Horimiya: Piece – 10 – Scent of a Soulmate

This week we’re (re-?) introduced to Watabe, Izumi’s not-so-secret admirer. He liked the longer-haired, glasses-wearing Izumi, but doesn’t mind this new fun-loving version. One person who does mind all of the attention and affection Watabe is showering on Izumi is Kyouko, who doesn’t like how he arrives at her house with Watabe’s “scent” all over him.

Izumi can’t fathom discerning different people’s scents, such that Kyouko assures him that if she cheats, she’ll let him know. The next day, Izumi sidles up to his friends and smells them one by one, but still can’t really tell one smell from another. When he returns to Kyouko’s house after school, she’s furious, as he smells even more like Watabe.

When Izumi turns around and hugs her, she gets mad because she thought he was finally going to “be rough” with her; marking this the first S&M Kyouko sighting this season. Izumi was never 100% comfortable being rough with her in the first season, but knew that she liked it so indulged her.

She slaps him out of frustration, then runs straight into a wall, and the next day they’re both wearing bandages on their faces and their friends are concerned. It then starts becoming annoying to those friends when Izumi and Kyouko act distant and ignore each other, despite not being able to say exactly why they’re fighting.

That’s just how it goes with couples sometimes, especially when one of them is a stubborn as Kyouko. But when she genuinely starts to worry that Izumi hates her, she withdraws outside in the cold and skips class. Thankfully, Izumi finds her, and assures her that he could never hate her, and in fact he likes her much more than she may realize.

Izumi pulls her arms around from her face and describes her red, embarrassed, tearful face in great detail. Many other women would be quite put off by this mocking, but Kyouko is loving it, and shows a sign of her gratitude by kicking Izumi in the gut. In their own weird way, they’ve made up, and all’s well in Horimiyaville.

The next segment follows up on Kyouko’s obsession with people’s scents, as Izumi comes to class wearing a hoodie since the rest of his clothes are in the wash. Shuu likes the new look, even if it’s copying his own style, while Sengoku warns Izumi that he’s violating the dress code (Shuu is a lost cause).

Kyouko stares at Izumi all day, and he’s not sure why until after school, when she takes him by the hand into an alley and smells his sleeve, and smiles widely because now he “smells like himself” now that he’s wearing his usual cardigan. Kyouko looks so cute in her joy that Izumi kisses her right then and there.

Kyouko admits she’s not the best person, but that doesn’t matter. You can’t choose who you love, and Izumi loves all of her—the good and the bad.

Horimiya: Piece – 09 – Let Them Eat Cake

This week focuses more on the faculty of Horimiya, primarily Yasuda-sensei. This is unfortunate, since Yasuda-sensei’s whole deal is he harbors an inappropriate love of high school girls, and this is always played for comedy. While the age of the source material is partly to blame (2011, when most people still used flip phones) and I’m a big fan of Tsuda Kenjirou, this never doesn’t feel gross and wrong.

Fortunately, he gets some degree of comeuppance throughout the episode as his authority is undermined and he is mocked by students and chastened by his fellow teacher, the long-suffering Terashima-sensei. When he’s sleeping in the lounge, two third years give him little pigtails, which cause his class to roar with laughter once one of them (a tardy Yuki) points them out.

The skeevy Yasuda is contrasted with the more harmless Nakamine-sensei, whose only crime is being forgetful when it comes to keys (along with names and faces). Yuki decides to help him out by sewing the hole in his lab coat pocket. Why they do this in a dark classroom, I don’t know, but both Yasuda and Tooru are outraged.

When Tooru sees Yuki about to take Nakamine-sensei’s hand in hers, he can’t help but bang on the glass, alerting them to his presence. He later learns she was reading his palm, and proceeds to read his as well. Tooru is happy Yuki is holding his hands, but isn’t aware that the whole reason she keeps a sewing kit on her is that he loses so many buttons.

Izumi, Tooru, and Shuu meet up for special “guy’s time” and start describing what sounds like a dirty magazine, but turns out to be a giant cake when Yasuda tries to catch them red-handed. The prospect of them scarfing down a cake in a dark classroom is hilarious, because it underscores what innocent dorks they all are.

But this still lands them in trouble as a big cake somehow isn’t allowed. Yasuda gets more than he bargains for when the three team up to pepper him with questions about his living situation and love life. He tells them he won’t let them visit him unless they bring the girls, which, again, isn’t really funny.

Sengoku is in a spot when he ends up locked in the StuCo room with a “slumbering demon”, i.e. Kyouko. When she wakes up she’s cross, but calls the number on the student handbook and they’re let out by Yasuda. After they both use the restroom, he asks if they were up to anything unsavory, and suggests they strip in order to prove they weren’t.

Fortunately for Kyouko and Sengoku, Terashima-sensei is still there, and lets them go while she deals with the pervert. The next day Yasuda has been reformed to the point of brainwashing, but the episode declares that he’ll be back to normal tomorrow. I’d prefer if he lost his job for his inappropriate comments, but hopefully the remaining eps of Piece contain as little of him as possible.