Yuki to Kimi to.

With You and the Rain has been on a pretty impressive run the past few weeks. This episode was possibly the weakest of the series to day, though. If this show has a fault it’s a tendency to get a bit too precious and self-indulgent. It achieves a kind of authentic sentimentality by not being overtly sentimental, and that alchemy is lost when it is. This ep also focused on the more annoying members of the supporting cast, which is probably not totally coincidental. Not bad by any means, just not the series at its best.

That’s not to say there weren’t moments. The intro saw Kimi and Fuji at the park with Ella, who’s cuteness can be a bit much and tends to play to the series’ less appealing tendencies. And so it was here, though there was a great moment when Fuji-san brought out a snack, Ella asked what it was, and Fuji quickly wrote “Apples!”. When Fuji announced that it was pears, he blushed and was taken aback. Then, when it turned out he was eating apple (Mr. Veterinarian says it’s healthier for… tanuki) Kimi went into a jealous snit until he got some pear of his own.

Next a slightly too-cute bit with ducks, where Ella goes on a mental journey when Fuji suggests they’ve come from a long way away. Then Kimi collects a couple of downed feathers (pun intended) and attempts to take flight. Fuji-san bonds with an older lady over camellias and acknowledges here loner tendencies, This is followed by the best part of the episode, where Fuji heads off for a busy day of meetings and Kimi copes with being left alone. I was hoping we’d get an entire chapter from his perspective here, but what we got was good enough. Also we learned that he makes almost dog-like noises when he whines (though I suppose tanuki might make them too – they are canids after all).

Finally, the snow moves in (if you believed animanga you’d think Tokyo got about 200 cm a year rather than measurable snow about once a decade) and Fuji-san gets together with her school chums for another dinner – this one accompanied by a fair bit of alcohol. She decides to take Kimi along for a sobering walk after one beer has her tipsy. And while this sequence too is a bit too cute and sentimental to be really effective, there is a tantalizing hint on Kimi’s origin story – we see glimpses of the Seto-Ohashi Bridge. This suggests he’s from Kagawa, which is logical as that’s the land of tanuki (including Poko-chan).