Eva’s First Impression
This was quite a sparkly opener, and what I’m referring to were the seemingly endless shoujo filters. There were so much, it was blinding. They went a bit too heavy with it for my taste, so I do hope they’ll dial back on it a bit though…. Okay maybe more than that, please.
Introducing Iwata Sae, a sweetheart who unfortunately has a lot of insecurities about her physique, namely with her weight and height. She has always been the tallest girl since elementary, which to her dismay makes her stand out like a sore thumb and feel less cute compared to her peers. She is quite strong, but not overly so to the point she’s considered OP, but enough to make her a great athlete. We saw this with the way she accidentally broke a door, lifted it up and put it back in place, and also what she (and other girls who served as the cavalry positions) endured during sport festival’s cavalry battle.
Ever since elementary, she has had a crush on boy named Kamishiro Koki. They were friends on first name basis back then, but once they got into middle school they’ve dropped that and referred to each other’s surnames instead. It didn’t help they were never in the same class during this period of their lives, so the two would only really interact with each other whenever the opportunity would arise. Such was the case when the sports festival came around. It was that which served as a catalyst of rekindling their friendship from elementary that had gotten lost somewhere along the way. It was Koki who sought to work on their respective class banner’s together, which allowed them to spend time together after school. Thanks to that, they were able to catch up with each other after so long of not really interacting with each other. After-all, that kind of thing can be awkward to do sometimes (if not always).
But then came along a particularly soul crushing moment during the sport’s festival scavenger hunt, and it was when she found herself being identified as Koki’s subject card of, “find someone tall”. Like OW, I FELT THAT. Just hearing it on a second-hand account was BRUTAL because we know how much it bothers her, and to make matters worse, it’s her long time crush picking her out for that.
HOWEVER: THANKFULLY THAT WAS NOT THE CASE! It was just an awful misunderstanding caused by the teacher’s poor attempt to help Koki hide the subject. As it turned out, what was actually on the card was: “Find someone cute”!
Now just like Sae got a card with “find someone you love” and didn’t want to expose herself, Koki didn’t want it kind of thing to be exposed like that either, but unlike Sae who could cover it up with her friend, he couldn’t find a substitute. And on top of that, Koki didn’t want the teacher to say it was because since he had never told her this before, he wanted to say it himself— but he just wasn’t mentally prepared to do it on the spot. I can hardly blame him because I’d be begging for the same thing if I were in his shoes.
That being said… For better or for worse, it’s because of the teacher’s blunder that Koki did end up confessing that Sae was the one who came to mind when he read the subject. Which brings me to the next point…
Sae seems to think her feelings are entirely one-sided, but I have a sneaking suspicion that may not be the case. There were some subtle and not-so-subtle hints here and there suggesting that perhaps, Koki is crushing on her too!
Among the first few, the first and somewhat subtle one that I found (though it could be me over-analyzing it), was during discussion of which high school they were going to attend. Koki had asked her first, and when she had answered North High it looked as though Koki got a bit anxious. Then when she had asked him, he seemed as though he hastily threw out that he’s aiming to get into North High too, because maybe it was just me, but he sure didn’t sound wholly confident about it. It gave me the impression he was internally freaking out thinking: “Oh shit, can I even pass the entrance exams?” To which we later did see him super locked in during the exam.
Another instance, this time the in-your-face clue was when we saw him pick her for “find someone cute”. Koki was a blushing mess when he had ran after her to clear up the misunderstanding that had transpired. Not to mention, he probably felt absolutely terrible that of all things the teacher said to help him, unfortunately had named one the thing that is Sae’s biggest insecurity about herself, and knew he needed to clear that up ASAP.
And don’t get me started on the whole “hey my mom wants the picture of us together”! Dude, come on now! Surely that’s an excuse right? I mean thanks to that they ended up smoothly exchanging contacts since Sae hoped to have the picture too. And not to mention, he knows how much she loves food, and kohaku manju is considered special, so he gave her his too. So I don’t think it’s outside of the realm of possibility that this was his way of shaking up the ‘boy giving the girl his uniform’s button’ tradition to speak.
So if this were all prove to be the case, then it would be interesting to see whether he too had been crushing on her for as long as she has been. In the mean time, we just gotta keep observing him. Thankfully it’ll be much easier to do that now since finally for the first time since elementary, the two of them will actually be in the same class for an exchange!
Overall I thought it was a charming first episode. I do like Sae a lot, her insecurities about her height and namely her weight may feel too much into the “cliche tropes” if you get what I mean. But it’s worth to remember, these are legitimately insecurities, especially for Sae who hates how much she stands out like a sore thumb. Like hell, she’s so self-conscious about it, that she wasn’t convinced that the bike tire popped because they ran over a piece of glass! That said, if this is something she goes on and on and on about, eventually I’ll run out of patience with her, so hopefully she won’t do that too much.
As for the romance, I’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on Koki, because I want to see whether or not I had been over-analyzing things this week! It’ll be interesting to see how this is going to pan out!
Needless to say, we’ll have to see how it will go because in the beginning of the episode, Sae mused how she had been lucky none of her friends ever had a crush on Koki. But now that they are in highschool, it looks like a new friend (I’m assuming the one she had had caught falling down the stairs) is going to develop feelings for Koki. You can already see the girl is locking in on him, and that’ll definitely make things potentially messy. So I’ll be giving this one up to three episodes to see if I’ll like to cover it this season!
Possibility of Blogging: 75% – Will give up to three episodes to decide whether to cover it!
Possibility of Watching: Guaranteed
Note: Although I got this out a bit later than I would’ve liked today, I will generally try to get this out on Thursdays!
