Kimi ni Todoke 26 – Chocolate Melodrama

Because Kimi ni Todoke 2 is more of a continuation than a full-blown sequel, I’m going to continue the same numbering convention as when I blogged the first season instead of acting as if this is a different series. Just clearing up any potential confusion here! (Inb4 a few weeks later when people ask why I’m writing about the 30th episode of the series when the first season had just 25 episodes.)

Anyway, I enjoyed the first season of Kimi ni Todoke, although not quite as much as a fair amount of people — the melodrama is fun, and I especially liked Chizuru’s mini-arc, but the main draw — Kazehaya and Sawako’s romance — is slow as molasses. I didn’t need them to be boning furiously and planning a family, but jeez, throw the audience a bone here! The big season finale was Kazehaya politely walking Sawako home after a New Year’s date. I guess that would have been nice for 1955. But I felt much like Ayane — damn, just get it done already!

With that said, there are some things about Kimi ni Todoke that are just irresistible to me, and the full blown melodrama — when done right — is one of them. I thought the melodrama during the Kurumi arc was stupid, because I thought Kurumi’s plan was stupid. In this episode? I don’t know why, but it absolutely works. Sawako fretting to such an extent about giving her homemade chocolate to Kazehaya and WHAT IT ALL MEANS is utterly silly, but I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy it. Especially awesome are the stylistic touches Production I.G went with. Sawako’s worries are channeling Vincent van Gogh! How awesome is that?

Kurumi is a character who is highly divisive among fans of the series, for obvious reasons — she’s engaging in active ship sinking of the OTP, after all. I didn’t like her arc much at all, but the character herself grew on me because of her enjoyably bitchy scheming. (To clarify: Her scheming is awesome; her actual plans are not.) This exchange is just classic Kurumi. I’m not gonna lie: I was cackling all throughout as Kurumi not-so-subtly chipped away at Sawako’s self-esteem. It’s a horrible thing to do, and I hope Sawako wises up eventually, but I can’t help but appreciate someone who can be such a humongous bitch with such a huge smile on her face. Hilarious.

I am disappointed, though, that she went back to her normal style of dress instead of remaining with the Japanese Gangsta look she sported at the end of her arc. Those sunglasses were fucking boss, man. Whatever. It does seem as if her general demeanor has shifted permanently, judging by the reaction she gets from those two guys in the hallway (new character alert!), which is cool with me. Give me a more honest, outwardly bitchy Kurumi any day. She’d be insufferable in reality but awesome on TV.

And speaking of assholes, I still love Pin. He’s such a blatant douche. It’s awesome. I love that here his first reaction is to take a picture of Kazehaya for potential blackmail material. He has absolutely no reason to believe that he will ever need to use this, but he wants to have it, just in case. Hilarious. Never change, Pin. Never change.