nearly as much as wanting to turn Takagi’s frown upside-down. And hey, he does—albeit accidentally when the teacher catches him goofing off.

Fortune favors Nishikata, as Takagi just happens to be walking down the hall when she sees him respectfully return the chocolate to the three girls who gave it to him. Takagi knows why. It doesn’t matter whether the girls made a mistake and meant to put it in another boy’s locker (the one who played the dog at the culture fest). Nishikata takes this entirely in stride, because he’s not interested in those three girls. He never was.

Their innocent mistake may have screwed up Takagi and Nishikata’s February 14th, but after school the universe rights that wrong by once again having the two cross paths by chance. Their timing is so precise, the moment Takagi finally decides on a text to send him, she hears the alert on his phone as he’s already arrived. It’s kismet!

What follows is one of the most serious, dramatic, honest, and beautifulest exchanges between these two in all these three seasons. Takagi admits she was bummed out all day because when she saw those three boxes of chocolates, she was worried Nishikata would mention them, and that she’d respond by “acting mean” again.

Takagi doesn’t like the part of her that’s mean when she’s jealous. I adore the empathy they express for each other in this scene; how awful even the thought of hurting each other makes them feel. That said, all’s well that ends well, and Takagi manages to give Nishikata a box of chocolates. Only the first box she gives him is actually full of dried sardines.

She just happened to prepare that little prank before he mentioned it being “National Dried Sardine Day” (because of how the numbers “214” resemble the Japanese word for dried sardines). That their two adorkable minds thought alike—and are thinking alike more and more—delights Takagi to no end.

The next day, Nishikata sees Hamaguchi sitting in the hall looking super-cool. Since the store-bought/homemade chocolate mixup was all cleared up, he’s resolved to confess his love to Houjou on White Day. Not only that, he tells Nishikata that’d he’d better confess to Takagi on that day too.

And I fuly agree with Hamaguchi…he sure as shit better! Or, if it’s Takagi who confesses to him, he’d better accept his damn destiny. I don’t want any cliffhangers for a fourth season…let’s get this done!

My Senpai is Annoying – 05 – Heartfelt or Courtesy?

Valentines Day is drawing near, and for the first time Futaba has someone to make chocolate for besides Natsumi. The question is, will she have the guts to both make and offer homemade chocolate to her senpai? My friends, she will. But first, we meet Sakurai’s little brother, who Futaba and Natsumi first help when he’s lost, then Takeda helps by beating up some punks trying to shake him down.

This is all before either Futaba or Natsumi even know Sakurai is his big sister. When there’s the option to all have ramen together for dinner, Sakurai reads the room and heads off with her brother…she can tell Futaba was hoping to eat with just Takeda on that particular evening.

Sakurai ain’t no fool. While she may come off to some as oblivious to all of the attention she receives from men—both at work and back in high school—in reality that’s a kind of defense mechanism. Other girls resented her for being so effortlessly popular, overlooking the fact that Sakurai was (and is) a sweet and gentle young woman who never freaking asked for all that attention.

By grabbing some ramen with Takeda at an intimate little spot he’s been going to since high school, Futaba learns a little bit more about her senpai. It’s a simple, no-nonsense place…right up until the chef brings out some nonsense about a “chocolate ramen bowl.” That’s when Futaba learns he’s not a big fan of sweets, which is a good thing to know this time of year!

When the big day arrives, Futaba uses her resourcefulness to craft a chocolate with matcha powder that’s less sweet and thus more appealing for someone with Takeda’s palate. He’s charmed by the presentation with the little bear drawing, and when Takeda praises the taste, Futaba flashes the biggest, stupidest, most wonderful smile you could ask for. If she’s trying to hide her true feelings, she does a terrible job!

Meanwhile, Kazama retreats into his own little world of binge-drinking Monster and the resulting partial catatonia that comes with it, all because he saw Sakurai walking with and laughing with a tall guy with blonde hair…who was actually just her little brother walking on a ledge to appear taller.

After giving courtesy chocolate to the other guys, Sakurai seeks Kazama out and legitimately wants to know what’s been up with him. Then she gives him a simple Meiji bar (the equivalent of a Hershey bar, only better), which he interprets as “courtesy” chocolate.

This angers Sakurai, who says chocolate is chocolate and it’s te thought that counts. The reality is that it is heartfelt chocolate, even if she bought it at a konbini around the corner. Compare that to the expensive Godiva chocolates Takeda got from a client simply as a thanks for his and Futaba’s hard work.

For Sakura, the bar for Kazama means more than the chocolates she gave to the others out of courtesy. It’s a gesture of affection, but also of thanks for his being different from the others in a way that appeals to her. You get the feeling they’re just both on the same wavelength, and when she hears about his misunderstanding, Sakurai has a good laugh, and Kazama is so relieved Futaba catches him wearing the biggest grin she’s ever seen on him.

Adachi & Shimamura – 09 – Her Sun Also Rises

Adachi is so excited about Valentine’s Day she can’t sleep, but Shimamura confirms she’s still down to hang out, so that anticipation sustains Adachi, as does Shimaura’s face when she first sees it in the morning. Shimamura is her “sun”, after all, providing light and warmth to Adachi even if Shimamura herself considers herself far gloomier than she once was.

The first thing Adachi notes about the day is that she’s acting like Shimamura’s puppy, having to be told to “wait” and “stay” and dutifully obeying. She also thinks being an actual puppy in Shimamura’s arms would be pretty nice!

The second thing Adachi notices is that Shimamura is more bubbly than usual, smiling and laughing at Adachi’s answers and reactions as they hurry aboard a Nagoya-bound train. Shimamura offers Adachi the only free seat and they pass the time playing Shiritori.

While waiting in line for Adachi to buy chocolate, the two thumb wrestle. Then the big moment comes, and…Shimamura bought Adachi chocolate from the same place! Turns out she hung out with childhood friend Tarumi the previous day.

While the two hangout sessions have a lot of similarities, Shimamura’s time with Tarumi, I dunno…lacks a certain sparks that the same time with Adachi has in spades? It’s almost as if so much time has passed, these two just aren’t as close as they once were. The happiest Shimamura seems the whole time is when Adachi texts her to confirm they’re still on for Valentine’s!

At the very end, both Shimamura and Tarumi seem a bit disappointed their time together wasn’t as fun as they imagined, but at the very end Shimamura salvages it somewhat by finally remembering she used to call Tarumi “Taru-chan”.

Back in the present, Shimamura and Adachi try the chocolate, with Shimamura drawing in close and grabbing Adachi’s cheek as a lie detecting method, and Adachi telling Shimamura to say “ahh” so she can drop a chocolate into her mouth.

Then Shimamura ends up doing one of the most surprising things she’s ever done: she arranged to have the LCD sign at the station display a message meant for Adachi, stating “I hope we can continue to be close” followed by her name. Adachi is touched, even though Shimamura admits she chose something “safer” since she doubted they’d be in the right place at the right time.

And yet it’s so apropos that they are, and that it worked out. It’s a clear sign to Adachi that Shimamura does care for her, and not just as a puppy…since dogs can’t read after all! Sure, Shimamura still demonstrates she’s still not quite on the same wavelength as Adachi when she’s genuinely confused as to why Adachi wants to hug her.

But that doesn’t change the fact that she does let Adachi hug her, and it’s not at all an unpleasant experience. Hey, she did want to stay close! As for Adachi, she briefly wonders what others around her think about the sight of them, but ultimately doesn’t care; on that train platform in that moment, Shimamura is the only one she sees.

Adachi & Shimamura – 08 – Venus and Mars

Adachi’s push-and-pull, engage-and-retreat campaign to woo-or-not-woo Shimamura proceeds apace, with her becoming fixated on a kooky TV astrologer’s freewheeling romantic advice. Adachi learns that Shimamura is an Aries while she’s a Libra. They’re on literal opposite ends of the Zodiac, and yet many an astrologist refers to their pairing as “interesting”, “passionate”, and even “steamy”—”a lover and a fighter”.

Opposites attract, but while Aries/Libra pairings have their share of benefits, it requires almost constant compromise to meet their very different needs. That certainly seems to be the case based on what we’ve witnessed of the pair so far. Adachi realizes her wishes and desires piling up “far and high like mountain ranges” and tries to keep them in check. Then then there’s Tarumi—whose sign we don’t know—to whom Shimamura seems naturally drawn.

While taking her little sister and Yashiro out to a movie, Shimamura thinks a bit on how things are going, observing that Adachi is way too “eager and excited” and how they’re probably both “overthinking” Valentine’s Day in their own ways. How the shimmery-haired alien girl fits into all this, I still have no idea.

The next day at school it’s Shimamura who reaches out to Adachi, asking if she wants to join her, Hina and Nagafuji for an afternoon of gaming. Adachi appears to demonstrate strong beginner’s luck, then offers to take Shimamura home on her bike. She ends up distracting Adachi from the road and they almost crash, but when Shimamura tightly embraces Adachi from behind it seems to steady her. Adachi senses Shimamura is “stealing her time”…but she sure doesn’t seem to mind it!

After another encounter with Yashiro (who is apparently 680 years old…?) results in Shimamura missing school, Adachi pays her a visit, and Shimamura gives Adachi what she thinks she wants: something like the gym wall that she can lean on for support. Shimamura doesn’t think they can ever go back to that gym wall; the seasons change, and so must they.

On the day Adachi intends to buy Shimamura chocolate, she gets called in for a shift at the restaurant, but she decides she’ll just pick some out with Shimamura when they go out the day of. But as Adachi is working, Shimamura is free, and Tarumi eagerly swoops in to hang out, clearly wanting to spend more time with her old classmate and become closer. That’s probably going to be a problem for Adachi…

Adachi & Shimamura – 07 – Friendship Chocolate

Just before midnight, Adachi texts Shimamura and they exchange New Years greetings. Shimamura is lying in her kotatsu and is reminded of Adachi’s thighs, the mention of which make Adachi blush. Adachi continues her push-and-pull between contentment and longing.

Part of her is happy with what she has with Shimamura, and part of her desires…er, more. Shimamura can sense Adachi wants to take their friendship to “higher place”, but is worried she may not have the “wings” with which to follow.

Before long, it’s already February, and Shimamura has observed that Adachi is being shyer and more distant than usual, until one day when she works up the courage to ask Shimamura to hang out after school to buy some sweet snacks. With Valentines Day approaching fast, Adachi wants to make sure she and Shimamura can hang out on that day.

While Nagafuji gets the urge to “lift up” a Hawaii-tanned Hino as they relax together, Shimamura asks Adachi for advice on how she should proceed with her darkening hair. Dye it again? Let it grow out? Adachi is not sure, bu is happy to be asked. Her responses, sometimes interrupted by hiccups, continue to perplex Shimamura: what exactly does this girl want from this? From “us”?

For now, baby steps suffice, as Adachi gets Shimamura to agree to spend Valentines Day together. She also wants them to exchange chocolate like Nagafuji and Hino do, but it’s clear she wants it to be more than obligatory “friendship” chocolate. Shimamura comes to admire Adachi’s resolve to get her words out and express her wants, no matter how much she stumbles along the way.

Little by little, she’s adding color to Shimamura’s grey, empty world. I think that’s a good thing! But then there’s suddenly a new source of color and light in the form of Shimamura’s childhood friend Tarumi, as they encounter one another at Nagafuji’s family shop. Tarumi is quick to note Shimamura has grown into a beauty, and quick ask for number so they can catch up later.

Any way you slice it, this is probably bad news for Adachi. Even if Tarumi doesn’t turn out to be a romantic rival, she’s still competition for “best friend” status, with built-in history helping her case. I can just imagine how Adachi will feel after learning about Tarumi—jealous, lonely, defeated…IN DESPAIR! Hopefully she can shake those things off and fight the good fight.

Cardcaptor Sakura – 15 – A Little Time Apart

Fresh off the loss of the Storm card to Syaoran, tempers flare between Sakura and Kero-chan. Kero is irritated by Sakura’s “moronic” voice, while Sakura is outraged that Kero threw all the contents of her desk drawer on the floor to make a home for himself. Their bickering puts Sakura in such a lousy mood her footsteps shake the whole house and even the normally mocking Touya is cowed by her dark aura!

The two don’t leave things in a good place, so when Kero-chan opens a package containing alcoholic chocolate, he eats it all and checks out of the Kinomoto residence altogether, leaving Sakura wondering where her familiar went off to.

Kero ends up sleeping one off on a couch in an alley, and is found by a little girl named Akane. When he wakes up to find himself in her home, he quickly learns that her dad has passed and her mom is busy at work, so she’s usually home alone and lonely. Kero’s heart is too big to ditch her so he adopts her name for him—Chau—and keeps her company.

Since Kero is also the responsible and technologically savvy sort, he sendsa facsimile—that’s right kids, a FAX!—to Sakura letting her know he’s fine. Tomoyo quickly uses her hacker skillz to pinpoint Kero’s location based on the fax number, just as Akane learns Kero can fly and starts to float out her own window. At first it’s fun, but soon Kero realizes the Float card is causing Akane to fly to dangerous heights.

Thanks to Tomoyo Sakura is able to Fly to the vicinity and catches Kero just as he runs out of gas trying to catch the ascending Akane. Sakura seals Float, then uses Wood to grow a tree that cushions Akane’s fall. Akane then moves away with her mom, who switched jobs to spend more time with her, meaning she won’t be lonely anymore.

Kero returns to Sakura’s, where she prepared a neat little mini-apartment in her drawer, acknowledging his need for privacy. However, their reconciliation is curtailed when he breaks the cardboard bed she made for him and he questions the craftsmanship. But as the past day’s events proved, they’re much better working as a team than apart!

Chihayafuru 3 – 22 – Smile, Everyone!

There’s a Taichi-shaped pall hanging over the karuta club, and Chihaya, Oe and Sumire agree it can’t go on like this. Since it’s February, Oe proposes the three of them raise Taichi’s—and the club’s—spirits by doing something fun and not karuta-related: making Valentines chocolate. That means it’s time for Sumire to shine!

Sumire may be one of the least experienced karuta players in the club, but she’s by far the most practiced chocolatier. She’s made a lot of chocolate for a lot of people since the second grade, and to quote the Architect, she’s become “exceedingly efficient at it.” She helps chocolate novices Oe and Chihaya through the process, in the midst of which Chihaya tears up because she’s having so much fun.

Chihaya wants Taichi to smile and have fun too, and obviously Sumire can relate, being in love with him and all. When Sumire and Oe head home, the latter notices Sumire has procured Coverture chocolates, which people say have a “100% chance of success.” Sumire is no longer that naive, but also think she’s being too pessimistic when she says she has “zero” chance. So does Oe.

It doesn’t matter where the chocolates are from or when she gives them to Taichi, as long as she realizes she can get her feelings across whenever and however she wants. So, the next day at school, she does just that. When she spots Taichi jogging with other guys outside, she tosses the bag out the window for him to catch, tells him how she feels, and also tells him he should tell the person how he feels.

In a nice touch, it’s not fancy chocolate after all, but fermented squid guts Chihaya joked about him being happier about (after all, the guy gets a lot of chocolate from admirers). It’s a beautiful, cathartic moment, but it’s also bittersweet (see what I did there) because the chances of Sumire’s feelings reaching him are still so slim.

Part of that is, Chihaya aside, Taichi still feels awful about losing to Arata. As he explains to Hiroshi, who drags him to a bar after they bump into each other fortuitously, playing Arata made him feel how dedicated to the game and to becoming Master Arata has been all his life, while making Taichi feel like a tourist and a dabbler all over again.

Before they part, Hiroshi admits that Chihaya asked him to talk with him, to try to get him to talk about what specifically was eating him. I’m sure Taichi would prefer if Chihaya simply talked to him upfront, but considering his aura the last few weeks that just wasn’t realistic.

When White Day comes along, Taichi has a dutiful gift for Sumire, but it comes with the dagger to the heart: he’s going to tell the one he loves how he feels after all. Again, I feel horrible for poor Sumire—whom I never thought I’d care so much about when we first met her so long ago!—but she has my everlasting thanks for finallying compelling Taichi to act. Only…she wants him to wait two more weeks before doing so, which…confuses him.

Eventually, when his birthday comes along and he’s on a Chihaya-mandated cherry blossom viewing, the truth becomes clear: all this time, Chihaya & Co. have been scheming behind his back to give him a birthday present for the ages. That gift? A wholly volunteer-organized and operated “Taichi Cup”. 

Chihaya tried to get him to smile by making chocolate, but her dad ended up eating everything and ruining their clubhouse party. This time, she’s going to try to make karuta a fun and happy experience for him again. Little does she know he’s sitting on a much-belated confession of love that burns red as the Tatsuta river in autumn. Will he manage to do so before this third season concludes?

Honestly, these characters make it way too hard for themselves. It’s really quite simple:

Chihaya x Arata
Sumire x Taichi
Oe x Desktomu
Porky x His Next Meal
Shinobu x Snowmaru

There. Everybody’s happy. WAS THAT SO HARD?!!

Isekai Quartet 2 – 05 – GIVE ME CHOCO…DEATH!!!

As Valentine’s Day arrives (or to paraphrase Tanya, “the triumph of capitalism over religion”), the concept of giving chocolate to the one you like spreads across the school. Albedo plans to infuse her chocolate with her love, and meets a kindred spirit in Betelgeuse Romanee-Conti.

Initially presented as the Home-Ec teacher, Betel is later booted out as a trespasser. I loved how these two demented weirdos fed off one another’s crazy. This version of Betel is also far more tolerable than his Re:Zero self, mostly because he doesn’t torture Rem!

Capt. Weiss wants chocolate, so he asks Kazuma the proper way to ask, and Kazuma messes with him by instructing him to hold his hands out and yell “GIVE ME CHOCO!”. This results in Weiss getting AL HUMA’d by Rem, shielding Darkness from potential harm Darkness was actually excited about, as Darkness tends to be!

It’s a pleasant enough exploration of to whom all these disparate characters from fantasy worlds would go about giving chocolate. Kazuma is happy to receive chocolate from all three girls in his party (even if its obligatory), while Subaru is happier to get a modest chocolate from Emilia than a huge heart-shaped box from Rem.

Finally, Beatrice is popular with Tanya’s underlings, the battle maids his up a sweets shop, while Yunyun either distributes or receives perhaps the most chocolate. Finally, for all the love Ainz got, he’s unable to eat chocolate.

…DEATH!

Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san 2 – 02 – Breaking the Ice

It may be Summer IRL, but the days are getting colder in the world of Takagi-san, such that puddles made by rain a day ago are frozen solid the next morning. Takagi can tell Nishikata has an unbearable urge to pick that ice up, and so makes a contest out of it.

Naturally, despite Nishikata’s extensive activity in such training, she gets him to drop it by declaring whoever breaks their ice first loses, and has to warm the hands of the winner. He’s about to take her hand when she asks for the hand warmer he offered earlier. A reprieve!

Another morning, Nishikata believes he has a surefire way to get Takagi to lose, by telling her he changed something about his appearance and challenging her to correctly identify that change. This backfires spectacularly when Takagi gives him a thorough visual examination, even tickling his side and getting very close up to smell him.

In the end, Takagi correctly concludes he trimmed his hair, though whether she was going with the answer with the best odds is a mystery. Nishikata’s punishment is to try to guess how she’ll change her appearance tomorrow, knowing full well he’d never look her over as thoroughly as she just did.

After an in-between in which Mina laughs at Yukari’s bangs which she trimmed too far, Valentine’s Day arrives, and Nishikata, while telling himself he doesn’t expect any chocolate from Takagi or anyone else, is still expecting chocolate.

As Mina learns the hard way, Tanabe-sensei doesn’t tolerate the distribution of chocolate on his watch. Mano almost works up the courage to hand Nakai some non-obligatory chocolate, but his ever-present friends ruin her timing and she runs off.

Nakai may be dense but has the good sense to chase after Mano, who is able to successfully give him the chocolate (which he tells Tanabe-sensei is a book she borrowed). As for Nishikata, he goes the whole day without being given any chocolate, only to find a box in his shoe locker, obviously left there by Takagi, who tries to get him to identify her as the one who put it there.

Nishikata doesn’t give in, so Takagi keeps the mind games going by offering him a small piece of obligatory chocolate, while strongly implying that not all the chocolate she gave him is obligatory. Her status as giver of the shoe locker chocolate remains unsaid, but like many things between these two, it doesn’t really have to be said.

There’s no one else from which Nishikata would get non-obligatory chocolate, and there’s no one else to whom Takagi would give chocolate.

Fruits Basket – 10 – A Ripple on the Water

It’s the day before Valentine’s Day, when Yuki appears to only have one admirer’s chocolate in his locker, but only because every previous admirer (and there were many) tossed the chocolate that was in there into the trash. Kyou is also a lot more on edge, and Tooru wonders why…until Kagura shows up at the school gates and it suddenly makes perfect sense.

When Kyou rejects Kagura’s request for a date (mistaking it for a request), Kagura suggests they have a double date with Yuki and Tooru. Yuki is ready to veto the idea, but Tooru is so excited he can’t say no. Then Kagura and Shigure both make remarks about him and Yuki getting along a lot better and runs away, not wanting to hear that. When Tooru tracks him down, she tells him it’s okay for him to hate Yuki…but she plainly doesn’t get why, and still hopes she can wipe away both lads’ anxiety and pain the way they did for her.

Kyou, Kagura, Yuki and Tooru all go on the double date (to an anime film of all things!) and it all goes swimmingly, but more interesting is when Shigure visits the main house to deliver Tooru’s chocolate to the other Souma members she’s met, and ends up talking with Hatori. What about? It’s hard to say; as Yuki says, Shigure’s a particularly hard-to-pin-down kinda guy, especially where goals and motives are concerned.

One thing’s for sure: he’s in league with Akito, and while Hatori believes he and Akito using Tooru as a pawn for some self-serving purpose, he’ll neither help nor hinder his efforts, but simply remain neutral. Shigure, for his part, laments potentially having to hurt Tooru at some point in the future, but whatever “dream,” “affection,” or “fervor” he’s after, it’s apparently more important than not hurting her.

From episode start to finish, and even with some glimpses of flashbacks, Shigure remains a stubborn riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. His long-suffering young editor Mitsuru (who is about to take a box cutter to her wrist when Tooru first meets her) just wants the guy to meet his damn deadlines, but just as there’s no figuring out a guy like Shigure, there’s no rushing him either.

I’m definitely intrigued by this gradual increase in the rumblings that Shigure is Up To Something, which is effective because it doesn’t come out of left field. We always knew it wasn’t mere altruism that led Shigure into allowing an outsider in Tooru to live in his home, any more than he harbored two exiles from the main house in Yuki and Kyou simply because he’s a cool uncle. I also suspect things may not go exactly the way he plans.