HELP…ME!!!

Now this…is what I am talking about! This…is the anime I have been waiting for. Well, almost close to it but these days I have found that if you are being picky, in that you are waiting for the type of anime like the good old days that had a lot of emotion and heart, you are asking for a long disappointment and so I have lowered my expectations a bit and even then, I still have been finding it is challenge to stick with an anime to watch weekly. Heck, I can’t even watch Shingeki weekly!

There was something so natural about anime back then! It was on equal footing with live tv shows in that I did not even tell the difference when watching the other. In fact, I dumped tv shows for anime quite a lot back then and tv was pretty good too. But these days anime is…anime! Or should I say anime is…cartoons these days!

But maybe this is all because I have gotten used to it and I am only getting sick anime? But I doubt that, otherwise I wouldn’t be watching old anime even now just to get that feeling back, and that anime has not changed! I still enjoy them immensely. I still can’t stop once I start a series, so it is not that I am getting sick of anime but as I feared anime has gotten pretty…bland!

So I have been trying, oh have I been trying, to find a way back into this fandom but it has been hard! But finally, I may have found the series to get me back into the thick of things! And surprisingly, it is yuri! No, I wasn’t expecting a yuri anime to get me back into anime because those are the blandest I find! These days it’s yuri for the sake of yuri and if it is not that, it overdoes the other aspect of the show! So I wasn’t banking on a yuri show to get me back but here we are!

YAGATE KIMI NI NARU nearly made my jaw drop in the beginning because the concept of the show was something I haven’t seen done before – Two people who seemingly don’t understand what love is. Two people that see others falls in love, get confessed to, do want to fall in love but they never get that encompassing feeling one gets from loving someone. No butterflies….No fireworks…No…nothing! It is not that both girls are gay or anything like that!

One girl, our soon to be Student Council President, 2^nd year student Nanami Touko, is probably the most popular and beloved girl in school. She has been confessed to countless times by both girls and boys but she has turned down every single one! The reason I have already stated – which is that her heart isn’t moved by any of them so she turns them down!

The other, our main girl, is a freshman in first year High School. She is even deader than Touko. Her name is Koito Yuu. Yuu has a weighty shadow on her shoulders of still not having replied to boy who confessed to her before graduating from Junior High. She doesn’t know what to do because she does not have those feelings that she expected from a romance. She is a fan o romance! She reads a lot about it, watched movies and dramas about it. She idolises romance so when a boy she thought she liked confessed to her and she felt…nothing, she was at a loss!

Yuu is so detached and written in a such a way that I sometimes don’t think that the story is about these two, her and Touko! And so I was very intrigued with this story and where it is going to go because I was sure that it was going to be interesting to see these two…emotionless beings attain that feeling of someone who is completely smitten! It was something I hadn’t seen before and I was completely mesmerised!

But then Touko cracked, falling in love with Yuu by the end of the first episode and I nearly put a hole in my monitor! So much for my hopes and dream, I raged! Another show that tries to be deep but still cuts corners and ends up being superficial because this is anime and kids watch anime and so forth and duh duh

But wait…

 
 
 
 
 
 

Yuu on the other hand was just to curious a subject for me! I had to find out what was her deal! Touko is not uncommon a character that put on a facade which changes their character impressions completely once you get to know the real person underneath. So I can let that slide and besides, I just was too curious about Yuu not to continue on. And so I watched the other two episodes out so far and I am glad I stuck around!

Yuu still hasn’t cracked but she is giving off signs that have helped me build a theory and I can’t wait for it to be proven right down the road but for now she is just too intriguing a character not to continue! Meanwhile I am also glad that I stuck around because Touko is turning out to not be bad a character as I had initially thought! She has grown on me, and yes, I am talking about three episodes but that is how good the anime is to me!

Back to episode one, the show does not waste time introducing our main girls to each other or introducing the mains to us too. Yuu has two friends, one Akari – a tomboy who is chasing a guy so hard she entered this school just for him and even went so for as to join the basketball club! The other is Koyomi, who is laid back, the quiet of the bunch and she lets it drop non-clamantly that she is into older guys! She is so going to have an affair with a teacher, isn’t she?

Yuu still has not decided which club to join so the teacher suggests her to help out with the Student Council as elections were coming up! On her way to the Council room, she stumbles upon a confession going on. The poor guy gets turned down but Yuu seems taken by something about this confession! Since I know I shall let you know so you can keep it in mind. She is surprised by the ease with which the girl turned down the guy. This girl that Yuu does not know yet is the exact opposite of her. She seems to have something that Yuu does not. Yuu still hasn’t replied to a month-old confession and yet here was this girl, turning down the guy as easily as if she was ordering some food. Yuu has taken notice!

After the confession Touko seems to have noticed a peeping tom because she calls out for them and Yuu comes out and is understandably embarrassed for having been caught eaves-dropping. Touko asks her what she was doing all the way there and Yuu explains that she was looking for the Council room, which was detached from the main school building, almost like the Rose mansion in MARIA-SAMA GA MITERU! Touko walks her there and the two have some small talk on the way and it is then that she introduces herself to Yuu!

Touko is, like I said, very popular, apparently more popular than the Student Council President themselves so she had to be out there is character, both physical and behavioural! So it is no surprise when Yuu gushes about the Senpai she met at the Council Room but while any other girl would be smitten by Touko, Yuu merely describes Touko and when her friend Akari teases her thinking Yuu was talking about some boy, Yuu easily disappoints her by saying that she was talking about a girl and she doesn’t say it as an out but rather it is a state of fact.

This was intriguing me more and more because this was not seemingly to be like some stupid romance and this was the first step and that Yuu was smitten by Touko and that she was in denial! No, Yuu did not have any sort of attraction towards Touko whatsoever and that, is one of the main reasons I am loving this show so far! More too both Touko and Yuu seem to be quite straight, at least they don’t seem to have any interest in girls! Yuu we have already touched upon also there is the fact that she is surprise when she learns that Touko was confessed to by girls as well as if she has never chanced upon a lesbian.

Obligatory Gay Items
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

This Hand-sex is XXXX rated!

As to who she learns that from, it is another student council member and Touko’s best friend – Saeki Sayaka (hmm…Sayaka…). Sayaka is one to look out for because she is the Tomoyo to Touko’s Sakura! We shall get deeper into that symbolism in episode two. But we get to learn of her at the council room which Yuu went to in order to have a talk with Touko. I said something about the way Touko turned down that guy had caught Yuu’s attention, right? Well, Yuu it seems couldn’t talk to her friends about the confession situation because let’s face it, what would people think of you when you go to them and ask them what you should do about a guy, that you seemingly liked, confessed to you but you have made them wait for a whole month to reply because…why exactly? Do you not like them? Then why not just tell them no? You like them? Then why not say yes? Why wait a whole freakin month?!

But Yuu then comes across Touko, a person who is almost like her, in that they too as searching for that miraculous feeling of falling in love and yet where Yuu is weak and doesn’t know what to do in case someone confessed to them, Touko was decisive in her actions. So Yuu seeks her out to get some advice but when she gets there Sayaka is there too! But despite that Yuu gets some more clarification and another string to connect her to Touko. She asks her about what I just talked about, about if Touko never found anyone of her confessors compelling! Touko says she has but that she could not accept their feelings. Yuu wonders why and Touko says that it is because when they confessed to her, her heart never fluttered. She never got that feeling, the feeling that Yuu too was seeking in her romance!

Yuu has finally found someone like her and she is no longer a freak! A freak, because everyone is falling in love and she had a guy that she liked confess to her but she hasn’t returned his feelings let alone reply to him. Finally, she has the talk with Touko when they get the council room to themselves and explains to Touko what has been going on with her. She tells her of the guy that she had liked and had been friends with all Junior High but still hasn’t replied to after he had confessed to her a month prior.

It is really heavy! And Yuu is not painted in a gay way. She is more like someone that doesn’t understand what love is and seems afraid that she won’t be able to. All this misconception because everyone around her is all about romance. All her books she reads and the music she listens to talk about it like it was the end all be all. She can’t talk to her friends about it because she is afraid they will think o her differently.

And as if on cue, the guy in question calls right then and there and just like usual Yuu gets perturbed. She lets the phone ring all the while just looking at it indecisively. In fact, she has been in contact with the guy all this time, still exchanging texts, well, the guy sends texts while Yuu just stares at them. Talk about self-torture!

But unlike all the other times this time Yuu is not alone! Touko is there and she does give Yuu confidence to answer the guy by telling her to tell him her true feelings just like he was able to tell her. She tells her to not change herself and be her because that is who she is and she fine the way she is.

Like, how many a warrior have fallen for that!? A person giving you the confidence to be yourself is like an express ticket to crush-ville! But unlike how everyone else would be affected, by falling terribly in love with Touko, here Yuu only takes away the confidence and nothing else! She is able to answer the poor boy, who seems as equally relieved to finally get an answer as Yuu was in finally giving him one!

The WTF moment here though is the fact that it is not Yuu that gets the expected effect but rather it is Touko! Confused? I was too, and thus my heart was stolen by this show, once I stopped and thought the moment over that is, since at first, I was disappointed at the turn of events as I explained in the opening…

After the call, in addition to noticing that she was still holding hands with Touko, Yuu notices that Touko’s hands are sweaty and shaking. She looks up into Touko’s eyes and it is a different person standing there before her. Touko is changed to her. Touko has ‘it’. She has that something that people in love have. She has that something that Yuu is still desperately searching for.

 
 

 
 
 

 
 

 
 

 

Touko is in love…With Yuu!

She fell in love with Yuu simply from holding her hand! She was meant to give support to Yuu to be ale to answer the call and finally give the guy closure on his confession but in doing so Touko left herself open and when, at least I think it is the moment that it happened, when Yuu squeezed her hand, that was the moment that Touko felt ‘it’, them – the butterflies in her stomach!

But despite how such a great moment that is, it is not all! Touko has a secret and by episode one I did not know what that was so this moment did not mean anything to me but once I found out Touko’s secret and then she was having the conversation here about Yuu feeling like she does not have anyone special to her, in doing so finally giving Touko the freedom that she had lost when she was younger and decided to change herself! I finally got the real depth of this scene because it was more than just Touko finally falling for someone and even in that I understood why she fell for Yuu unlike other people! While Yuu has yet to receive something from Touko, she has given Touko something so precious she has yet to figure out how grand it is. But Touko knows and she falls, hard!

I did not understand it the first time viewing but I now understand it and we shall expand upon it later in future episodes. I also believe that while we have yet to figure it out, let alone Yuu herself, I believe that in this moment here she too received something that will change her life later on! Upon first viewing it might seem like any other cliché romance scene, but it is so much more than that…so much more!

Before the episode ends we find out that some time passes since that moment and that ever since then nothing out of the ordinary happened to the point of Yuu starting to dismiss the incident! But we do get a quick flashback as the face that Touko made makes it impossible for Yuu to forget about what happened, despite them both being girls and her not having anything to worry about. What is interesting also is the fact that the scene is portrayed in a way that it was as if Touko was under a spell, from which she snaps out of and dismisses the actions! Sure it might just be the portrayal of being smote but with them presenting the scene that way they let us know of the sincerity of Touko’s feelings. And Yuu too knows it because she is refusing to forget about the incident despite not being that affected personally by it.

The episode ends with Touko asking Yuu to be her supporter during the election campaigns, a position that surely would have been reserved for Touko best friend Sayaka, who by the way, had just told us how she wanted to be there for Touko as her supporter instead of running for the position as a candidate too. Nothing is touched upon what you are thinking but remember it. I said Sayaka was one to keep an eye out for too, right?

Keep an eye out for her too!

And with that, this episode ends! I am intrigued beyond belief and yes, step aside John Wick, because I am back!

Have a good night you all…