I’m sure it’s due in part to other stuff happening in my life right now, but there were several times during this episode of Koi wa Ameagari no You ni where I felt myself starting to tear up a little.  It’s not as though there was anything so overtly emotional happening – it was just the sheer weight of insight that the story was providing about its characters.  There’s so much about this series that’s so truthful, so beautiful and so on-point – it impacts you in the way only stories that enlighten our actual lives can impact you.

I know we’re getting pretty close to the danger zone I often hit with shows this good right about the 9 or 10 episode mark – where I start to gush and repeat myself.  But Koi wa Ameagari is just so damn good – between the sensitivity of the writing, Wit’s glorious artwork, Watanabe-sensei’s direction and Yoshimata Ryo’s background music (easily the best of the season) it’s the real deal, the full package.  Each episode is a full self-contained narrative that still supports the overall structure, and Watanabe always manages to build to an emotional crescendo with a great economy of motion.

While the love of prose is one of the core themes of this series – especially this week – there are times (especially this week) when Koi wa Ameagari seems resolutely poetic.  Spiritual poetry, the poetry of the soul.  I love to see the evolution in the relationship between Akira and Masami, because they’re growing ever-closer to each other even as they seem to be distancing themselves from the prospect of a romantic relationship.  I think, in the end, each of them is discovering that their bond gives them something they need more than they need to be lovers.  I could be wrong, of course, but it strikes me that this is growing into a love story of a different sort than was hinted at.

One of the problems people in a relationship with this kind of age gap do have if they become romantically entangled is evident in the utterly enchanting book fair sequence.  Akira invites Masami to join her when she sees an ad for the fair (wishes do come true), ostensibly to help her pick some books.  While there’s obviously an ulterior motive here, I think Akira actually is starting to fall under the sway of Masami’s love for literature. When she and Masami stumble onto a stall run by his favorite bookseller from college days, the old fellow assumes Akira is his daughter – and then his mind wanders when she says she’s his “friend”.  This is a reality they will always have to deal with if they ever become a couple – the assumptions people make about them, both before and after they learn the nature of their relationship.

There are so many beautiful moments in this scene that it seems almost unfair to pick out one or two.  The whole exchange regarding Victor Hugo’s “world’s shortest letter” (ending with the texts) was wonderful, as was the bookseller’s awed reverence for Masami’s love of books.  I think my favorite part of all this, though, was watching Akira’s lovely face as she watched Masami in his element.  You can see her love for him growing – romantic love still, yes, but so much more than that.  She’s coming to know the real Masami-san, the one beyond the restaurant manager and the idealized crush – and coming to realize what a beautiful soul that man has.  If you’ve ever loved someone and then come to realize once you got to know them that they were even more special than you realized, surely you recognize the look in Akira’s eyes here.

The growing sense is that what’s happening here is that Masami and Akira are helping each other to reconnect to their passions in life.  Akira can undergo rehab and run again, her doctor reveals – she simply chooses not to.  Masami knows that his thus-far fruitless chase of the great Japanese novel has left him adrift in self-perceived mediocrity, and helped drive a wedge  between he and his ex-wife.  Both have been following the path of least resistance, not wanting to put themselves at risk of further pain.  But in doing so they’ve been stifling the essence of who they truly are.

“The swallow knows that… Any place where you won’t get wet from the rain… Will also have no sunlight.”  The meaning isn’t subtle, but it’s still powerful.  This was such a beautiful moment, such a healing one – starting with the hidden swallow revealing itself on the bookmark, and then Akira telling Masami that she was sure she’d love to read the novels he’s going to write.  Did his wife ever tell him that?  Who knows – but it’s clear how much those words mean to him now.  For him – and for Akira, too – the knowledge that someone will love and accept them unconditionally, without judgment, for who they are is surely going to give them the courage to follow their heart once more.  Two kind and kindred spirits finding each other in a lonely world and giving that gift to the other  – surely that transcends the limiting notion of romance?