Something hard is poking me…

OK, so here we go – the new (new to me, anyway) twist on the “omnibus format” makes it’s debut with episode 5 of Yosuga no Sora. The first two eps are taken as read, and we pick up at the pool scene at school – except the object of Haru’s Kavorka this time is Akira, the genki Miko. So how well does it work?

Let’s get the problems out of the way first. There’s an odd effect this format has on me: it gives the illusion that what’s happening is a little arbitrary. Episode two seems like a lifetime ago in story terms, and it’s hard to put myself back there and pretend these last two eps never happened. As a result, though it’s not the case in the story it feels like Haruka has jumped right out of Kazukha’s bed and into Akira’s bathtub.

With all that said, the good side for me is that I rather like Akira – certainly I find her a more interesting character than Kazuha. She’s hardly an original, and I admit I’m a sucker for a kawaii Miko. But I think her situation carries some weight – though again, we’ve seen it before. She’s quite literally the bastard of the family, loathed by Kazuha’s mother and largely ignored by her father. She’s a trope, sure – the lonely girl who overcompensates for her loneliness by acting cheerful and energetic. But it’s a trope because it works as a dramatic device. I enjoy her relationship with Haruka as well, though again, I had problems with how quickly that relationship progressed. Not only because of the aforementioned format issues, but because they jumped straight to intercourse in their “first” episode. The bath scene was cute, but it seemed to come on us a little too fast. 

In other news, for the first time in a while we got some screen time for the neighbor girl who, judging by her prominence in the “second ED” is a player to be reckoned with. Speaking of Motoka’s ED, her omake typically bizarre this week, with Akira’s giant head and yet more fantasizing about her cherry boy, this time with some serious heavy petting where she’s on the receiving end for a change…