[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Bokura Ga Ita episode 4: Festival preparations
Every episode of this series gives the initial impression of a non-event before hitting you with either dark drama or really heartwarming romance; episode #4 is no exception. The first half includes a very intriguing and tense confrontation with their classmate Yuri while the second half deals with the Nana/Yano relationship once again. All this and a significant event at the end. Phew.
The Yuri incident kicks up some speculation at school and presented me with a myriad of questions. The fact that she’s so cold towards Yano suggests that 1. she knows something about him that we don’t or 2. she just doesn’t like him because she’s the token ‘antisocial bookworm’ character. I’m leaning towards the former, but it still doesn’t explain why she’d lay into Nana when she tries to smooth things over a little - it doesn’t fit in with her pattern of focusing her anger at Yano alone.
After this interesting bit of high school social politics that will no doubt lead to other things later on in the series, we get back to the central Nana/Yano theme with Yano being his usual casual, devil-may-care self. This time though, even his best friend thinks he’s being a bit too unkindly towards Nana. Obviously I’m not the only one who thinks she deserves better from him than a cold shoulder in a tense situation such as that…
This part of the episode demonstrates the precarious nature of young romance, in which everything hinges of the most innocuous of things that are said and done. The two leads clearly have a long way to go before their would-be relationship escapes recurring setbacks from misunderstandings and their respective emotional issues; that is to say, their characters ar continuing to develop and grow, learning as they go. Considering that we are being given yet another high school slice-of-life featuring school culture festivals, Bokura Ga Ita needs this sort of thing to maintain its originality and identity. The delightfully simple artwork and impressive debut VA performances from the main characters invariably help there of course.
Bokura Ga Ita once again delivers a significant emotional punch with some quite heavy issues that make it deceptively deep and serious. The ending to this episode is also really something: I suspect that the storyline for the next one will continue this trend.
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