Leaving the girls on their own for a day isn’t a bad idea, but they do get into some decent bit of trouble.
What They Say:
With Yuuta at work, the girls have to stay at home and entertain themselves. But with cramp quarters and a rambunctious Hina, they set off to explore their new town.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the girls having dealt with some of the first blush issues of living with Yuuta in his cramped apartment, things are just going to get a bit more difficult but also routine at the same time. The routine stuff comes from simply settling in and figuring out what works, especially since they’re living with “a guy”. The more awkward stuff comes from things like sleeping conditions, where one of them curls up a bit closer to Yuuta than he expected or feels comfortable with, and the simple things like Yuuta changing his shirt and seeing some of them getting all panicked over it. It is something that makes sense from both perspectives but it’s just the problem of living with a trio of girls who have been through a lot and dealing with under the surface issues.
Yuuta’s adjustments aren’t that bad overall since he’s a bit oblivious, but being back in town and at school has him being reminded of some of his other duties, such as recently joining the Sightseeing Club and not attending for a bit. It’s rather cute that he realizes he can’t let them meet the girls, but what resonates is that he calls them “my kids,” , or at least the translation does, and that shows a good mindset on his part as he views them as they really are and nothing more. Especially since Sora obviously has such a crush on him and does things in her sleep without realizing it. You know he feels uncomfortable about it when he realizes it, but a lot of it just flies under his radar of understanding in a way because he doesn’t see them as “girls” in that way.
The girls themselves get some time to shine in this episode while he’s off at school and work by going out to explore the town a bit and to try and find a way to pay him back a little bit for all he does. It’s cute watching them together and how they interact, especially since the older two definitely watch out for Hina since she’s the youngest of them. With her being a half sister, it could be problematic in some ways, but they’re all just so intent on staying together that it’s a good realization that they’re lucky Yuuta did what he did. A lot of what this episode revolves around is having the girls realize things like this and to make sure they treat him right and do right by him. It’s a good sentiment and one that might escape some kids in similar situations considering the loss they’d be coping with.
In Summary:
The fourth episode of the series definitely has some fun and light moments to it and it avoids doing anything too serious when you get down to it. It plays up the crush aspect a bit in a couple of ways but it’s mostly done for cute effect when you get down to it, especially since Yuuta is oblivious to it and doesn’t even think of it in that way. And that helps him avoid being the creepy role that he could be in a lesser series and maintains his knight in shining armor role since he’s doing all of this for them, based on what his own sister did for him years ago. It obviously hsa a lot of room to go in a bad direction and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it take that turn at some point, either in the original work or here, but mostly it’s just an endearing, nice and fun little show with a difficult situation being dealt with. It continues to charm me against all odds.
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.