Summary:
Yamamoto has come to Yano’s house to tell him why her sister was with her ex-boyfriend on the day she died. She tries to twist the story so Yano will think it was his fault. When Nanami hears this she tells Yamamoto to stop but Yano shoves her inside the house and closes the door. He then asks Yamamoto if she’s happy now before telling her to go home.

When Yamamoto has left Nanami quietly leaves as well but Yano runs after her. When he tries to stop her she wacks him over the head with her bag asking why she betrays her when he doesn’t want to be betrayed himself. Hearing this Yano grabs her hand, hurting her, and tells her that betraying someone isn’t like that before turning around and leaving her.

The next day in school things are awkward between the two until Yano approach Nanami with her english book she forgot the other day. Nanami warms up slightly and tells him she loves him more than anything, but because of this she doesn’t like him decieving her. In her mind she tells herself that no matter what happened between Yano and Yamamoto she will accept it.

After pondering what she said for a bit Yano gives her three options on what happened but it turns out all of them are wrong. Nanami gets surly at this, but Yano continues with three new choices. Nanami thinks he’s just trying to get away from the topic but when she hears the third option, that Yano and Yamamoto had sex, she somehow senses the truth in it. She tries to joke it away at first but after a bit begins crying, her earlier promise of accepting anything mockingly echoing in her head.

Thoughts:
Strong episode. Yamamoto’s payback is pretty scary, because she aims to mentally break down her target. She has left me feeling very split in my opinion about her. In one sense I think she is justified in her feelings for revenge but seeing as her actions not only affects Yano but also Nanami I can’t really sympathize with her as much any more. Also from the flashback scene she was clearly leading Yano on, washing away her image of being a victim somewhat. That’s not justifing Yano’s actions though, but I already regard him as lower than dirt. Somehow I kind of like that Yamamoto doesn’t have the passive crying role that’s so easy to sympathize with, because conflicting characters are almost always more interesting than stereotypes at the end of the spectrum.

Yano is also interesting in a way, because I don’t think the role he has is bad. He’s the character I love to hate but he’s making this show pretty interesting at the same time. This episode was pretty tough on my self restraint to keep myself from trying to bash his head in through the monitor however. Everytime he makes one of his stupid speeches I can feel myself boiling inside. I mean how stupid is it to tell someone what being betrayed is. That’s obviously something highly subjective. What one person thinks is betrayal another might not even give a second thought. I think Yano and Nanami’s relationship is on the fast track to disaster, the way Yano only plays by his rules or doesn’t play at all and how Nanami always tries to conform to them. She really needs to grow a backbone and stand up for herself. Compromising is necessary sometimes, of course, but there’s a limit on how far you should go.

Episode preview looks very interesting!

Posted by Matte on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 8:54 pm.