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Last episode, we had jolly summer fun, including, but not limited to, almost drowning. This time, less of that.

My Thoughts

We begin with a very sunburned Izumi lying on the couch, apparently taking it really hard. I don’t like sunburn either, but you think the almost drowning thing would have protected him for the most part. Anyway, while he’s talking to Shikimori, he invites her to a summer festival to go see some fireworks. If you had any doubt this was a romance anime, that should have cleared it up. It’s just in this case, it isn’t happening at the end of the season.

To give you a point of reference to where we are in the manga right now, we’re about halfway through volume 3. This takes place right after the summer stuff from before, so while we’ve been cutting around for a lot of the smaller stuff, we’re now staying pretty on course. This should take us, with the help of a few smaller scenes, to probably volume 4 starting next episode and to one of the bigger story arcs.

Summer fun that is still jolly happens at the festival indeed. If you’ve seen one romance anime, you can probably predict how things go. They both show up in yukata, get embarrassed but complement each other, the whole deal. They then do the normal summer festival activities, and we get to see a pouty face Shikimori which is kind of rare, but the next scene is the slightly controversial bit.

So, once again, a scene that people really, really like from the manga was altered, this time, only slightly, though. Izumi apologizes for always causing Shikimori trouble and offers her some sweets to make it up to her. She reveals then that she doesn’t really care for sweets before giving a cute tongue sticking out face. The main reason people love the manga scene is because of the outfit Shikimori has, I assume. She has a very mature look that I think people probably went crazy over.

That’s the only thing I can think of because this anime version does literally the exact same thing the manga scene does, just slightly shorter and in a different location. Nothing about the scene’s meaning changed, and I would argue that it’s more coherent here, but I do know people wanted to see literally every scene translated to anime form without any change at all, except they don’t realize what a mess of a series that would really make.

The rest of the episode progresses in a very similar fashion to the manga. There are some hijinks, normal stuff, and Shikimori being good at everything, but we do see one of the cuter moments when Izumi’s bad luck rubs off. Shikimori breaks her sandal somehow and hurts her feet pretty bad. Izumi, being the absolute catch he is, offers to carry her to the see the fireworks.

His bad luck manages to hold off for long enough to not get hit by a car or something, and he takes her up to a secret spot that his father told him about because, like Izumi, his father was also probably a damn good catch. The two have a heart-to-heart, don’t get anywhere near kissing since this isn’t the final episode, and Izumi falls down the steps and almost kills them both because he’s tired.

It’s then that papa Izumi swoops in to save the day and carries both Izumi and Shikimori off into the sunset because his parents were also watching the fireworks from this secret spot but were so nice to not bother them. If there’s anything we can take away from this episode, it’s that Izumi has some of the most understanding parents in all of anime and manga.

And that officially ends jolly summer fun time and also volume 3. That means, next time, we’ll be getting into {redacted} Yeah, I can’t spoil things even if I know what will happen. That wouldn’t be any fun. What I will say is that if people have wanted some more drama in their relationship, you’re going to be getting some of that for the next few episodes probably. We get into some bigger stuff, even if a lot of it doesn’t happen in front of Izumi. You’ll see what I mean, then.

This also marks a bit of a break for the anime. It’s on a two-week hiatus due to the effects of the thing that swept the world that we will not name. So, I’ll probably write another Shikimori post in the meantime to try and fill some of that gap. Until then, look forward to more Cue episode reviews and more Shikimori when it happens. I really love this series a lot, even if some people don’t seem to agree.

Thank you very much for reading

Remember, be like the men in the Izumi family. Or really his mother too. The Izumi family is great all around.