Ritsu’s coworker Kisa takes center stage as he develops a crush on a bookstore worker.
What They Say:
Kisa has a crush on of the staff members at the book store he frequents. He silently watches until Yokozawa forces an introduction.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
If there’s a positive to have in a book store in Japan, it’s a very handsome prince-like guy working the sales floor where he can make recommendations to impressionable young women and girls looking for things to read to build up that air of fairytale romance that they’re looking for. Yukina is exactly that type of guy, one where Kisa looks on and watches him thinking that he’s the real world representation of the beautiful man that sparkles in the eyes of those who watch him. Kisa’s found himself watching him from afar in the store, feeling a bit conflicted about it as he dislikes men like that but has also found himself in love with him on a very superficial level since he doesn’t really know anything about him beyond the fact that he sells a lot of the books that Kisa edits.
Kisa’s young enough to romanticize the whole thing though as he watches him and thinks about him afterwards. It’s cute to see him point out all the things that are appealing about him but to also realize that their personalities would conflict as well, making them a poor match. Interestingly, we get a look at things from the financial side a little bit as Kisa finds out that sales of his books are better at Yukina’s store than elsewhere and that it appears to be him that’s responsible for it. Kisa presents a different look at the publisher where he works alongside Ritsu as this goes back a little bit in time to when Ritsu was forced to check over all the storyboards and understand things. It expands our view of how Takanko helped to restore the magazine to prominence in the space of a year with its focus and sales, but it’s also left Kisa wanting to be a more instrumental part of the company even though he’s not a gung-ho newbie anymore.
Where things start to change though is when Yokohoma shows up at the store while Kisa is there and starts a conversation with him that has them going to talk to the manager, only to talk to Yukina instead. It’s a fun little piece as it unfolds and the episode continues to spend most of its time inside of Kisa’s mind. In comparison to the previous story divergence, this one works a lot better as Kisa avoids being the problematic character as he’s not a scared and whiny brat of a kid, but a young man who works for a living and has a better idea of what he wants rather than being confused about whether he even likes guys. When the two actually spend some time together, it’s amusing to see how easily Kisa ends up falling for him and the way that the conversation unfolds. It feels like a far more natural conversation than we’ve seen with the second pairing that showed up in the series and that has me rooting for more of this as Kisa and Yukina are actually interesting to watch.
In Summary:
While Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi almost lost me when it introduced the second pairing of the series, it managed to keep me when it got back to Ritsu and Takano. So when it decided to go for the third couple, or potential couple here with Kisa and Yukina, I was pretty fearful that we’d have another uninteresting arc with the usual stereotypes that fall flat. Thankfully, they manage to weave the story better here with these two in giving it a bit more variety, especially with where Yukina works and the difference in their ages. But what really made it work is that Kisa’s internal dialogue over the events as they unfold feel positively natural and human, regardless of whether he’d be interested in a guy or a girl. It’s a solid performance that really draws you in and you can’t help but like Yukina as well, even if he does come across initially as your standard shoujo manga prince type. This episode definitely defied expectations and left me smiling a whole lot.
Grade: B+
Simulcast By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
