Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 8--Beware of Falling Plot Devices

While I've greatly enjoyed watching the love triangles, I'm interested in seeing how the characters will react to the truth about Ichika.




As usual, I appreciate Ano Natsu's quick pace as compared to most other romance-driven anime, wasting no time from last episode's almost-kiss to bring back the big obstacle between Kaito and Ichika's relationship, the fact that eventually she'll have to leave. I enjoyed the build-up and sudden change of tone at the end, since the majority of the episode seemed to be focused on how Kanna isn't aware that she's lost Kaito to Ichika a long time ago. Although I feel sorry for Kanna (unrequited love sucks), this is one aspect of the show that I feel has been dragged on long enough. Hopefully Kaito's actions in the episode will make it clear to her that she's better off by letting him go. I'll have a lot more respect for her if she turns out to be that mature. On the other side of the love triangle, it looks like the show ships Mio and Tetsurou together as much as I do. This is the only time that I've been happy to see the old fall-on-top-of-girl-and-accidentally-kiss-her standby. Also, Lemon was as hilarious as ever, showing more enthusiasm towards setting up her victims friends than she has towards the movie. It was also due to her that the tone change worked as well as it did for me; you think that you're in for another episode of laughs and some relationship development, and then that other part of the plot literally falls out of the sky.




As exciting and plot important as that entire scene was--the secret is finally out! How is Ichika going to explain? What will everyone's reaction be?--the were some problems that I couldn't entirely ignore. So there's this alien escape pod that can travel extremely fast, has no problems with the Earth's atmosphere, nor is it damaged when landing on the surface at that speed (it must have some awesome brakes), and it can change it shape. However, its AI is not sophisticated enough to understand when it's told that there's been a mistake and that no one needs rescuing, and it can be taken out by some kind of flying motorcycle despite the fact that the show just established that it can survive damage at high speeds. I'm probably being too nitpicky here, but when a show establishes something I believe it, and when that something gets contradicted it bothers me. The point of the scene was for Ichka's secret to be revealed, and it accomplished that. It wasn't a complete cliffhanger ending, since Ichika wasn't taken away and Kaito was rescued from death once again, but it does leave the reaction from the other characters up in the air. There are only a few episodes left, and I think that dealing with the truth about Ichika will kick off the start of the final plot arc.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.