I’m not sure Horimiya -Piece- has any compelling reason to exist.  But then, I’m not sure a compelling reason to exist should be a prerequisite for anime.  On the whole I thought this was fine (that’s the word that keeps popping into my head).  Generally amusing and more or less enjoyable.  But I just can’t get past my irritation at the genesis of this whole project.  Gut a series in order to shoehorn it into a cour, and then a few years later give it the other cour it should have had in the first place for (effectively) OVA extras?  If ever there was an example of the sometimes truly perverse stupidity of the production committee system, that’s it.

But that is what it is, and so is Piece.  The upside of the S1 mini-debacle is there’s plenty of good unadapted material, anyway.  The question is how will Ishihama and team go about adapting it.  Based on the premiere, one might guess he’s going to disregard and chronological approach and join chapters together based on theme.  In this instance it’s Izumi’s tattoos, and the problems they cause for him in school life.  Ishihama chose a couple of chapters quite far apart on the timeline to illuminate this, starting with a rather early school trip sequence (Kyoto is indeed the most popular choice, by far).

Given that Japan is a country where kids are still often forced to dye their hair black in order to conform, one could see why tats would be a huge problem for Izumi (especially given the yakuza stigma).  Just avoiding stuff like changing in front of others in daily life is a pain – on a trip where the boys (unlike the girls) are expected to bathe together is a huge obstacle.  Fortunately Kyouko bails him out by letting him use her shower while roomie Yuki is out (Heaven forbid he skip a day).  This leads to an interesting exchange about whether she’d let just any guy use her shower – Izzumi’s way of letting her know he sees her in “that” way (remember, this is early days yet).

I’d forgotten that whole “he’s on his period” joke from the manga, and I didn’t really find it funny then either.  It crops up again in the second chapter, much later and back at school (Izumi’s hair is one obvious landmark to judge).  This time around it’s another gender injustice, as the guys are forced to swim on the last day while the girls can go home early.  Sengoku also has a problem here, though with him it’s body issues (he’s so thin and self-conscious about it).  Guys this age do have a lot of body issues, and it’s nice to see that acknowledged.  The whole “his arm exploded” thing seems even more random than the period excuse, I must say.

Again, this is all fine for what it is.  Ishihama is obviously a good director and this is all manga material (which is by and large quite solid).  Even with the thematic linkage it does come off as a bit random, though – jumping around in time creates its own set of narrative challenges.  I think the struggle here is going to be to make Piece play as anything more than a bunch of omakes strung together, which is the fundamental problem with its existence in the first place.  I’ll watch it for sure (some of the skipped chapters were really great), and I’ll probably blog it.  But I don’t feel as if I really needed it, and I doubt the next 13 weeks will do anything to change that.