Saturday, August 17, 2013

Kimi no Iru machi Episode 1 - 6


Kimi no iru machi ( 君のいる町) 
Review episode 1 - 6

Airing date: July - ?
Studio: GONZO
Genre: Drama, Romance, Slice of life

This series started in July 2013, so its been a bit, probably half way through the season, so I'm going to go through episodes 1- 6, ideally I would like to do the review on the day of airing, but since I just started this blog, I need to do some catching up.

In 2012, they had a 2 episode OVA of Kimi no iru machi, special episodes done for the release of the manga. The animation was done by studio Tatsunoko production, I will get more into this on a later review. For now here's my review for the new TV series by Gonzo. 
Screen captures may include major spoilers, proceed with caution.




Episode 1:  "Pursuit"「追いかけて」


Episode starts off a little different from what I remember from the manga, but after watching this episode the studio did a interesting; maybe clever way of incorporating the story together, in the manga this series has two parts, the first part is Haruto's life in Hiroshima when Eva Yuzuki moves to his house, then the second part (which starts this series) is when Haruto moves to Tokyo in pursuit of Eva who left him with unanswered questions.

So like I mentioned, the story begins with Haruto moving into his older sisters apartment in Tokyo, he gets left alone to clean up her room, when he gets attacked by a girl wearing a motorcycle mask and swinging a baseball bat, later to figure out that she is one of Haruto's older sisters acquaintance, her name is Asuka Mishima, then followed by her friend Kyosuke Kazama. And thats how Haruto makes his "first" friends in Tokyo.

Being the new transfer student at an odd time Haruto gets some attention and many questions, but Haruto pretty much ignores or brushes off and give a bad atmosphere around his peers, Asuka becomes concerned for his actions and asks whats going on and tries to get him to act a bit more positive in front of his new classmates.

This episode ends when Haruto was just about to go visit Eva's house when he runs into Eva's younger sister Rin, gets called a stalker and finishes.

Episode 2: "When the Cherry blossoms bloom" 「桜の咲く頃」


Episode 2 starts off where it ended last episode where Haruto just got called a stalker from Eva's younger sister Rin, then they talk for a little bit more where Haruto persuades Rin to get Eva out of the house so he can talk with her, but it ended up failing. Haruto does manage to get a glance of Eva looking out the window, but doesn't pursue any further.  After the Opening theme song the story begins with the first half of the manga, where the story takes place in Hiroshima, when Eva moves into Haruto's home.

When Eva transfers to the school Haruto attends, of course being a beauty from Tokyo, Haruto wants to keep it a secret that they are living under the same roof, why? because there is a girl Haruto likes in the same class, a one sided love since middle school. The girls name is Nanami Kanzaki.  Knowing this little secret Eva tries to do a favor by trying to get Nanami and Haruto together.

This way of telling the story I thought was cleverly done by the studio, at first when I watched the first episode and it started in the Tokyo arc I was a bit confused, but then in this second episode they incorporate the first half of the manga as if it were a flash back. Interesting way to try and combine the two story into the anime series.

Episode 3:  "Suddenly, Batan-chu" 「突然、バタンチュー」


First half of this episode starts in the Hiroshima part where Haruto collapse during class because he caught a cold. He's sent home then worries about Eva not being able to come home, later Eva comes home with Nanami who came to check up on Haruto. Then Nanami gets a phone call from her older brother and steps out for a min, then Eva kisses Haruto, they get into an argument, Nanami missed out and just leaves and Eva storms out of the room. The following day, Haruto ends up staying in bed and misses school, get s a call from his friend Takashi, who was worried about Eva, said she was acting a little different that day. Eva told Takashi that she'll be fine going home by herself, but Haruto knew she couldn't bike home herself, which meant that she was going to be walking the long distance home, so he gets out and bikes in the rain to pick her up. They meet in the middle of the muddy path and Eva exclaims that she cant do anything without Haruto, pretty much the answer for the kiss.

Second half of the episode takes place in Tokyo (back in real time). Haruto figures out that Eva goes to an all girls school, so getting in was a hard task, but luckily Haruto discovers that Eva's school is going to have cultural festival, knowing that it was his chance he begs one of his classmate, Mina Nagoshi who has a ticket to go to the culture festival. He begs to go with her and Nagoshi gets the wrong idea that Haruto likes her, so she "tests" him out at the festival. Haruto was too preoccupied with looking for Eva that he did a pretty bad job escorting Nagoshi around the festival. End of the episode Haruto and Eva meets in a empty classroom where Eva tells Haruto that she has a boyfriend and should stop chasing after her.

Sometimes it kind of sucks to have read the manga before hand, because I know whats going to happen, like if I didn't read the manga and Eva kissed Haruto that would of be somewhat expected, but a surprise nonetheless. Whats nice about the animation to the manga, is the movement, and music that adds a whole new affect to the story, depending on the background music the episode can become crap or a master piece. I felt like the kiss scene was kind of a melancholy feeling just because I know whats been happening through out the story.

Episode 4: "Greetings" 「あいさつ」


This episode focuses more on the character Kyosuke Kazama. After Haruto gets "rejected" from Eva, he's feeling pretty bad and he asks Kazama if he can come hang out, maybe go do some karaoke to forget the bad feeling, but Kazama suggests to do something else more fun. Kazama takes Haruto on a ride on his motorcycle, Kazama has a dream of becoming a pro motorcyclist but in this episode Haruto figures out that Kazama has a serious illness. After their ride Haruto and Kazama are talking by the river bed about girls and relationships, Kazama then offers to help Haruto in anyway possible to get his girlfriend back. Right after as they were about to leave Kazama collapse.

Next thing we see, is Asuka running into the hospital where Kazama is in bed, with Haruto and his mother by his side. Kazama keeps telling them that its no big deal and it happens often, but Asuka knows that its not just something simple, but a big problem and insists that Kazama to take it easy. At the end of this episode you see a girl running towards Kazama's room and right when Haruto was about to exit, the two come face to face, the girl who was making her way to Kazama's room was Eva. It so happens to be Kazama's girlfriend was Eva. Haruto and Eva's eye meet, Haruto was in shock was speechless, as Eva introduced herself as if they just met for the first time.

By watching Kazama from the beginning of the series, you can already tell that Kazama's girlfriend was Eva, so it wasn't a big surprise when they encountered in this episode. Pretty predictable and you can even guess what may be coming up after this episode. But like I said before, reading the manga really does spoil a lot of whats gonna happen.

Episode 5: "Declaration of war" 「宣戦布告。」


Declaration of War begins with Eva trying to learn how cook, Haruto then calls out that their gonna be late for school, so she hurries on off and bumps into the shelf, knocking off an album which contained pictures of the Summer festival in the past.

This episode is about how Haruto and Eva met for the first time.
So now in school (Hiroshima arc) its been spreading that Haruto and Eva are dating, but of course Haruto denies these facts and Nanami thinks that Haruto likes Eva and etc, that evening when they come back from school, the gang opens up the album and starts reminiscing the summer festival, and there is one picture, a group shot of Haruto and friends, but in that picture there is a girl that they dont recognize, they think that its Eva, but Haruto doesn't believe it, saying how its impossible because they've never met each other until just recently.

Haruto then goes up to the attic and find his old journal where he found a page with the summer festival event he wrote and the picture he drew of himself and the girl. From there there is a flash back to the time when Haruto met Eva.

This episode ends in the present time, where Haruto and Eva meets up and she shares the story of how she met Kazama.

It was good to see this episode, to find out that Eva actually met Haruto before. In the episode during the summer festival the young Eva says that she had a bad experience but after the fireworks and the candy apple she felt a lot better, to this Haruto said that if she ever is feeling down she should come and visit Hiroshima again, which connects to why Eva visits Hiroshima later in the future.

Episode 6: "My true feelings" 「オレの本心。」


The first half of this story takes place in Eva's past before she moved to Hiroshima, where she meets Kazama. Eva was a very shy silent girl in class and nobody really payed much attention to her. But one day Kazama goes up to her and asks her if she wants to join lunch with him and the rest of the classmates. Eva didn't really want to get close to anybody, so she kept trying to keep him away, but Kazama wouldn't give up. He eventually confessed to her in class, but got rejected, but that didn't stop him from stopping, eventually he was finally able to get together with Eva, but that's after she had returned from her stay in Hiroshima.

After Eva shares her story to Haruto, she wants to keep the "relationship" they had in Hiroshima a secret from Kazama, at first Haruto agrees, but later he talks with Asuka and she helps him make up his mind to what he needs to do, and that was to get Eva back, because he loves her. Barging into the room Kazama was resting declares his true feeling of Eva to Kazama, that he will win her back and Kazama accepts the challenge. 

This part was pretty cool, how Haruto goes onto to challenge Kazama who was a great pal to him (even though they only knew each other for a month or so) and Kazama would be open to this challenge and with most confidence saying Eva will still choose him. Kazama in nature has a great personality, someone who would really rely on him when they are in trouble, a good friend to anybody, so having Haruto challenge him over Eva Kazama takes it seriously, this part of the show was really touching.

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