[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Bokura Ga Ita episode 2: The self-contradictory Yano
I’ve come to realise that Bokura Ga Ita isn’t going to be one of those series in which the melodramatic or wholly unexpected happens unless it goes into a serious change of direction. That said the everyday lives of Nana, Yano and their friends are interesting enough in themselves so that isn’t such a bad thing.
This is where Nana’s and Yano’s relationship starts proper I suppose, as Nana goes through the nerve-wracking first confession of her life. At first perplexed by Yano’s answer, she begins to understand his way of thinking and reacting to those around him; nevertheless there are some entertaining moments where she goes from loving to all-out hating him during the course of the episode. It’s a mixture of Yano’s flippant way of expressing itself and Nana’s naivety I think, and truth be told they both still have yet to come to terms with their own feelings.
There are a couple of incidents that progress their relationship a little further including the upcoming school festival, which leads to Yano showing his more responsible side and helping Nana out of a tight spot. Another is a run-in with some rather irritating girls that he hangs around with who, being the narrow-minded sort of teens that they are, start insulting one of Nana’s classmates and cause her to lose her cool a bit.
This is something that may be a recurring theme in Bokura Ga Ita: in an overall atmosphere of light humour, shoujo-friendly pastel shaded artwork and trivial situations there are moments of quite dark and heavy drama that take you by surprise at times. The story behind Yano’s ex-girlfriend (not to mention his own mother!) still isn’t clear but whether that’s because of rumours or Yano’s offhanded way of explaining things, I don’t know. It’s at least building up an impression of the characters as being quite deep and complex, which is always a good thing in my experience. 
Nana’s inner monologue helped me to keep track of what she’s thinking but I can understand why she’s having trouble working Yano out. It’s quite tame and whimsical stuff but Bokura Ga Ita has an interesting enough cast to keep me interested. I suspect that fans of shows such as Honey and Clover (someday I hope I’ll find the time to watch that one) will especially enjoy the sedately paced ’slice-of-life’ vibe of this series.
Leave a Reply