I was pretty close to bailing on Ao no Orchestra after last week.  That was just a really bad episode.  Not existentially wrong in the way Yamada-kun’s shark jump episode was – just bad.  Badly written, primarily.  But because it wasn’t an insult to decency like Yamada-kun and because the previous couple of eps had actually been pretty good, it seemed worth it to give it one more shot at least.  At this point I’m open to all possibilities.  Another ep like last week and I’m probably out.  Maybe I’ll cover eps as they merit it, with an eye towards a slower summer season and it’s second cour.  We’ll see.

This was indeed better.  Kozakura Haru is a pretty by-the-book character, but she’s not especially annoying by default – only when placed in an annoying situation (like last week).  As the focus of this episode she was fine.  A seriously shy and anxious person trying to cope with an orchestra setting is an interesting topic to consider.  Compared to her Hajime is practically an extrovert.  Not that he didn’t have his own issues – the conductor (who I assume is head of the music department) reminding him of his father embarrassingly threw him off in the middle of rehearsal.

Again, it’s not like any of this is especially original or even skillfully executed – it’s just that the themes are in my target zone.  Teenagers being inherently given to distraction and overthinking, trying to deal with something as demanding as orchestral performance – that’s fertile narrative ground.  The whole shared umbrella thing is every bit as much of an animanga cliche (which Ao no Orchestra seems largely limited to on the character front) as the peeping thing – it’s just that it wasn’t nearly as annoying to watch.

I don’t know how far we can go with Haru, but I certainly don’t dislike her.  Forte not being her strength is something I can very much buy into, but she’s got to level up her game both musically and socially.  Whether that old promise with Hajime amounts to romantic interest or not is an open question, but it does seem like he’s someone who can help her on both fronts.  And as we’ve seen, Hajime can be more comfortable helping other people than helping himself.