Bunny Girl Senpai – 02 – Can You See Me? Can You Hear Me?

Sakuta buys Mai some food, and she rewards him by taking his arm in hers. However, they’re still technically “having a fight,” so it’s not all Cloud Nineness. He asserts she’s not being honest with herself about wanting to get back to showbiz, and reveals he knows why, and she slaps him.

But he’s right: it’s not showbiz she hates; it’s her manager/mom, who forced her still middle-aged daughter to pose in a swimsuit against her will. She’s used that to try to justify her hiatus, but in her heart she wants to keep working…it could even be why she’s now invisible to everyone.

Mai intends to spend one of her last precious Sundays out of showbiz with Sakuta in Kamakura, something she insists isn’t a date but puhleeeeze. Sakuta will surely be on time, but he encounters a lost child, then a busybody who mistook him for a pedo, and then the two have to go to the police station to explain why he was kicking her in the ass (because she kicked him first).

It’s quite a story, and so out there it almost couldn’t be made up, and Mai decides to believe that’s why he was over an hour and a half late (she also lied about bailing if he was only one minute late).

While on the train, Sakuta tells Mai why he’s helping her and won’t give up on her; because there was once someone who didn’t give up on him, and he wants to be for Mai what Makinohara Shouko was to him…even if there’s no record of Shouko ever existing except in his memories.

Mai brings Sakuta along on a quick errand to properly inform her mother of her impending change of agencies, but her “Adolescence Syndrome” has advanced so far her own mother can neither see nor hear her. And it’s worse: neither she nor anyone else has the slightest clue who Sakurajima Mai is; not even the announcer who promised not to publish his chest scar.

This starts Sakura on a quest to find out if anyone still remembers her, a quest on which she tags along to a faraway town. There, they check into a cramped business hotel room, and as Mai showers, Sakuta starts calling people. Finally, he learns that his classmates at the high school still remember Mai. Futaba promises to look into it.

After a quick trip to the store to buy Mai new underwear the two awkwardly share the tiny bed. Mai gives Sakuta an opportunity to steal her first kiss, but the window closes. She asks what he’d do if she broke down and cried about not wanting to disappear, he tells her he’d hold and comfort her and tell her it would be alright. Before bidding him good night, she thanks him for not giving up on her.

So far Bunny Girl has been a focused and compelling budding romance, albeit involving a guy with the distinct advantage of being the proverbial “last guy on earth”—though that’ll change if/when they return to the school where some still know her. The clever and playful banter between Mai and Sakuta is a constant joy, and I really felt what they must feel at times: like the two of them are all there is in their world, and maybe all there needs to be.

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée 1 – First Impressions

Literally “a cross in a maze abroad”, this is a very calm and deliberate slice-of-life that takes place in 19th-century Paris. In other words, it’s probably nothing like anything else this season. There isn’t a hint of magic, fantasy, the supernatural, nor any enemies lurking in the shadows. This is about a meeting of two people who are very different on the surface, but once they understand one another, become fast friends.

It’s a very enjoyable introduction, as the setting is a gorgeous Parisian gallery, and the very apologetic, submissive, yet curious girl, Yune, is a very colorful fish out of water. Fortunately, it’s at a time when all things Japanese are gaining in popularity – different isn’t feared so much as admired for the novelty of its different-ness. Claude, form a long line of metalworkers, is a rather inflexible artist who’s keeping his father’s store going, even as the tide of progress (and electric signs) draws near.

There are a few issues: while I realize Japanese people are smaller than the French on average, especially back then, Yune still seems a bit incredibly undersized for a bilingual young woman apparently old enough to travel all the way to France with a much older man (Claude’s kindly grandfather, Oscar). When a customer muses that she looks like a doll, I’m right with him: she looks a little to much like a doll. While kind of a glaring demerit, it’s no’t a dealbreaker. Rating: 3.5