HanTsuki – episode 4

March 9, 2006 on 11:33 pm | In HanTsuki | Comments Off on HanTsuki – episode 4

“Only one day of school life”

When Natsume came on the screen, I was overcome by a severe case of “Gartenitis”, a condition with the symptom of “not caring a damn about any of the characters in this God-forsaken anime”. When he left the screen, I saw a return to some of the tone that I liked about the first episode of HanTsuki.

That’s not to say that it all made sense.

Natsume apologises to Yuuichi; he can’t remember anything he did, but he’s sorry. Yuuichi chooses to say nothing to an authority figure, proving that doctors can get away with anything. Yuuichi and Rika get along quite well, with Rika first asking Yuuichi to take photos of her, and then take her to his school.

The first scenes were blatant attempts to get the audience to feel for poor Natsume’s plight, with him reverting to being rude to Yuuichi and then roaring off the roof top. I couldn’t care less about the bastard, and he mercifully disappeared after this scene.
Yuuichi had a small adventure with Akiko, who truly is the most unprofessional nurse in the history of nursedom. So many protocols are breached I couldn’t begin to count. This rates a mention because Akiko picks up a woman who dresses a bit tartily, and the camera inexplicably focuses on her cleavage.
It’s like director Matsushita Yukihiro doesn’t even know what he’s aiming for here.

The school scenes didn’t make much sense because, for the sake of “comedy”, we have on offer a “life training” teacher armed with a bokken. He goes into single combat with Zebra Mask, proof that students can beat up their teachers if they’re wearing masks (and teachers can beat up their students for the crime of standing in a hall).
I won’t pretend I understood any of these school antics.

Rika knows of the worsening of her situation, and that is where this episode gets its strength. Her newfound fear of death is accepted with something akin not to happiness, but a sort of relief that she has discovered something that may well have been worth living for. Her sudden niceness to Yuuichi was a most welcome decision, and the direction in the final scene of this episode was actually noteworthy.

Two episodes left. Their quality will be solely dependent on their focus.

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