What They Say:
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The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the series having worked up to a good point in the relationship between Sorata and Shiina after the recent events involving Rita, The Pet Girl of Sakurasou now has to move itself into a different phase. Not that you really expect huge changes, but there’s a difference in the relationship between the two that will have some small adjustments to how they interact. There’s also the big change in Sorata that comes from the positive feedback he got overall from the game and its presentation, which is giving him at least a small boost in his overall confidence, something that should play into his personality a bit. The growth of people through their passions is a big thing and we’ve seen it with Shiina in some ways and now more when it comes to Sorata.
With all that had happened previously, events feel like they’re just settling down into something of a more normal routine. For the first half, we don’t get things like hijinks or awkward sexuality at times but rather just everyone hanging out at school or elsewhere together and getting along, talking normally. But the show does start to move forward a bit back at Sakura Hall where Jin is helping Shiina with her goal of being able to cook. Well, helping in that he’s found a cute apron for her to wear and setting her up to have Sorata help her with it. She’s intent on mastering some new things for her own reasons, even to the point of pushing back her manuscript a bit in order to learn something she needs.
There’s certainly plenty of cuteness with the whole cooking aspect, even if you don’t care for Shiina’s personality (which means you’re probably not watching this far into the series). Unfortunately, she gets a bit injured along the way, which will slow her project down, and that has Sorata trying to get her to give up on the idea of cooking. Not surprisingly, he’s oblivious to why she wants to learn how to do it and that makes a real impact on her. He does get educated a bit through other means, which is done fairly gently since he’s not being oblivious on purpose or in a mean way, and it helps him to understand how someone who has had a single focus all her life could want to change for various reasons. And while he does get it on some level, he’s also of his own mindset which makes sense as he doesn’t want her doing all of that but rather to focus on her manga and passion there, since he knows what it’s like to be driven and her potential. What really sells it though is that as he rails against her over it, she makes it clear that if she’s to do that, he has to get out of (head/heart). It’s brutal for him to try and register it since he’s done his best to not believe it.
In Summary:
The pacing of this series can be hard sometimes and dealing with the way Sorata is when it comes to Shiina is equally difficult. The two certainly do click in ways that few people can when it comes to Shiina, but he’s been doing so many things since learning of her true potential that he feels it’s in his and her best interest to keep her on that path more than anything else. But similar to Rita, he’s thinking less of her true feelings and desires and more about his own and that’s causing conflict. Some of the other cast do make appearances here throughout and heve decent moments, including a potential changer towards the end with Aoyama, but it’s largely focused on Sorata and Shiina as the two are orbiting each other in a very difficult way.
Grade: B
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.
