天下制覇

 

Seriously, Kaz… drop the ice queen already.

Impressions:

Let me start by saying that the episode was decent, but through a lot of it, it spent the time just spinning its wheels and going absolutely nowhere. We did get to see a little bit of Mao’s “A Guy Should Be …” side which was a much bigger part in the game, but otherwise, very little happened and there was a fair bit of the time filler of the variety that suffused throughout Honey and Clover. I did find the CG alto sax funny, but the frogs are starting to grind away at small bits of my soul. Do they really have absolutely no use for Nana and have to make her shriek her love for a frog two or three times an episode?

Anyway, like I said, very little progress on any of the relationship fronts. Kazuki unfortunately decided to make a play for the ice queen instead of Sakino, so I’m annoyed at him for that. Hopefully she’ll reject him, and then kick him in the junk. That would please me greatly. Kouichi and Yumi continue blushing and being totally unable to hold a conversation without every third sentence being an apology. Mao and Kai had a nice first date, though it doesn’t appear that he actually took her anywhere to eat. What a cheapskate.

In the past, Mao stood on a swing… and swung… while Kouichi and Kazuki watched raptly. She then leapt from it while they thought that she was awesome.

In the park, Kai waits for his date to show up. He’s his usual sullen self. Mao finally walks up, all dolled up for the day. He’s surprised for a moment, but recovers and they take off. Mao tries to strike up conversation, but Kai’s his usual unresponsive self.

At the club, the party encounters a CG alto sax. None of the other instruments are rendered though, just the sax. I think the Nodame staff was sad that they didn’t get a chance to use it. They sit down and Kai closes his eyes and loses himself in the music.

Later, they’re sitting outside enjoying drinks and Kai asks her if she enjoyed it. She doesn’t really get jazz, but she liked it. They chat about types of jazz, what Kai wants to do in jazz, etc etc.

Then we see a couple walking through the falling cherry petals. The man suddenly turns to her and the two embrace and then kiss. Kazuki turns off the TV and falls down on the couch, thinking about Sakino bitching him out. A frog appears in his face, attacking him. His sister then follows it up with a battery of questions about Sakino and his love life, telling him to go for it. Kazuki evades her the best that he can, but thinks about the ice queen again and sighs. His sister, ever the poster child for ADHD, turns on the TV instead of pestering him.

At the Kouichi love nest, he grills Mao about where she went today. He asks if it was a date and she pokes some fun at him asking what if it was before asking him about Yumi. The distraction makes her crash crash her car through the wall.

In the past, Mao cheers on the two guys as they try to replicate her swing jumping feet. She even has the line marked that they must past. She yells at Kouichi to be a man about it, but we aleady know that he’s a simpering weakling.

Two Hostile Frogs Appear! Kazuki attempts to ignore them as he continues on to school. The parasites attached to the frogs attach themselves to Mao when she and Kouichi show up.

At school, Mao thanks Kai for the weekend. Hiiragi has more work for Kouichi and Kazuki. Kouichi looks over at Yumi and remember back to his script writing date with her. She wanted to write a love story. I’m pretty sure that she was trying to rip off Casablanca. She then shifted gears when embarassed by it and said that the bear and gorilla are fine too, but Kouichi assured her that her plagiarism of the classics is also fine.

Back in reality, Kazuki becomes bored with the script talk and looks over at Sakino. She gives him the evil eye and returns to watching other girls gossip.

After classes end, Hiiragi gives his own thoughts on the love story proposed. There are lots of variations on them, etc etc. The man trio sees Futami eating by herself and Hiiragi, ever the sharp cookie, can’t resist a dig at Kazuki. Kouichi instead thinks how amazing Futami is. Hiiragi tries to get Kazuki to go after her using his own fabricated tale of his chances. It involves a time slip. That’s all I have to say of that. Kazuki takes levity seriously and storms off.

On the roof, he watches Sakino practice and sighs. Mao comes up behind him and tells him that she’ll listen to anything he wants to tell her.

Kazuki asks her if she remembers the park that they played in and the crazy jump she did off the swing. He and Kouichi thought that was really amazing and looked up to her.

Flash back to Kazuki on the swing and the other two cheering him on. Like Kouichi, Kazuki is spineless, even with Mao yelling at him to be a man. He finally jumps like Kouichi though.

Mao remembers this with a yell and goes off onto her own nostalgic journey through the past about how amazing that jump was and it was the furthest of them all, but Kazuki just stares off, lost in thought.

Kai and Mao are in their English lesson. Kai is called on to translate, but he apologizes for not paying attention. The teacher razzes him for thinking about music instead of paying attention in class and makes someone else do it.

A Wild Hiiragi Appears! It attempts to recruit Kouichi for its neferious plans, but he has other things to do. Hiiragi turns to his backup, Kazuki, but he also leaves without even paying attention.

Kai gets ready to leave, and Mao shows up to hit on him for a bit.

Those damned frogs appear once again and attack/love each other. That was some pretty blatant space filler.

In the library, Yumi and Kouichi meet up to continue their writing. Yumi has gathered a bunch of books about famous lovers. She seems to have a thing for tragic love and for lovers that end up dead.

Kouichi’s a little shocked and Yumi apologizes. Kouichi suggests maybe a lighter hearted thing and she nods.

Kazuki stands outside the door to a classroom while thinking about his sister and Mao both yelling him on. He finally gets the guts to open it and talk to Futami. He stammers for a moment then asks her if he can have another ‘test’ with her.