Anime Discussion Thread - Page 1196

We soon get to meet the first pair of heroes. A boy by the name of Hirono and a girl called Miyaki. He is at an impasse in life, not being sure what to do in the future. She much like him, also looking for a direction in life. Although he tries his best in school, it isn't his main priority, so he gets marks that let him barely pass. He's much more occuptied with his part time work (almost) noone knows about – being a shoujo manga artist. Often sleeping in class and being late are his trademarks. He's also not very sociable.
She gets top marks on her tests, but sees little to no point in purusing any career related to her grades. Both of them have some degrees of family problems.
They meet on the night of Christmas Eve, when she forcefully "borrows" his bike to chase after a purse snatcher only to have an accident and destroying the boy's bike in the process. After that, they are out of contact for weeks, until they meet again in school. She quickly finds out his secret job and they become friends meeting on the roof of the school building periodically. After that they fall in love.

Miyaki's character can best be described as the 'genki' type. She's rather clingy, always an optimist and bursting with energy. But that is not all that there is to her. Under her happy apperance she bares scars. During the story we get to know she didn't exactly have a happy childhood. Her parent were too busy fighting with each other to really give her the love a child needed at her age. This shows why she is somewhat detached from the real world. Once she fell in love wih Hirono she did a lot of things best described in her own words as "selfish". She was ready to fight for him, even if it meant hurting others around them. This selfish part is really what got me to like her – it showed that she is not really a 1-dimentional character, but "human".

During the whole arc a woman, who named herself Yuuko Amamiya, always seemed to pop in with great advice for the couple, guiding each of them to a happy ending.
Hirono decided to get his priorities straight and quit school to become a fulltime manga artist, while Miyaki decided to go to university.

This arc is about Hirono's childhood friend that was secretly in love with him all her life – Kei, and one of his few friends at school – Kyosuke. After being rejected by Hirino, beaten to the punch (confession of feelings) by Miyaki and her recent knee injury, Kei was in a slump. She had quit her basketball team and was suffering emotionally. Kyosuke was your average playboy, except he had a passion for filming movies.
Kyosuke probably fell in love with her at first sight, but didn't notice it. However he notcied her being hurt and unable to move forward. One day he asked her to star in his movie. Initially she was against it, showing even violance against him, but eventually caved in and agreed. During the shooting of the movie she was able to regain confidence in herself and passion. A few hints dropped here and there by Yuuko helped also. They fell in love and were happy together.

I didn't particularly enjoy this arc or it's main heroine – Kei. She was supposed to be a tsundere I think, but on some occasions I would be more inclinded to call her a yandere due to her violent character and behaviour. She's also really tomboyish.

Chihiro is Kei's twin sister that survived a grave accident while she was a child. However she did not escape the accident unharmed. She lost her left eye, along with suffering some brain damage. She can only remember clearly her memorioes from before her accident, and the past 13 hours of her life. The boy is a shy japanese-german halfblood.
One day they meet at an old train station. She is reading some book and he stumbles in and finds her there. During the next few days they meet at the station and talk about literature that they both love. Before long, he meets her caretaker – Yuu Himura, who tells him he'll only suffer if he gets close to Chihiro, and gets to know Chihiro's secret – her memory defect. She lets him read her diary – which is like a Bible to her, by which she lives by. Initially having mixed feelings, he decides not to meet her for a day. She waits him that day for a very long time and catches a cold. The next day he comes, he's greeted by Himura instead of her, who says that he isn't mad about him breaking his promise to see her, but rather that he is astonished to see him back again.
This arc is rather complex so I'll only say this – a lot of hardships await both of them, but they do eventually become lovers. She gives him a special diary – a diary about him and their meetings. They part and do not see each other for a while – he's erased from her memories – or so they both think. On the last page of the diary there is written "If we ever meet again, please give me back my precious memories."
He goes back to the station and finds her there. She asks about a book she "feels" she lost there. It's the diary. However, he does not give it back to her, and decies to start all over again.

Chihiro is a tragic heroine. Superfically resembling her older sister Kei a lot, in character they are different. Chihiro is much more reserved, shy and girly. Being able to retain only 13 hours of her past, she feels like an animal tied to a pole in the middle of the field. However, she is also stubborn and caring like her twin sister. When everyone is going forward, she can only go as far as her chain permits her. She's doomed to forget about everything she hasn't written down. When she's out of hope the boy – Renji gives her the strenght needed the complete her dream – writing a novel.

This story was beautiful in it's own way. I can't shake off the impression I've already read a very similar story somewhere before, but it was still enjoyable to read it.

This story is about a girl we heard about all through the previous 3 arcs – Mizuki. Being the kouhai of Kei and Miyaki, and a cousin to Renji. She comes over to visit and stay with him over some form of summer holidays (I forget wich xP). The protagonist is Shuuichi Kuze, a violinist and an old friend of Yu Himura, Yuuko Amimaya, and Nagi Hirono (the first protag's older sister). Kuze is suffering from an incurable heart disease and doesn't have much more left to live. He tries to tie up all the loose ends of his life before he dies.
Being the neighbour of Renji, they know each other very well. One day Renji's mother brings Mizuki along while visiting Kuze. She asks him to take care of her for 10 days from the mornings till around 6 PM. Being indebt to Renji's family, for all the food he's been getting and taking care of his home while he was abroad, he accepts. They spend a lot of time together and she falls in love with him, but discovers the one thing he didn't want her to find out – that he was diying. After confronting Kuze, he pushes her away by trying to scar her away from him, by essentially assualting her.
Thinking almost everything is done, he goes to the beach to burn his last memento of his old self – his violin. Mizuki, hurt from the rejection and the assault, seeks advice but doesn't know who to turn to. This is where Himura comes in. He tells her to go to the beach if she wishes to hear him play for the last time.
When she gets there, he's already playing. He plays all night right into the dawn. After tiring himself out, and having a seizure he decides tu burn his violin. Mizuki quickly intervenes and doesn't allow it to happen.
A lot of other things happen in this arc like meeting Chihiro and her finally getting her diary back, but I'll skip it.
What is important in this arc is that Kuze finally accepts her love , and that she learns about a woman from Chihiro's diary named Yuuko Amamiya(Chihiro and Kei being twins, kept in contact with each other by mail), which sounds stranglely familiar to her.
In the last scene of this arc, Mizuki brings flowers to the church, which is a central part of each arc, meeting Himura there. He asks if the flowers are for her parents, but she says they are for Ms. Yuuko Amamiya. The arc ends there with Himura's bewildered face.

This is probably my 2nd favourite arc. Mizuki in all the previous arcs gave of the impression of an annoying side character girl. In this arc we learn that in reality, she is the key binding all the stories together. She's also a genki type of a heroine, but is very strong-willed. She's also cute and naive as you'd expect her. "Sugar, spice and everything nice". Even when life threw lugs under her feet she didn't falter and always got back up again. This strength is exceptional. No other heroine possesed it.

Here we see the intro again, a boy is attacked by a paper plane while leaving school. He notices a girl on top of the school's roof and decides to give her a piece of his mind. When he gets there, he finds a girl dressed in her winter seifuku. She seems to know him and teases him. When she asks him if he remebers her, he says he does not. This makes her really sad and says "Say no word to me until you remember". He then remembers her. This story is a real gem. It has it's ups and downs with happy and sad moments. It tells the story of how the 2 people in the church met and fell in love, and how Mizuki connects it all. It's a very long story and I'd rather not spoil it too much. This review is already long enough.