This episode was kind of a botch job.
There. At least the last half, especially the last three minutes. The way I see it there’s been a kind of gradually accumulating debt from the rushed pacing of the first six episodes, and this was the week when it really came due. Some of it is just lost texture (like an excellent recurring subplot with Souta and a bullying girl from his school), much-missed but sort of in isolation. But some of it hits right at the heart of the story, too, and thus pretty much undercuts the effectiveness of the entire series. And as great as this adaptation mostly is, that’s something I can’t help but regret.
You wouldn’t think you’d ever complain about a romcom moving too fast, but Horimiya isn’t your run-of-the-mill romcom. The issue here is that the manga already moves fast when compared to most (which move way too slow because they’re knee-deep in cliche). It’s already playing at the right speed. But the anime has cranked the pacing up so much that a whiplash effect is really starting to kick in. What happened in the last few moments of this episode (all of what happened) should have had a major impact. It comes from one of the most important chapters in the manga. But it ended up as almost an afterthought that you’d have missed if you blinked.
Ironically, one reason for that is that much of the episode was devoted to something that’s heretofore been mostly a casualty to the pacing – the supporting cast. Yuki and Tooru specifically – and Sakura of course. Unfortunately the anime is kind of trying to have its cake and eat it too by largely ignoring the supporting cast and then shoehorning in a half-episode about them, and I don’t think this has as much impact as it should have because we’ve spent so little time with these people. I like all of these characters but the A-part for me was frankly a little boring. And it really shouldn’t have been.
The heart of the matter to me is that if Ishihama-sensei wants to tell the condensed version of the story, he should just kiss off those satellite elements – the “much-missed in isolation” stuff – and focus on HoriMiya. Getting their relationship right should be the “first, do no harm” oath the adaptation takes. And it mostly is, but this week’s developments are a notable exception. It’s just a shame that they’re among the most important and emotionally-resonant in the entire series.
The best part of the first sequence for me was when Yuki was about to round file the cookies Sakura made for her, and decided to eat them instead. She did this because she realized how disrespectful to Sakura’s feelings that would be, and it’s an important moment because it really shows us the sort of person Yuki is. The whole Tooru-Yuki-Sakura situation needs more sunlight and water than the anime has time to give it, sadly, and for that reason I would prefer it be downplayed rather than see it half-assed and taking time away from the main pair (and the family, which is crucial to the dynamic in a way this triangle is not).
The B-part (Chapter 37 if you’re scoring at home) is – believe it or not – arguably the most important passage in the entire manga. Izumi heads to Hokkaido for five days for a family funeral (I’m not sure even this was clear in the anime). He forgets the charger for his period-authentic flip phone, and is in minimal contact with Kyouko. This is really all about Kyouko and how the separation impacts her – which is to say, profoundly. It’s a classic absence makes the heart grow fonder scenario, but it comes at a crucial time in their relationship and really cements in her mind just how emotionally dependent on that relationship she’s become.
The fact that Ishihama spent more time on the scary movie gag than on HoriMiya’s first time is a bit of a puzzler for me, to be honest. It’s pretty rare in romcom manga for the protagonists to go all the way, and this is the classic example of where the accelerated pacing of the manga itself was perfect, but the anime cranking it even further makes it seem too soon. There’s an emotional heft to this event in the manga that keeps it from feeling cheap or lurid. It certainly doesn’t in the anime either but, somehow, it just doesn’t hit with the same impact – it’s just sort of rote. “Oh, they did that.” Build-up and development matters. But I suppose I should be glad that they left it in at all.
There’s one other whiff here, which is the final scene between Souta and Izumi. This was a complete miss for me, to be honest – it’s not a moment that deserved to be shoehorned in as a 25-second blip as the credits kicked in. In the first place I don’t think it’s clear why Souta is so upset, because the anime changed the dialogue in a very crucial way (spoiler). Beyond that this is a very powerful moment – this is, in a sense, Izumi asking Souta’s blessing to become a member of the family. It’s the emotional climax of the entire “first time” narrative, not an aside. You can only cut so much without losing something in the process, and I think we’re seeing the evidence of that right now. Horimiya is still great, but I wish it had the time to really do the story justice.
John
February 21, 2021 at 3:27 pmGreat review as always, Enzo. I think this might be a case where anime-only ignorance is bliss, as I loved a lot of the apparently-botched moments in this episode, specifically HoriMiya’s first time/listening to each other’s hearts and the ending conversation between Izumi and Souta. I did find myself thinking that it might have been more effective if the pacing had let Izumi be absent from the episode longer to emphasize their time apart, especially since he’s barely even a part of the first half — why not have Kyouko counting down the days throughout the entire episode instead of going through them all in a row? I hope any rushed pacing here at least allows Ishihama to nail the ending in a way satisfying for both anime-only watchers and manga readers.
Guardian Enzo
February 21, 2021 at 4:03 pmDid you understand why Souta was upset? Because it seemed to me that it would be very hard to without advance knowledge.
Steins
February 21, 2021 at 9:03 pmThere’s no way in hell they would have adapted the real reason why Souta was mad.
It’s already a controversial scene in the manga for alot of readers, so I was certain they were gonna changed it somehow.
Guardian Enzo
February 21, 2021 at 9:48 pmI don’t think it’s all that controversial, and I don’t think the scene works at all without it.
John
February 22, 2021 at 12:44 amAh, no, at least not the reason you spoiler-tagged. I don’t think that comes through at all in this adaptation, which is a shame. But the interaction between Souta and Izumi didn’t feel like an unnatural development to me. Kids ask their older sibling’s partners if they’re going to get married one day — Souta’s feelings felt like a realistic next step for a kid starting to think/worry about what that’ll actually mean for him and his relationship with his sister. And having it occur immediately after the sex scene did give it a strong emotional weight for me as Izumi truly commits to Kyouko and her family.
Still, it sounds like the manga treats Souta with a lot more depth in that scene, and I would have loved to see that version animated. Knowing that that was what was cut does make it easier to empathize with your frustrations on how much time was spent on other elements this week — that feels like an essential moment to prioritize getting right.
I saw that Ishihama is having a reddit AMA on the 24th. Would love it if he answered some questions on how he approached this adaptation and how the episode count was determined.
Guardian Enzo
February 22, 2021 at 9:56 amSouta has been ill-served by the anime generally. He and Hori’s family are far more important in the manga.
John
February 25, 2021 at 11:22 amIshihama did end up touching on the cut content a bit in his AMA. Nothing too revealing and pretty much what you’d expect, but interesting to hear:
“In regards to the challenges I faced, it’s more a challenge we all face as a team. When you’re animating/adapting a manga, we cant adapt every scene or chapter. It was a very big challenge to pick which chapters to include in the animation. The manga was popular and we wanted to respect the readers’ feelings and emotions they have for the series. Again, what chapters or scenes to leave out and which to include while still leaving the series whole at the end was one of the biggest challenges my team and I had, so we debated a lot on that subject.”
“Throughout the series, we noticed the characters go through changes in personality and exhibit some growth, so we wanted to make sure we included the experiences the characters go through that contribute to those change. We don’t want to leave out any experiences the characters had that is crucial to their evolution. We realized not every experience the character goes through is necessarily tied to their evolution. We had this instrumental member of staff called Nagai-san, who has been on staff for more than 10 years and is a fan of Horimiya, and she was very instrumental in deciding and making judgement calls on which scenes were the most important to the anime, which ones were most important to character evolution and which scenes were not as important. Nagai-san was very important in deciding which scenes to cut and which scenes to incorporate.”
There’s some other interesting answers in there on how the anime got started/he got involved, casting, and the reaction from international audiences. Link for anyone interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/funimation/comments/lrkjam/im_masashi_ishihama_the_director_for_horimiya_ama/?sort=qa
Guardian Enzo
February 25, 2021 at 1:23 pmThanks for sharing that, very interesting. As usual with these things most of the answers were pretty non-committal and diplomatic, but it was still interesting to see.
leongsh
February 21, 2021 at 9:44 pmSome of the event transitions were a bit abrupt, like suddenly the girls are talking about Hori’s relationship with Morimiya in their girl group talk, and the abrupt jump from the implied sex between the two to the scene of Souta worried about losing his sister to Morimiya. That last abrupt cut leaves a few questions hanging. Did Souta stumble on them having sex? Or overhearing the activity? Or noting that Morimiya has been in Hori’s room for some time? Souta is definitely smart and aware enough about what could have happened to raise those worries. It appears the show is trying to cover certain points and done speedily.
Other than that, this episode was quite decent.
Guardian Enzo
February 21, 2021 at 10:48 pmHover over the spoiler tag if you want to know the answer.
Snowball
February 21, 2021 at 10:07 pmI do see that some of the cutting decisions have taken its toll in this episode as an anime-only viewer. The first part did feel like a drag even though I do like Ishikawa and Yuki. I find Sakura a bit cliched and gloomy, but that is probably because I don’t know much about her character?
I find this show tend to focus on the comedy, which works very well, but it is probably why some of the serious and tender moments are less effective.
nixx
February 22, 2021 at 6:17 amSo, things are going really fast in this series, I see.
Collectr
February 22, 2021 at 8:04 amI didn’t understand your concerns about “rushing” until you provided a correlation between the manga volumes and the anime. Five-and-a-half manga volumes in episodes? That’s major compression. The only way to do that is to leave entire subplots and characters on the cutting room floor, and as you point out, the adaptation hasn’t done that.
Anyway, as a result of your review, I dipped into the manga for the first time and read The Chapter. Souta showing a drawing with the three of them in the anime is no substitute for Souta’s dialog in the manga. And it loses Miyamura’s reaction before the “Are you afraid…” exchange. Poor decision making on the adapters’ part.
Yann
February 22, 2021 at 11:20 amActually, I don’t think Horimiya is still great. This whole episode had not structure… Stuff happened, and that’s about it. I didn’t feel anything about any of it. I wasn’t even sure wether or not they “did it”. And I had zero idea why her little brother was upset. The funeral was almost subliminal. I don’t know how much emphasize there was on it in the manga, but here it just felt completely out of the blue and weird.
The scene where she almost throws the cookies in the trash was the only moment that resonated with me, but buildup was so flimsy that I had dig deep to care a tiny bit.
Even though I haven’t read the manga, I can tell you’re absolutely right with your assessment. They should have focused on the main couple to make this pacing work… Bummer.
Princess Usagi
February 23, 2021 at 10:35 amThe last few moments of the episode seemed out of order compared to the manga. In the manga, the part with Hori and Miyamura at night and then the scene when they wake up in the morning were back to back and the part with Souta came afterwards. I feel like it flowed better that way, allowing attention to the deepening level of the HoriMiya relationship and then to Souta being important in their relationship and not relegated to a satellite. The way they did it in the anime felt choppy and disconnected. In the manga, the impact of the moment when Hori feels close enough to Miyamura to use his first name was very strong and led naturally into what they did next. In this episode, they seemed to brush over that emotional impact of the first time she said “Izumi”. It’s still a very good anime in spite of that, but it is disappointing in how it could have been better.