With yesterday’s premiere of Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia, all of the season’s major (for me) romcoms have splashed.  None have disappointed (including this one), though that’s not at all surprising since Skip to Loafer is the only one whose source material I haven’t read, and it seemed like a pretty sure thing.  What’s especially nice is that they’re all quite distinct from the others.  Good romcoms are like snowflakes, no two are alike  – and the better they are the more true that is.  I know exactly how good the likes of BokuYaba and Insomniacs are, and I’m starting to get the measure of Skip and Loafer too.

When it comes to romcoms, I tend to exalt the grittier and more bittersweet ones highest, which partly explains why I hold BokuYaba above all competition – it’s brutally unsparing in a way that really speaks to me.  One senses that Skip and Loafer is a different color palette in more ways than one – softer pastels that scream “seinen” from every pore.  The vibe these first two episodes give off is more or less a “healing” one (overused term, but if the shoe fits).  Mitsumi is a bit off a lamb in the land of wolves, but she seems like the type that always lands on her feet (in manga, anyway).

In the first place, there’s not a damn thing wrong with that – those sorts of stories can be wonderful (and plenty bittersweet).  And in the second, there are hints in this ep that the emotional range may be a bit wider than it appears.  Surprisingly a lot of them comes from Sousuke-kun, who’s as close to a human ray of sunshine as you can get most of the time.  But as Mitsumi’s world expands, there are suggestions at the dangers that lurk there – gentle hints for now, but given how unprepared she is for her new life, they aren’t to be dismissed.

Even the almost incidental moment where Nao-chan hears the whispers which surely haunt them while riding the train hints at the darker undercurrent to this seemingly placid stream.  This pretty well confirms that Nao is trans, and Mitsumi immediately seizes on what’s happening and supports by changing the subject.  One can imagine what life might have been like for Nao in such a small town, and why they (perhaps) fled to Tokyo, and what their relationship with the rest of the family might be.  But we’re not beaten over the head with any of that, it’s just left as something to muse on for the nonce.

At school, it’s self-intro day – and Mitsumi quickly adds the moniker “secret boss” to “the puker” with a lead balloon of  a joke.  Sousuke, who obviously possesses a keen emotional intelligence, rescues the moment with a joke of his own.  Mitsumi is already smitten with Sousuke, much to the alarm of Egashira Mika (Terasaki Yuka).  The two of them end of fulfilling the jokes by volunteering to be class reps, and Egashira invites Mitsumi to karaoke in a long game bid to thwart this budding disaster.  The boys, including genki Yamada Kento (Murase Ayumu) get invited too, and the cool and aloof class beauty Murashige Yuzuki (Uchida Maaya) invites herself too (though not for the reasons you might expect).

Karaoke is an adventure for Mitsumi, having never done it before.  But she’s weighed down by Egashira-san convincing her that Sousuke is just as nice to everybody else as part of his ikemen coping strategy.  Mitsumi –  from her middle school with eight students – has no bullshit radar to speak of, and thus takes Egashira at face value.  The truth is Sousuke is just a really nice guy who’s into her, but it takes a little shove from Murashige-san to get her to realize this.  Murashige is an interesting one – it very much seems as if she tagged along to act as an interpreter/human shield for Mitsumi.  She is a bit distant, but the early returns on her essential nature are highly positive.

In real life, of course, a small-town girl with a strong dialect could be in for a world of cruelty in a Tokyo high school but as I noted, Mitsumi seems to be the “always lands on her feet” type in this somewhat idealized reality.  In fact it seems to be the sunny Shima-kun who’s harboring some darkness.  By now he and Mitsumi are at the “-chan” stage (much to the delight of Hirose Saya’s Kimoto-san) – because his kanji and fur are the same as her dog she’s calling him Sato-chan, and doesn’t realize she’s supposed to be embarrassed by him calling her Mitsumi-chan.  But the high-heeled entrance of drama club sempai Kanechika Narumi (Kimura Ryouhei) reveals a few cracks in Sousuke’s facade.

For starters, Kimura is one of those seiyuu that makes any show better just by his presence – his voice and energy lift the entire enterprise.  Kanechika’s desperate for new members, especially girls (he’s playing female parts, thus the footwear), and comes on pretty strong.  He also thinks he recognizes Sousuke, which it’s later revealed that he does – Sousuke was “Kanade-kun”, which presumably means he was a child actor in a TV show.  Sousuke makes is very clear this is not a subject he wants to discuss – and in fact he’s already begged off going home with Mitsumi because of unspecified commitments.  I’m not ready to say Sousuke’s sunny disposition is just projection, but he’s obviously got some issues he’s dealing with that he prefers to keep to himself.

It’s funny that Sousuke’s arc has taken this turn, because as I noted last week Skip and Loafer was already reminding me a lot of the manga Hirayasumi, and the MC there is a troubled former child actor running away from his past.  There’s a lot of really interesting stuff going on here on many different fronts, and it’s all presented in a pretty breezy and unassuming fashion.  There’s just enough suggestion that there’s more to the story than meets the eye to keep you from getting too comfortable, and that bit of edge does a lot to make Skip and Loafer such an interesting prospect.