Kimi no hitomi ni….
It’s roughly halfway in to the week-long wait for true tears 13, arguably the finale I’m anticipating the most of all for Winter 07/08. true tears has been truly a masterpiece, with the production team managing to make the majority of their viewers (okay, me at the least) hang on to the edge of their seats throughout it’s run, not bad for a series that I expected to be “just another harem romance show”.
I admit, that my true tears 12 post earlier has definitely sparked quite a huge response, way more than I expected. But yet, I assure you, that was my true feelings at that moment, which is my blogging principle all along. Calling it a Noe victory was definitely my thoughts at the moment. After listening to the many opinions and the comments and rewatching the episode quite a few times myself, I have to concede it was a call made too early.
Let’s go back to a few things I missed out to say in my earlier post. First off, the interesting parallels between Hiromi and Mrs. Nakagami. I wonder how many have noticed, but Hiromi’s character is slowly turning to resemble Mrs. Nakagami at certain points, most interestingly on how she views Noe as an opponent, which is probably just as how Mrs. Nakagami viewed Hiromi’s mother as a rival of sorts, in the past. The scenes where she confronts Noe in the morning and the surprised look on her face as she saw Noe as the shrine as well were really key scenes.
You can actually see a role reversal of sorts happening to Hiromi with Noe. This isn’t to imply that Hiromi’s going to turn in to a “bitch”, though. It’s all a form of expression for their love. And seeing how much his parents situation parallel with his, in a different yet weirdly similar sort of way, can I take it as a positive sign that the writers are going for a Hiromi end? XD
Another thing I missed mentioning out was Hiromi’s strong declaration of her as Shin’s girlfriend to the unsuspecting Ai-chan. I think a few have already mentioned how this part was one of this episode’s highlights, as with that simple words and gesture, it totally hit in the final nail in to Ai-chan’s budding love for Shinichiro. On the other hand, it also shows the extent of Hiromi’s love for Shinichiro as well, in a simple,elegant and surprising way too.
On to Noe. As I’ve mentioned, Noe was really badly hit in this episode, emotionally. The lingering blow of her realization of Shinchiro’s feelings for Hiromi, her feelings of a love broken, her mental impression of her tears not being able to shed, all added up together with Hiromi’s strong declaration of her feelings and her own brother’s incestuous declaration has really given her a real good emotional sucker punch.
To use the term “emo” on her, is really a big disrespect, considering on how much we’ve all went through her eyes. Her weird blend of ignorance of certain feelings and her sensitivity to the body language of others, really made her in to a character with impact to many people. However, her naivety has resulted in her being unable to deal with this huge emotional slap-in-the-face of sorts thus pushing her to drastic actions, i.e. jumping of the tree. While I was shocked for her in my initial watch, but after rewatching, I realise it’s actually a positive thing, as her choice of “jumping” is the first choice that she truly makes and consciously recognizes it. Only by doing so, will she be able to finally move forward and mature in a more healthy direction, assuming the crew doesn’t pull the “coma” card on us.
So far, I’ve been talking about the girls, and finally, time to talk about Shinichiro. While Hiromi may have the poured in the most amount of love for Shin, sadly to say, Noe is the one that has a net positive influence towards Shinichiro in terms of maturing him as a character. To say Shinchiro as “undecisive” and “immature” is really another big disrespect. Youth is… a time of making mistakes and recognizing them, and in this manner, Shinichiro has definitely been lucky to have met Noe to lead him down the path of maturity.
In terms of episode 12, recognizing this fact sheds new light on Shinchiro’s reason to look for Noe at the end of the dance. Has he really chosen her? Or does he only truly wants to share his new-found maturity and decision with her. If Noe hadn’t jumped, I would’ve gone with the latter…. but, with Noe’s leap of faith (of sorts) it definitely throws any solid projections for episode 13 out.
All in all, I still say there’s a 50:50 chance of either girl’s ending… and possibly also an ending totally out of expectations. Whatever it is, the ending of true tears next Sunday is definitely going to be surprising.
