It’s always tough coming back to school after summer break. It’s far more difficult when you’ve done something embarrassing, been rejected, or had a falling out with your friends. Time to pick up the pieces.
“You Knew Very Well That Your Romantic Feelings Might Be Unrequited, Right?”
So it’s come to the end of summer, and the Kizuna experiment is over. It was kind of sudden, but also a wonderfully natural progression from last week’s climactic drama overload. We need to see how these characters react to their situation after they’re no longer ‘connected’, and observe the effects it had on them – like any good experiment.
They’re return to school was perfectly awkward. Having Yamada-sensei recapping all of their kind of cliché and embarrassing situations was such a mean and prodding move. He really seemed to still be riding the experiment train (no, not that train) despite the fact that it has been essentially canceled.
We got a little helping of every character post-separation. Nico was by far the most sane in her reaction to the drama that occurred. They’re all high school kids, bound to do embarrassing things and get rejected by their crush. Nico totally understands this, and is able to get past it all and still be friends. We should all be like Nico! Tenga kind of owns up to the fact that he doesn’t understand his emotions, and Chidori masterfully self-destructs her chances at just being a reasonable person. It was the classic “I don’t like you, but you shouldn’t give up for my sake” kind of moment. Except that’s probably exactly what you should do in that situation. If you love them, let them go – especially if they don’t love you back! Honoka is pretty much the same as always, and doesn’t seem to have made much progress over the entirety of the series. Sorry, Yuta.
We finally got Sonozaki, or Nori-chan’s, sob story. The history of why she is the way that she is. It’s pretty bad of the original research team to screw up so royally that one kid takes on all of the sense of nineteen others, leaving them as empty shells. I’ll give her that. But she still seems to be pretty self-serving in her motivations. Is she so invested in this experiment because she wants to help the kids that had their feelings and sense stolen? Or does she just want to fix herself? It’s also hard to say because of the sense-numbing procedure she’s been going through – how does she have any feelings for these other kids any more if it’s all been taken away for years now? What is her motivation? It’s something that I’m definitely interested to find out, but I can also assume that it’s going to be the explanation that puts her character in the best of light and garners the most sympathy. Main character treatment.
Katsuhira’s connection to the rest of the experiment kids is far more interesting. It was quite powerful that the remaining ones who couldn’t function are still there at the original site – as what are essentially vegetables. It was a moment that I could believe truly broke through Katsuhira’s impenetrable facade of neutrality, and elicit a proper response.
Episode Score
8.8/10 (Very Good)
Extra thoughts:
– This is the show of the season for great still shots.
– The canned food party is both amazing, and horrible.
– “Is this a reverse harem?” Hisomu has really come a long way.
– Gomorin are still kind of the evil henchman of this story.
– Might actually be swaying from the Chidori bandwagon…
Next time: “We Have To Contact Each Other And Confirm Our Feelings. Because We’re Friends!”
Clouded Anime 
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