Youth at its finest.
What They Say:
“I’d Like for Us to be Friends.”
Yuki Hase, a high school boy, is concerned about a girl of his classmate, Kaori Fujimiya. She always stays alone and never tries to become close friends with anyone. Given half a chance one day, it seems that Yuki and Kaori become to have a good relationship that they begin to eat lunch together. Although they enjoy having conversations, Kaori, strangely enough, keeps denying their friendship. On that Friday, she confesses, “I have memory disorder. My memories disappear within one week….”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
It all started with a bow and a question. “I’d like for us to be friends,” Hase asked, just as the episode title says. Now, it ends with the same question, this time from both sides. Hase and Fujimiya have come a long way and come through a lot of hardship to get to this point and the least of which is Fujimiya’s memory loss. If anything, it’s Hase’s jealousy and innocent curiosity and Fujimiya’s naivety that’s been the biggest problem. From episode one, we’ve wondered what kind of path they’d be taken down and here we are now at the animated end of their journey.
This episode was the culmination of every feeling they’ve felt for each other. Their walk, calm and sometimes silent, represents exactly where they are right now. They’re friends, but they don’t know how to express more than that except through grand gestures. Fujimiya breaks down in front of the shrine and Hase yells out in frustration, their youths in full swing. If only they could say they loved each other, or maybe even realize they do, things could be different. But Fujimiya’s reading her memories second hand and Hase’s just a little too dumb to understand, even if everyone around them does.
The end of at least their relationship provides an open endedness to it all, but that’s not where we should be at the end of the series. The two are clearly moving in a distinct direction and we haven’t gotten there yet. It’s only due to running time that we aren’t.
On the other end, we have to very quiet characters—compared to Hase and Fujimiya—Shogo and Saki, the friends from elementary school that just can’t quite get it together between the two. After Saki confessed her feelings—more or less—to Shogo, they’ve been distant from each other. Saki thinks Shogo is mad and Shogo’s just kind of going along with it. Well, that’s not exactly true, but he could be trying harder. He’s not until this episode.
When he finally confronts her, she’s carrying that trash bag in front of her face. She’s trying to shroud herself from him, or perhaps representing herself as she sees herself. But she breaks down and cries, just like Fujimiya, because she doesn’t want to lose something precious to her, and that’s her relationship with Shogo. It’s Shogo who apologizes. He feels he’s at fault here because of his own disposition. He could have said anything else, but he didn’t because he never feels the need. He should have.
But we have a loose end. Not between Fujimiya, Hase, Shogo, or Saki, but with Kujo. Where does he fit into the story besides to rile things up for a bit? It seems his arc is only starting, but there should have been much more. He could be the key to fully regaining Fujimiya’s memories, though we never get there.
In Summary:
You can tell everyone’s a close friend. Hase and Fujimiya lie to each other just to avoid each other. That’s the mark of true friendship, especially in times of strife like they’re in now. What also marks true friendship is being able to overcome that and they have. Not miraculously, but through their own words. Shogo and Saki too. All that needed to happen ever was some communication and everyone in One Week Friends of oft poor at it.
One Week Friends has taken us through a wild ride of emotions from start to finish, sometimes caring for these characters and sometimes being so frustrated at their mistakes; possibly frustrated at the same mistakes we’ve made in our own relationships. These emotions are sussed out of us through the characters, who are nearly always acting realistically. The writing is not frequently overwrought with fake sounding dialogue and that makes the show all the better. Truly, what drives people to One Week Friends, and what may drive them away, is how similar the characters are to themselves or people they know—at least when they were 15 or 16. I only wish we could get a proper ending. Though I suppose the one we got was pretty good.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: Radeon 7850, 24” Dell UltraSharp U2410 set at 1920 x 1200, Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II
