TONIKAWA: Over the Moon For You – 10 – A Life of Firsts

This week we get four more cozy, sweet, heartwarming, adorable, feel-good slice-of-life segments with Nasa, Tsukasa, and the Arisugawas. Tonikawa has long since established itself as a wonderfully earnest crowd-pleasing show, and continues to not let me down!

Fry, Don’t Buy—Nasa and Tsukasa’s temporary new home was previously used to store all of Kaname and Aya’s dad’s “nerd crap”, but the couple is welcome to whatever useful items they find. The result is a thoroughly “old-fashioned” living space complete with huge CRT TV.

Tsukasa prepares tonkatsu for dinner, a favorite of mine, and Nasa is again shocked and impressed by his wife’s culinary skill. Nasa’s a super-utilitarian person, and was raised with rice cookers and a “buy-not-fry” mentality, but Tsukasa shows him the rewards of an honestly home-cooked meal. Nasa, in turn, feeds Tsukasa some delicious melon for dessert.

A Model Home—A favorable update to their living sitch, his landlord is rebuilding and they’re welcome to move back in with the same rent and no deposit. They even arranged a model room for Nasa and Tsukasa to inspect before making a decision, and they are surprised to find it’s an ultra-luxurious apartment with a bird’s-eye-view of the city.

Tsukasa sits in the huge bathtub with a view and the two get red-cheeked over the prospect of sharing a big bed together, but in the back of their heads they’re always wondering if this was really meant to be the model room for them to look at. Turns out it isn’t—their landlord made an error—but the couple isn’t disheartened. Big or small, new or old, home for Tsukasa will be wherever Nasa is. He feels the same way.

Helping out at the Bath—Kaname opens this segment, going over her morning routine of getting up at 5:30 to clean and prepare the bath for customers before heading to school. Tsukasa offers her services as thanks for her continuing kindness and hospitality, and shows she’s just as highly competent at cleaning as cooking.

In cleaning the entire men’s side of the baths, Tsukasa comes to admire Kaname for the hard work she does every day. Kaname comes to understand why Nasa loves her, and they adopt informal nicknames and by morning’s end are officially friends. Aya, on the other hand, laments the prospect of being shunted off to a spin-off.

An Evening Stroll—After Nasa declares after thorough mathematical analysis that his favorite food is curry, he and Tsukasa head to the store to buy some curry powder and decide to make an evening stroll of it. A cheeky Kaname and Aya’s mom tells Nasa about a nice quiet secluded park where he can make out with Tsukasa, adding some spice to their marriage after buying spice.

Ultimately, Tsukasa declines Nasa’s offer to kiss, since they both just ate garlicky steamed buns from the store. Nasa doesn’t care (and indeed most people who love each other don’t really care about mildly bad breath) but she’s self-conscious about it. So instead, Nasa suddenly embraces Tsukasa from behind, both surprising and exciting her.

He asks her how her married life is going so far, and she remarks on how many firsts she’s experienced with him and will continue to experience—among those being the intimate position they’re currently in. She looks forward to experiencing more firsts with him, and Nasa doubtlessly feels likewise.

Darling in the FranXX – 07

After last week’s epic battle, the 13th gets some well-deserved R&R on a real beach, which makes this a respite episode and a beach episode. It’s a good time to let us spend more time with the pilots as they interact in non-life-or-death situations for once.

The other big news is that 002 and Hiro are officially partners and Zero Two is now a member of the 13th. The higher-ups pulling the strings assign extra surveillance to her and seem to want Hiro to safely “deliver” her somewhere specific. Hiro also meets a fellow young man who’ll be the one doing the surveillance.

But for now, splashing and floating in the ocean are the order of the day, and the male gaze is in full force, with even a “goody-two-shoes” like Gorou thanking the powers that be for such a wonderful experience.

Hiro got to meet Dr. Franxx, who warns him not to let 002 “consume his emotions” if he wants to always be her partner. That is obviously a challenge, since Two is extremely flirty whenever around her Darling, even leaning in for what Hiro thinks is another kiss before she licks his cheek.

Zorome, Goro and Futoshi are in the dark about what all this “kissing” is about, and when Hiro grudgingly describes it and how it feels, Zorome is so eager to experience it for himself he tries to kiss Hiro. Mitsuru and Ikuno don’t participate in the other girls’ and boys’ fun, but Ikuno also makes it clear that doesn’t make them alike.

Then Mitsuru finds a path and leads everyone through it, and they find an abandoned ghost town not unlike the one they appear in during the typical end credits (we get a girls-in-swimsuits sequence this week).

It’s a place that’s gorgeous in its decay, where nature is taking over what was once civilization. Kokoro finds a book on child-rearing, something I’m sure is not done anywhere near the way we know about in our world, considering the ignorance of the parasites—or maybe it is, but since it has nothing to do with their duty to protect humanity, they were never taught about it.

002 tries to tease Ichigo about the fact that she’s kissed Hiro, but Ichigo mostly stands her ground without revealing she kissed him too. In any case, she’s far from ready to surrender Hiro to Two.

After enjoying a lovely sunset on an outcropping, the squad returns to the beach to find a sumptuous barbeque awaiting them. There, Ichigo and the others officially welcome Hiro to the 13th. They welcome 002 as well, but she runs off to swim some more, and seems miffed her Darling did not follow her.

That night, Ichigo gets some much-needed alone time with Hiro as they both wake up in the middle of the night and take a nice starlit stroll along the beach. Seeing Ichigo step into each of Hiro’s steps ahead of her was a really adorable move on her part, and she has a lot of nice closeups of just how much she’s enjoying being with Hiro and Hiro alone.

Ichigo eloquently expresses her feelings, from telling him not to give “all his attention” to 002 “look at her too”, to how much their kiss meant and her desire to be with him forever. She’s relieved Hiro still remembers the “Ichigo Star” in Orion he once pointed out to her.

Unfortunately, Hiro interrupts her, but it’s because a shower of shooting stars breaks out, further adding to the magic of the evening. Ichigo sees them as a good omen; the light they give off looking to her like rays of hope. Rather than repeat herself to Hiro, she playfully calls him baka for not listening when he had the chance. As exotic and alluring as 002 is, Ichigo shows no signs of relinquishing her Best Girl status.