Horimiya | Episode 10 and 11 Review

Episode Ten Thoughts

Before watching episode ten, I was browsing Twitter a couple weeks back. I think the week the episode actually aired and I saw the cancel movement trying to cancel Kyouko. I couldn’t help but laugh but also sigh at the same time. While I understand that we’re experiencing a lot of stuff right now, plenty of which can trigger a lot several people. But come on, are we really at the point where we have to start cancelling fictional characters? I cannot believe we’re at this stage where things fictional character say take offense to us in the real world. I may sound extremely insensitive, but that’s my take on it.

But anyway, moving away from my rant. I’d like to make a quick disclaimer, I did read and complete the manga, so there’s that. Episode ten just wasn’t it for me, there was a ton of chatter but that was about it. We do have that little arc with Tooru, Yuki, and Sakura. As they worked through their feelings for one another and to me personally, it feels like Yuki’s jealousy determined the fate of two of the characters. Tooru mentioned how Sakura was way out of his league and that he only rejected her feelings because he thought that himself and Yuki were still ‘pretending’. Which effectively took himself out of contention with Sakura.

Then, Sakura thinking that Tooru and Yuki were ‘dating’ knew that she was going to get crushed anyway. Which closed the door on anything with Tooru. Which leaves Yuki as the odd person out. She feels bad for what she did to Sakura, but wants Tooru all to herself. But to me, it feels like Tooru sees her just as a friend and was ultimately upholding his end of the Bargain. So Yuki in a way used that ‘bargain’ as leverage to push Sakura away from Tooru. Which to me is pretty shitty.

Episode ten made Sakura one of my favourite characters. She’s very relatable. Mustering up the courage to confess her feelings, knowing that she would get rejected at the end. Constantly looking on from the sidelines as someone your liked hung out with someone else, as you’re fed a blatant lie which was used to push you away from someone you liked. What really did it in for me was when she broke down in tears, I felt so bad and sorry for her.

Episode Eleven Thoughts

Episode eleven also wasn’t it for me. When the title of the anime is about Izumi and Kyouko, then I’d like to see more of one of my favourite anime couples. Reading and completing the manga before the anime finished airing was probably not my greatest idea because now looking back on the episodes, we’ve glossed over a lot of things. A lot of things that I’d consider to be ‘character building’ chapters and events. These events of course, effected everyone involved, so you saw growth from every character (supporting and main cast). Not having those chapters animated really does suck in my opinion. Part of the issue I have with episode eleven is that it felt too broken up and segmented. It felt like I was watching different arcs haphazardly stitched together to fill 23 minutes. Overall the episode itself didn’t feel complete; as if it was missing something.

The one redeeming factor about the episode was that we saw a side to Shuu that we didn’t normally see. The normally loud and outgoing green haired boy, was the caring big brother; albeit for roughly 15 minutes. Shuu expressing his disappointment and hatred towards the teacher who put down Motoko‘s dream of getting into a prestigious high school, telling her to slower her expectations was powerful. Also Motoko expressing her feelings as well was also very powerful and very relatable. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how long she studied, no matter how many hours she’s spent. Being unable to improve academically and feeling your dream slowly slip away from you regardless of all the effort you put in to improve, must have been hell for her. Especially when everyone else around you including your friends could make it in, but you couldn’t, must have eaten away at her.

Shuu doing everything possible for her little sister to succeed, I thought was wonderful. A+ for that.