I think the fundamental problem with the cast of Makeine is pretty straightforward. Imagine relationships were skiing – though perhaps snowboarding is a better analogy given the age of these characters. If you show up at the resort with no experience, the first thing you really ought to do is take lessons. But if there’s no one to do that, at least head for the bunny slope. If you’ve never snowboarded before, even the bunny hill is pretty tough. But these kids? They head straight for the triple back diamond run, slap their goggles down, and plummet over the edge.
Seriously, this shit is way too hard even for most experienced adults (most of us never get really good at skiing, truth be told). Staying friends with people you’re attracted to? Hanging out with the person who stole them away from you? Even just being friends without attraction getting in the way (as Anna and Kazuhiko are trying to do). There’s no shame in judicious withdrawal – you’ll live longer and be happier that way. But they’re young and naive and probably idealistic – they want to soar like a bird even as they’re about to face-plant into a tree.
Nukumizu-kun still sees himself as the ultimate observer, but he’s in eyes-deep whether he knows it or not. For starters, he can’t not meddle – he must have the gene. His telling Anna to stop talking because he didn’t want her to say bad things about other people behind their back was a fascinating moment. Eventually that evening winds up with him going after Lemon (yes, I am switching, thank you) yet again. He even tries to give her some good advice – if she tries to stay friends with Mitsuki it’s going to get very messy – not that she listens. Mostly he’s just there so she won’t be alone – which is often exactly what a good friend should do. I was happy Grandma gave Nuk-kun a shoutout because he definitely deserved it.
Nuk-kun is going through all the steps of forming bonds with people without any real sense of what’s happening. His surprise when Mitsuki later tells him they’re friends was surely genuine, and very telling. This is part of yet another sequence of Nukumizu getting involved on Lemon’s behalf, this time going along as moral support for her late night clear the air meeting with Mitsuki. This makes things clear as mud if you ask me. Lemon finds out that Mitsuki used to like her, but felt she was out of his league.
She winds up counselling him to stay with Chihaya (she looks just like a HS version of Takagi-san BTW) but let’s be honest here. Lemon still likes Mitsuki, and now knows he had a thing for her. So, effectively, all she’s really confirmed is that she had her shot, and failed to take it. Lemon may intellectually believe Asagumo-san is better for him, and may even be right. But this is the boy she followed to high school, the boy she’s in love with. Again, triple black diamond. She needs to back off and give them space, not to mention herself. But she’s doing just the opposite. The impression given is that this subplot is wrapped up, but it sure doesn’t feel that way to me.
As for Kazuhiko and Anna, looks like that’s going to continue to be the elephant in the room for a while longer at least. I don’t know if wearing the same t-shirt counts as an indirect kiss, but her reaction to that proves Yanami is far from oblivious to the fact that she and Nuk-kun are a girl and boy of a certain age and comprehensively available. She compensates by making light of things, he by straightforward denial – but turning the lights out in a room so you can’t see the elephant doesn’t mean it’s not there. I’d even go so far as to say she’s intentionally toying with him, as in the “substitute” bit at the end. Because she’s a child, because he’s an easy mark, and because deep down she’s interested and desperate to convince herself otherwise.
Guy Thompson
August 25, 2024 at 6:04 pmI’m seriously puzzled as to why they decided to squeeze Remon’s arc into three episodes instead of four. This particular episode missed a lot of pretty important interactions between Nukumizu and Yakishio, including their conversation after tears that lead to the night school meeting. It’s like direction was purposely chosen to tone down their relationship compared to LN. I understand too much dialogue can mess up pacing, but still I wonder how they spend the remaining 5 episodes for the pretty uneventful Komari arc.
Guardian Enzo
August 25, 2024 at 7:42 pmHow fast are they going through the material? There’s obviously going to be another season if there’s enough – it’s a clear hit at this point.
Guy Thompson
August 25, 2024 at 8:18 pmSecond season is a no-brainier I think and there is more than enough material. The initial assumption was that they will go at a rate of 4 episodes per volume of light novel (7 volumes exist now) so three volumes would be animated this season, each covering one arc dedicated to Yanami, Yakishio and Komari respectively. However with how they rushed through the second volume it’s not clear now whether this assumption will hold or if it is what will happen with the pacing for the last arc.
Joshua
August 26, 2024 at 9:46 amIn all fairness, volume 2 is shorter compared to volume 1 or 3, the latter being the longest of the 3 volumes it will supposedly adapt this season. I can only assume that volume 2 being shorter was why they were so eager to get this over with, feeling that there was enough material in volume 3 to cover the remainder of the season.
Nadavu
August 25, 2024 at 8:20 pmThe thing about the shirt – it’s less to do with boy-girl stuff and more to do with Ana’s weight gain to the point where that shirt didn’t fit her.
There are no bunny hills or ski instructors for romance. It’s how Utsubo put it in Fable: you fall on your face enough times and that’s how you learn.
While I’ve grown to like Lemon, I still find her the least compelling main character. I’m ready for some more Komari now, thank you.
Guardian Enzo
August 25, 2024 at 8:42 pmYou can still try dating and holding hands rather than jumping right to the boss level shit. You fall on your face on the bunny hill too, but you don’t break your neck doing it.
Komari is likable but easily the least interesting of the three so far for me. We’ll see if her arc can change that.
Nadavu
August 25, 2024 at 10:18 pmI have thing for Komari, but objectively, I concede that I don’t see the mass appeal.
Bob
August 26, 2024 at 3:37 amWasn’t that just a boob joke, since she’s bustier than Lemon?
Guardian Enzo
August 26, 2024 at 7:24 amSo either a boob joke, a fat joke, or an indirect kiss joke.
Would Yanami really be upset to have it pointed out that she’s bustier?
Sonicsenryaku
August 26, 2024 at 9:03 amI actually find Lemon interesting considering how she contrasts with Anna and how all of what that implies lend to meaningful personal moments for her character.
Anna often indulges in her own neurotic behavior and struggles to make decisions that would prevent intrusive thoughts from informing her actions. However, when it absolutely counts, she demonstrates enough emotional perceptiveness to make the most morally conducive choices. She’s quite the 3 dimensional character, in that despite how self-destructive she can be, she’s emotionally perceptive enough to want what’s best for others and will desperately fight off her impulsive/put to the side her desires that the people she loves can be happy/true to themselves; it’s quite compelling to watch
Lemon on the other hand, isn’t as much of a veteran with being “toxic” the way Anna is, so she experiences way more guilt when she thinks or behaves in a way that doesn’t reflect her naturally earnest disposition, and I think that makes for some interesting drama to watch unravel. Lemon tries to be strong-willed when faced with stressful challenges; and unlike Anna, actually implements healthy outlets to deal with them, even if sometimes the dissonance of her trying to cheerful her way through problems can interfere with processing more turbulent cognitions
All that said, Lemon being the more mature, resolute, true-to-herself, chill counterpart to Anna makes her 3 dimensional in her own right; and in addition, that contrast makes the character dynamics layered
Guardian Enzo
August 26, 2024 at 9:14 amThems was some big words…
I think Anna is playing a character, basically. The charming ditz is a useful shield for her – a means of lowering expectations from others. She’s quite neurotic on the whole and she overcompensates with the genki act. Kazuhiko pushes her out of her comfort zone because he’s so earnest and doesn’t take the bait she leaves him. Not to mention they’re obviously dancing around the obvious.
Lemon’s whole thing is to be proactive, (literally) to a fault. She’s a runner – she’s always in a hurry to push things forward. Let’s talk, let’s get it out in the open, let’s run away and cry alone until Nuk-kun comes and sits next to us. There are times when she just needs to step back and/or recuse herself, but that’s very hard for her to do.
Sonicsenryaku
August 26, 2024 at 10:14 amYea I’m really surprised at just how well the writing exemplifies these traits without feeling the need to narrate it to us with clunky dialogue or an over reliance on inner speech.
And yea, regarding Anna and Kazu, my prediction is that they will continue to dance around the obvious, although not intentionally. I get this inkling that as they continue to grow more and more comfortable around each other, the idea of one of them possibly becoming romantically involved with another person is going to start looming over their everyday thoughts, and it’s going to lead to both of them indirectly being possessive over each other but not address the elephant in the room.
Lemon is starting to seem more like “Gal pal” potential than a romantic contender. I mean, anything can change but when a girl/woman says “it’s just *insert name*” about you, it usually means she’s friend-zoned the shit out of you, and that’s what Lemon said about Kazu during the whole t-shirt fiasco.
Some people theorize that the nurse mistakenly believing Lemon and Kazu might be in love in episode 2 was sort of a Chekhov’s gun type thing by the author: a way to hint that the trope of the “first girl” is going to be subverted; but while I also had a similar thought when I first saw that, you could make a similar argument for Kazu saying that a relationship between him and Anna would be more feasible in 2 to 3 years, after becoming really close friends sooooooooo
Guardian Enzo
August 26, 2024 at 10:44 amI mean, pervy nurse writing that certainly stuck out like a sore thumb. But for me Lemon has been huge gal pal vibes right from the beginning.
Simone
August 26, 2024 at 7:49 pmI’m fairly sure that was a reference to Anna’s bust size. But obviously Nukumizu’s fantasy is going places by imagining Anna trying to wear the same shirt – and not succeeding because of her… assets.
Brian Guy
August 26, 2024 at 11:06 amThe Kazu x Anna dynamic is, at this point, a bit more complicated than your analysis. While you have her down pat and are on the right track with him, I think the point you miss is that he’s less in denial about how the two of them fit together and more about whether or not he fits *anywhere*. He’s still struggling with measuring the distance in his social relations (Ayano, whom he’s been familiar with throughout middle school and with whom was in a tight study circle in cram school for nearly a year, is still not seen in the “friend” category until he explicitly puts himself there) and doesn’t even consider the possibility that he himself could be on anyone else’s romantic radar. He doesn’t just deny it; it’s literally an alien thought to him.
Sonicsenryaku
August 26, 2024 at 12:32 pm@brian guy
Oh no for sure; I’m well aware that having meaningful bonds with people is an alien concept to him and that it motivates his awkwardness around the idea of friendships, let alone any subconscious barriers he puts up with the girls. That’s partly why I said that any dancing around the obvious would be mostly unintentional.
While Kazu is thoughtful of others, he’s not really motivated to deepen or validate any of his social interactions with anyone, really; and since he views himself as just a background character, it doesn’t come across to him that any of the interactions he has with people are valuable to them, hence why he’s been friendless for as long as he has despite being such a good boy. Social bonding cues are also kinda foreign to him as well as him being generally conscious about his physical space with others; makes him come off as aloof to others; probably why people in school have the wrong idea about him
Sonicsenryaku
August 27, 2024 at 2:29 pmAlso, I recently just came across the fact that apparently volume 2 (arc that just concluded) was 298 pages compared to volume 1’s 312, while the next arc we’re entering (volume 3) is 344 pages, which remains the longest of all the volumes that exist so far.
Now I’m not sure what the page format looks like in each volume and how that contributes to the information in them, but volume 2 being the shortest of series thus far (though not by much compared to volume 1) and it getting the least amount of eps towards its adaptation was an interesting coincidence I happened across. It doesn’t seem like the 14 page difference should have affected the ep count to that degree, but I figured it was something worth pointing out given we’re potentially dedicating the last 5 eps on what is also the longest of the volumes; I’ll chock it up to the anime’s pacing choices.
Perhaps the anime deemed it necessary for volume 1 to have more eps to better establish the premise of the entire series. Oh well; as an anime only, I found volume 2 to have the most poignant character drama, but if it’s really meant to be the shortest arc of the entire series and 3 eps was the best length from an adaptation standpoint, I guess I’ll take it.
Makes me how much story is in volume 3 to dedicate 5 eps to, and if the series’ quality will continue to hold up
Nicc
August 28, 2024 at 7:57 amWhew, this was a packed episode. It’s the middle of the night and Nukumizu takes some time to enjoy the waters of the countryside. Perhaps he should have bottled some of that stuff before leaving. Anna is up too so they talk a bit about Lemon. She’s out there running at night and he may just so happen to meet up by coincidence. Anna herself is conflicted enough that she’s not assigning the homewrecker tag on anybody. Nukumizu does find Lemon doing her running and has a chat with her. Yep, things can’t and won’t be the same now that she and Ayano know what’s going on. It’s morning and it’s time for everybody to head back. What the others don’t see is that Asagumo is meeting with Lemon. I don’t know where Asagumo is getting that money from to spend on multiple GPS trackers to use and dispose. Those tags made by a certain fruit company sure are handy, though. We don’t get to see that they talk about, but they became good friends after this.
Going to school when it’s closed at night… There’s a certain forbidden fruit angle when it comes to doing that. Lemon is meeting up with Ayano at the kindergarden where they first met. Their attraction to each other was mutual, but neither one could pull the trigger. Asagumo was the one who got through to Ayano and to the victor go the spoils. I too am not entirely sure if she’ll let go of her feelings for Ayano yet. It looks like Asagumo is now a member of the friendship circle, which also includes Ayano as well as summer vacation ends and school resumes again. Friendship isn’t always easy or obvious. As for Nukumizu and Yanami, they seem to be getting there. That said, I don’t think she’s still gotten over Hakamada yet and when she’s still (willingly) being the third-wheel.