Rikei | Episode Eight: What is Love?

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Episode eight of Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita. Heart was a wishy-washy episode. Which at the end of the day is to be expected because the second season of Rikei has been all over the place.

I personally do not know what to think with regards to this episode of Rikei. I knew going into the latter half of the anime that the supporting cast of the show (Kosuke, Kanade and Ibarada) would be getting more of the spotlight, however, I’m not sure if I liking how they’re being used in the anime right now.

It feels like there is substance behind the Kanade character, however, I think what bothers me most about her right now, especially with regards to what she’s currently experiencing is that it all feels rushed. I think the same can be said with whatever is happening for Kosuke and Ibarada. I’ve made my stance known on episodes where everything seems rushed, or seem all around messy, so I won’t be going into it now.

In short, I think the biggest problem with episode eight was that it tried to accomplish too much, it threw in too many things for one episode. One minute you’re watching Kosuke, the next Ibarada, then to top it off, Kanade. The route they (studio) should have went on was dedicating one episode per supporting cast member. By doing that, I think it would have made the characters feel more complete. It also would have helped build a better viewer to character connection than what has been offered to us.

Like, I understand that Himuro and Yukimura are the stars of the show. I also understand the entirety of the first season and the first half of the second season was allocated towards developing their relationship. However, you cannot go on forever without developing the supporting cast to some degree. With that in mind, I thought they should have started including the supporting cast a little sooner, graduating building up their characters and overall influence on the anime instead of squeezing them into the latter episodes.

If they had done that, I think episode eight would have turned out a little better than what is presented.

But anyway, enough of that. The biggest thing I got from watching this episode was that unlike our two main protagonists, the supporting cast do not have their emotions in check as much as you’d think. For the longest time, Kosuke, Kanade and Ibarada supported Himuro and Yukimura, they helped our two individuals come to the determination that they did indeed love each other. Without the supporting cast, Himuro and Yukimura wouldn’t have been able to sort through their emotions as quickly as they did.

However, in doing so. The supporting cast failed to sort out their own emotions, they haven’t yet determined what is love for them. Despite the chaos of episode eight and the mess that it was, you can argue that by design it best respected the feelings of our supporting cast. The messiness of the episode and how chaotic it felt represents the supporting cast’s failure to support out their own emotions and determine for themselves, what it is love.