It’s fascinating to see a series that’s so fixated on the minute details of couplehood.  Admittedly Nasa and Tsukasa are younger and more inexperienced than most newlyweds, but what they’re going through is going to feel very familiar to a whole lot of people.  That makes me think that the target audience for this series skews pretty old by anime standards, or it least it should.  Maybe the ones who were the typical age when Hayate came out and are now in their 30’s.

Because Tonikaku Cawaii dispenses with courtship, it’s free of so many romcom tropes.  That’s not to say that there aren’t some courtship elements to this relationship, because there are, even after legally marrying.  But mostly it’s about learning to be two people and not just one, and because Tsukasa is rather a mysterious figure by design most of that comes from Nasa’s perspective.  He’s quite neurotic actually, the type who worries about every detail.  It does strike me as a little silly to be so cautious about putting your arm around your own wife when she climbs into bed with you, but Nasa is obviously still very much a kid in many important respects.

I don’t know how he can stand it, honestly – to be 18 years old and cohabitating with an adorable girl like Tsukasa in such close quarters, and not to engage in what would seem to be a logical part of marriage?  But then, the closeness of these quarters is very much the theme at the heart of this episode.  Nasa decides that it makes sense to move to a larger place – a double bed is the heart of the dream of course, but there’s the matter of not having a bath or room for a couch (and a humongous fish) too.  Nasa is the type who gets a little giddy with eagerness when a notion strikes him – which is a quality we very much share, so these scenes always hit close to home for me.

In Japan one typically needs a guarantor when they try and rent an apartment.  Normally a person like Nasa would use his parents, which is exactly what he did when he moved into his current bandbox.  That’s an issue, however, as he’s neglected to inform them of his marriage.  Not only that, it seems not even to have occurred to him until now – which is kind of interesting in its own right.  They’re mysterious too – we know next to nothing about them except that the live in Nara.  But that gives Nasa the idea of turning it into a honeymoon – another element of the traditional courtship cycle this fast-forward relationship has skimmed over.

Apart from Chitose, whose discordant presence always impacts this series like a bad smell in a windowless room, the start of this trip is more charming interaction between the main pair.  Tsukasa always seems to default to the common sense, economic option – and while a night bus to Nara (via Kyoto) is certainly cheaper than the Shinkansen (which is how they really should have traveled if you ask me – it’s a honeymoon), this is not riding the dog.  In Japan night buses can be pretty nice – though I’d certainly have sprung the extra 1000 Yen for a fully-reclining seat with a privacy curtain…