The most hated holiday of a shojo editor: Valentine’s Day.
What They Say:
While trying to deal with the stress at work, Onodera gets an unexpected phone call and visit that causes a riff between him and Takano.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Magazine editors do have it rough in trying to come up with things related to holidays and each magazines has its own particular area of focus that stands out. Within the shojo manga world, th big one for them is the Valentine’s Day “holiday” since their books are all about love and romance and you have to go big to try and gain new readers. It’s like the Christmas issue for them in a way. Because of that, the pressure is definitely on even as the New Years holiday has arrived and we see Takano is running a tight ship at the office to make sure everyone puts in all the needed hours in order to put out the best issue that they can. It’s hard to see his passion in his intensity though, but that’s long been one of Takano’s problems.
What throws things into a curve for Rin are two particular events that hit very close together. The first is that he gets a call from An who reveals that she’s back from France and really wants to see him again. That gets the attention of Takano as others make cute noise about it being his girlfriend calling. That makes both of them uncomfortable to be sure while dealing with their underlying tensions that are still there even though things have progressed to some degree. The other problem is when one of the company directors, Isaka, sees both him and Takano in the hall and he compliments Rin about the mochi that his father had sent him. But it’s the mention that Onodera’s father had consulted with Isaka over his son’s hiring that throws him the most since now he feels like he didn’t really earn his entry, though Isaka tells him to forget it and realize that he has earned his continued employment there.
The whole thing does serve to push Takano a bit more into not exactly mentoring him about life, but guiding him as a friend and real interest that works well. The two have a very awkward relationship in general because of their personalities so seeing it growing in that way, even as Onodera pushes back against it being so blatant in a way is really fun to watch. Especially when they start to throw An into the mix more as you can see how much it affects the generally cool and collected Takano. He’s easy to set off when you get down to it and can definitely be quite the moody guy when he feels threatened. Seeing the awkward struggle the two of them have here is definitely engaging since it’s dealt with in a way the usual romantic comedies and dramas tend not to do.
In Summary:
With the show shifting back to my favorite couple, it was a lot of fun to watch them deal with several different challenges here that all hit quickly. I do continue to wish they worked more of the actual editors job problems into the show in general, but I know that in a series like this it’s little more than background material so I don’t really expect much. But it’s just such fun, fertile territory. The drama side of the episode is handled well here overall, especially since it lets Takano become very moody in his own way which we don’t see often since he’s usually in control and going after what he wants, while trying not to be pushy or anything. There’s lots to like here and it’s simply good to be back with this cast of characters again.
Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed 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.