Ah, summer love….
What They Say:
No episode summary provided.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The “working” vacation has been pretty busy for the kids as they deal with the filming itself but it’s turning into a much more difficult situation because of the way everyone is slowly but surely revealing different kinds of feelings for each other or just causing more problems along the way. Of course, the main focus is on Kaito himself as there are a few girls that are directly interested in him and are approaching it differently in how they’re getting it across to him. And in the midst of all of this, it continues to feel like Remon is just manipulating the situation as a whole in small was to vastly amuse herself, which is what a large part of the whole movie production is.
While the filming continues on, the show essentially is more of the same as there’s a lot of running around between the girls and the couple of guys as the relationships are all skewed and weird. It’s not entirely the norm for this many relationships (or potential relationships) to be in flux and that definitely gives it an unusual feeling. It keeps things from focusing too heavily on Ishika and Kaito, but at the same time their relationship gets so little time overall that it’s easy to relegate it to secondary status. Especially when some of the other relationships are more fun to watch, such as seeing how Tetsuro is so into Kanna but she’s oblivious to it and there are others that may be interested in him and it puts him in an amusing pickle when they’re almost fighting over him.
There’s a lot of back and forth throughout here but also some moments where the characters really do try to talk to each other, especially when Tetsuro gets an admission of love himself from someone he completely didn’t expect. There’s even a pretty good passage between Kaito and Ishika where they cover things rather well in a limited sort of way. It can be hard to remember it to some degree, but the uncertainty and hesitation that comes from admitting your feelings for someone is strong. Being able to admit them isn’t easy for those that have been in a few relationships either, never mind your potential first one. What helps salvage things a bit here is that the show does present several sides to things, with one whose feelings are made plain, another whose are near the surface and yet another who has had it all whisked away from them. The variety works in its favor, but again, the lack of stronger focus keeps them from resonating more strongly.
In Summary:
As the series continues on, it keeps bringing out some interesting moments but doesn’t work for me as a whole. There are some neat things to be had and I continue to really enjoy the visual style and design, especially the lush backgrounds, but the character mix is a bit more complicated than it needs to be for the short run that it is here. Yet at the same time, there are attractions to some of them that are unfolding here and you’d almost rather focus on them than the main couple themselves. This episode throws a lot of things out there and it has some good potential, but it’s a matter of waiting to see what really sticks and what was just a bit of summer fun with no real long term impact.
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.
