Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 2--When Life Gives You Lemon

I don't care if her name actually is "Remon," don't take my bad title puns away from me.



Like I said before, I have not seen anything from the Onegai franchise so I'm coming into this series completely fresh. And so far I'm liking what I'm seeing, which I why I've decided to blog this show. I love the atmosphere, the Ano Hana/Toradora character designs, and the already complicated romance plot. While I like Ichika (and it's already a foregone conclusion that her and Kaito are going to get together), I still can't help but feel sorry for Kanna, our tsundere classmate for this series. At the end of the first episode, we hear Kaito's older sister asking Kanna to look after him and basically giving her permission to go out with him. Not even halfway through the episode, older sister has changed her mind and gives that responsibility to Ichika, along with skimpy nightclothes. I don't blame Kanna at all for being mad and jealous throughout most of this episode, since her position was basically usurped through a twist of fate. Not that I'm sure that a relationship with Kaito would've worked out for her anyway; he obviously doesn't see her that way and Ichika is already basically the perfect girl for him. I found it pretty endearing that his fantasy of what happened the night before was actually slightly more innocent than what actually happened. It even ends up coming true at the end of the episode. I do wonder how long the whole "I'm actually an alien" thing is going to stay under wraps, since already Ichika has been really obvious about it. The only reason she got away with the "pet" fiasco was because everybody was drunk.




Speaking of underage drinking, that whole scene has made Lemon my favorite character so far, since it was so unexpected and hilarious. You can almost see her train of thought: "This party is going to be boring... I should spike the drinks." I don't know if the purpose was blackmail or what, but we do see her wait until the last moment to down her own drink, and by that point everyone else was already drunk. She also seems genuine in her efforts to help out Ichika as her "friend," helping her cover up her "pet" by quickly suggesting playing drunk king's game. On that note, I'd like to quickly mention the fanservice in this anime so far. It definitely there, but it's not to the point where you feel like this is the sole reason the anime exists. Instead, for the most part, it's woven into scenes where it makes sense, like the waking-up scene or the drunk king's game. The only time when it felt out of place was during the group phone call, where one of the girls was obviously naked but holding a large panda plush to cover herself up. That threw me out of what the characters were talking about for a minute, since it was so unexpected. With that said though, this does seem to be a show that's putting it's characters and storytelling first. Getting back to Lemon and how she covered up for Ichika, I wonder if she really is just that weird so she doesn't care, or if she knows something. I wouldn't be surprised if she ended up being an alien too, or at least aware of what Ichika really is before she met her officially. Either way, I'm excited to see more of her pranks on the underclassmen in the future.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.