Kimini no Todoke

Uwah, this is hard. I can't really give a synopsis without more or less rehashing the entire episode, because of the way they really let things fall into place. I'll leave it at a short introduction and will put the rest in the spoiler tag.

Kuronuma Sawako really wants to make friends. Unfortunately for her she is seen by all as extremely terrifying which has earned her the nickname Sadako (for those that don't know (and I had to google it as well), it's a character from The Ring in which if you watch a certain videotape you'll die 7 days later and Sawako is rumored to have similar powers, albeit less deadly). It's kinda hard to make friends if anyone you talk to goes deadwhite and takes off with a speed that would make an olympic athlete jealous.



Her rolemodel is Kazahaya, a guy who is cheerfull, lively and always the center of attention and one of the few, make that VERY few, people that actually isn't afraid of her. He has been her rolemodel since the day of the high school entrance ceremony when she gave him directions and he reacted normally and wasn't afraid of her and ever since that day she has tried and to be more like him. Obviously, seeing that the series starts at the end of that same schoolyear things haven't exactly (queue award for understatement of the year) improved.

Things are going to take a turn for the better though, but I'll be rehashing the episode if I were to tell you about that so read the spoilers only if you have watched already (or don't mind spoilers).

[Spoiler]I like the intricate setup, or the string of coincedences depending on how you look at it, of this series already. Because Kazehaya happens to overhear a remark from Sawako to Shino (a girl she knows from her previous school and therefore unafraid of Sawako allthough she still calls her Sadako oddly enough) Sawako and Kazehaya end up talking to eachother for real for the first time.

This talk in return leads to Sawako deciding to sign up for the courage event Kazehaya is organising later tonight, but having decided that, it's Sawaka's turn to overhear two classmates (Yano and Yoshida) saying that the courage event would be really good if Sawako would play ghost. Sawako, being bolstered by her earlier talk with Kazehaya, manages to talk to Yano and Yoshida and because of that these two now also start acting normal towards her.

Later that night Sawako is shaving off a couple of years of the life of her classmates with her performance and ends up with Kazehaya as he had to go alone as, because Sawako didn't show up even though she signed up, Kazehaya ended up with no partner. Again Sawako and Kazehaya have a good talk and we now learn that while Sawako may admire Kazehaya, Kazehaya actually likes Sawako. Yano and Yoshida who knew that Sawako was playing ghost also show up to thank Sawako for her job. Because they 'catch' Sawako and Kazehaya together, and being girls, the whole class knows the next day that they spend time together.



The next day Kazehaya is to be 'punished' as he didn't get to the finish of the courage event and his punishment is having to date Sawako for a week. Yano and Yoshida voice their disagreement with this 'punishment' and Kazehaya flatout refuses and calls it insulting towards to Sawako. Sawako afraid of him ruining his status in the class for her sake explains that her meeting with Kazehaya wasn't anything special and she does actually manage to make the entire class feel ashamed about this punishment (having seen episode 2 I can't say their behaviour towards Sawako in general unless Sawako's classmates suffer from early Alzheimer as they seem to have forgotten their lesson already).

Sawako did the right thing, but now she is afraid that her actions will have left her alone again. On her way to school in order to help out with summer classes though she finds Kazehaya waiting on her with an apology on behalf of her class. He also has come to the realisation that Sawako doesn't realise his feelings (even if she thinks she does). The episode ends the scene of the first meeting between Kazehaya and Sawako again, but this time seen through the eyes of Kazehaya and we learn why he has fallen for Sawako. Beautiful and that's all that I will say about this.



Sigh, like I said in my personal info: "I'm a sucker for romance". And for a nice change this romance doesn't need a mass of cute girls, no pantsu, no double E-cups, no childhood friend, no neighboring girl providing wake-up service and name whatever cliché you can think off which usually features in anime romance series. For that alone I'll be giving extra points.

What we have here is a genuine feel good, slice of life romance which is being also rather original if I dare say it. Basically we have a guy that has fallen for a girl, a girl that for once isn't the idol of the school (allthough if people saw her like Kazehaya has that might change) and which because of her social clumsiness really stands apart. A girl, who because of that clumsiness, also hasn't got a clue about how the boy feels and in fact isn't quite in tune with her own feelings as well. It's up to the boy to support her getting confident in herself and hopefully then accept his feelings.

If I had more thumbs I'd put them up, but I think that for this season in the romance department we have a winner.

Oh, forget crisp graphics. I've seen people compare it to Bokura ga Ita and not unjustly so, but the graphics here at a notch above that. The only thing I don't like that to often they go into SD mode for Sawako and I particularly dislike the balloon face they give her often. The OP and ED are not memorable, but I think the music during scenes itself is good enough and I think the voice acting is spot on.

Temporarily verdict: 8,5 out of 10

Nearly forgot. Subs taken from Eclipse Productions.