Well, the question I asked about Kuronosuke at the end of 03 has definitely been answered. He’s interested – and it’s on!

Kuragehime continues to take the unorthodox path at every fork in the road, and that makes each episode delightfully surprising. I loved the fact that Kura came storming into the nunnery with “secret” documents from his father’s stash, to warn the Amars that the redevelopment plan would force the apartment to be torn down – only to discover that they already knew. And not only knew, but didn’t really seem to care all that much. That plot track certainly would have been the most conventional one to follow, but for now it looks as if that trap will be avoided.

While the Amars continue to exist in their bubble of safety, the story itself seems to be coalescing around three major characters – Tsukimi, Kuranosuke and Shu. Tsukimi is clearly still devastated by the loss of her mother, and Kuro is obsessed with having “lost” his. Shu, meanwhile, is a virgin and in fact has never even had a girlfriend. He’s smitten by Tsukimi in her “makeover” mode but now he’s seen her more or less in the raw, and still seems interested. The trip to the aquarium in Enoshima was a revealing one for all three characters – Tsukimi’s emotional reaction to the jellies, Shu’s kidnness (and infatuation) and most significantly Kuranosuke. When he saw Shu giving Tsukimki a consoling hug, he felt the unfamiliar pangs of jealousy – and this after having hurriedly changed back into man’s clothes (in the ladies room) so as not to be with the other two while in drag.

Kuranosuke is a fascinating character. He’s been popular his whole life, he’s rich, yet clearly an illegitimate son and a pariah in his own house. While he seems to genuinely care for Tsukimi his actions seem primarily driven by self-interest – boredom mostly, to be honest. He seems to take little accounting of others’ feelings in his actions – he simply flows to where his impulses take him. Yet the sight of Tsukimi and Shu hugging sparked something new in him. Shu and Tsu are far more innocent than Kuranosuke, a fact he seems to envy to some extent. To his credit, he later apologized when he found out about her mother – a subject he feels qualified to commiserate with her about. In fact it was a day for members of his family to apologize to Tsukimi, as Shu did so as well and while doing so caught a glimpse of her in her natural state, more or less. Judging by the geyser of blood expelled from his nose in the car afterward, Shu was not dissuaded by that at all.

For Tsukimi, the fact that she was actually hugged by a man was enough to send her into a paroxysm of nasal hemorrhaging as well. She seemed most upset by the fact that he actually saw her in a state of partial undress – whether this reflects a more general sense of embarrassment or a specific attraction to Shu remains to be seen. But clearly now both brothers have thrown their hats into the ring, and it will be very interesting to see where this unconventional series takes this very unconventional love triangle.