Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 4--That Awkward Moment

What do you say when your crush catches you with your friend's busty older sister?




Last week I commended this show for not letting a simple misunderstanding completely take over it's plot. But after this week, while I enjoyed the episode, I'm little bit more hesitant to assume that future plots won't revolve around the "misunderstanding" angle. With that said, the way it was handled was just as good as last week, playing up the realism instead of having it dissolve completely into comedy. The setup for the situation was pretty good; slightly unrealistic maybe, but I could see it happening. It was clear from the get-go that Kaito know her from somewhere else and didn't see her that way (at first I thought that she might be a distant relative), which is better than using the old standby of only showing the events from Ichika's perspective. And once Ichika did take action, Kaito did try to explain himself. I also appreciate that the plot used the misunderstanding to further the relationship between Ichika and Kaito instead of just defaulting them back to square one, since without this event they probably would've just gone on being awkward with each other. It was obvious what was really going on, but it did make for a good opportunity for Ichika to realize that despite her circumstances she's starting to like Kaito back anyway.




Also, I really enjoyed the "fantasy" sequences in this episode. I've bee enjoying them all along, but I really liked how this episode showed how similarly Kaito and Ichika think, especially when it came to deciding how to discuss Kaito's confession. It's also pretty easy to distinguish them from the rest of the action thanks to the brighter colors. But as much as I enjoyed that, I also liked the puppets and the "A-ko and B-ko" story in this episode as well, even though their friends were already well aware of who they were really talking about. Except maybe "C-ko," Kanna. I've talked in the last two posts about how I feel bad for her and her jealousy and frustration are natural consequences of her situation, yet in this episode she unknowingly furthers the relationship of her rival. She didn't strike me as that dense before. If I was in her situation, I wouldn't be helping. "Oh, you guys are still awkward around each other? That's too bad." And leave it at that. However, I do feel that she would've responded to the situation differently if she knew that Kaito hadn't been looking for her at all after she disappeared from their "date." In any case, I was pretty surprised when the end of the episode made it clear that this was just the prologue and that the summer that they've been hyping so much is only just beginning. Even with a few missteps, I'm pretty excited to see where this show will go in the next eight episodes.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.