Focus is on the consequences of Yaya kissing Hikari in the previous episode with Tamao, Nagisa and Tsubomi in a supporting role. There’s a part about Nagisa recovering Tamao’s ribbon and a quarrel/making up of another set of roommates but, as per my Yayaism focus, no caps or discussion of those. A little surprising how easily Yaya and Hikari made up but what was really interesting for me was seeing Tsubomi in a new light.
In view of the new OP (relevant screencaps towards the end of this post), it looks like we’re headed for some form of Yaya x Tsubomi or Tsubomi switching or focusing her interest on Yaya. Chiyo notes that Tsubomi’s mood parallels Yaya’s and if I hadn’t seen the OP, I would have just put it down to her missing Hikari. But then I would also have expected her to more pissed off at Yaya.
Yaya requests to spend the night in Nagisa and Tamao - another perfect excuse for Tamao to share a bed with Nagisa. Though how did she manage to get Nagisa straight to sleep after her second attempt to ask about Yaya. Yaya recalls the immediate aftermath of her kiss and how Hikari cut her off with a firm “No! (I don’t want to hear it.)” before she could confess her feelings.
I thought Amane should have thanked Yaya for saving Hikari in the previous episode.
Ok, making up turned out to be pretty easy. The flashback about that initial encounter was quite nicely done especially how they first formed a bond over singing. I did laugh when Hikari ran away and oh so predictably tripped and fell.
Loved Yaya’s serene look and poise as she drank her tea. As expected, it’s not so easy for her to get over Hikari - Yaya’s still making puppy dog eyes at her but from the OP and general drift of the story, it’s going to be Amane x Hikari.
Does this mean that Tsubomi’s feelings are going to change? Or that she has always liked Yaya as well? This puts a whole new light on her squabbling with Yaya over Hikari - was she trying to get the former’s attention. I also found myself cheering for Tsubomi and liking her bitchiness so much when she lashed Nagisa with her acid tongue over our lead character’s greediness for sweet stuff. Way to go Tsubomi!
If we do see Tsubomi pursue Yaya, then I’m particularly looking forward to see how Tsubomi will spill the beans and how Yaya will react.
We have yuri!
We have gropage!
Whar be teh buttsechz?
BuTtsechz iz rite here!
Anyway… yay for Amane x Hikari!
Granted Hikari is blonde haired and blue-eyed It would have been suprising if she did not fall. Tsubomi is going to chase Yaya? If but gas be cheaper or broadband was brough to the ghetto, well I’ll just beg commandeer or steal my buddies connection.
Yay for hikari x amane! Also does Nagisa now like Tamao? Well I hope not… I wan’t nagisa x shizuma but the OP obviously put tamao and nagisa half naked and hand in hand…man what’s that suppose to mean. I can’t bear to see hot shizuma with out lovely nagisa.
honestly, i think i’ll be disappointed if everyone gets a happy ending. i know it sounds cruel, and im not saying X character is undeserving of Y, but itll just be so corny if everyone is all happy lala after all this crap.
people in the guarenteed spots for at least a bittersweet ending (as in feeling bad for breaking someones heart but still with someone) are gonna be nagisa, hikari… prolly shizuma and amane respectively.
altho the new op makes me think mebe shizuma just makes peace with her past, and itll be nagisa/tamao?
ignore me
I haven’t read manga yet. Prolly tamao might get nagisa in the end. *sigh* it make my whole world sad…but I hope still nagisa would have few hot scene with shizuma before running to tamao. I wonder y that girl annoys me much.
It took me long enough, but I have finally watched Ep14. :)
Unfortunately( for me that is), this is a fairly Yaya-centric episode, with Yaya as the narrator even and having her image as the ending shot. Still, unlike the previous episode, we do get some decent Tamao&Nagisa moments, with Le Rim and Shizuma somewhere in standby-land.
First off, the standard disclaimer. The following is merely my own personal speculation(s). Take it seriously as much as you want to( if you intend to take it seriously in the first place, that is).
Additionally, since there is not much Tamao moments in this episode, I will add in my opinion of the new OP and ED in a second post.
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We first encounter Tamao properly in the( by now standard) midnight tea party( which I can never see in the same light again, thanks to Jeff Lawson). Yaya scores brownie points with Tamao by occupying one of their beds, ‘forcing’ Nagisa to sleep with Tamao together. Yaya does not realise it yet, but she just gained favour with Tamao.
In a later scene, the neighbours of Tamao and Nagisa are having a fight, and Nagisa( bless her busybody heart) is curious to find out what is the cause of their dispute. It is said that curiosity killed the cat. In this case, curiosity just laid a trap.
Cue interlude with Yaya and Amane having a face-off, yada-yada… and so on and so forth.
Back to Tamao and Nagisa. Nagisa has found out the circumstances behind their neighbour’s current tiff, and though it was probably coincidental, it just HAD to involve a Charm of Protection(CoP). Never one to let opportunity to slip by, Tamao oh-so conveniently flashes her summer vacation dress innocently at Nagisa, triggering a post-incident traumatic response from everybody’s favourite ditz in Strawberry Panic.
“Speaking of Charms of Protection… Gee… I wonder what happened to mine.”
It appears to me that Tamao has drilled a guilt complex deep into Nagisa’s core. How nice of her. How nice indeed. ;)
Cue scenes of Nagisa trying to redeem herself by searching ardently for Tamao’s ribbon.
Once the ribbon has been found, Nagisa goes back to Tamao, and decides to tell her about what happened during that ONE day that Tamao was not around, but wait! If Nagisa tells all now, it would be a relief to her, and a great burden would be lifted off her shoulders. We cannot have that now, can we? We need to keep Nagisa wallowing in self-guilt so that Tamao can keep her under her thumb at all times.
Therefore, Tamao interrupts Nagisa by tying the ‘Red String of Fate’ onto one of Nagisa’s fingers and goes into a sentimental dialogue about how NICE Nagisa is, how GOOD Nagisa is… Basically increasing the guilt factor currently felt by Nagisa.
To explain what I was saying above, imagine the following. Man A asked his best friend, Man B, to help him drive his car to a mechanic. B obliges, but ends up wrecking the car. B goes back to A, but before B can say anything, A thanks B profusely and lavishes praises on B. A then leaves before B can say anything else. B now feels very guilty.
So back to the scene at hand. Tamao butters up Nagisa some more, as Nagisa squirms in the frying pan of guilt( SQUIRM, NAGISA! SQUIRM!). With the mood so overwhelmingly sappy now, Nagisa probably felt that it would ruin the moment if she told Tamao about her kiss with Shizuma, so she kept quiet about it, and so distracted was she, she could not even hear the ‘Red Alert’ bells ringing when Tamao made her, “Together, FOREVER.” statement.
Cue more non-Tamao&Nagisa scenes.
We now see Nagisa tying the other end of the ribbon to one of Tamao’s fingers. Man, Tamao must be on a high now. They begin to talk about the rift between Hikari and Yaya. Nagisa expresses her worries over the two of them, and this is where Tamao will pay back her favour to Yaya. ;) Since it seems that it would make Nagisa happy to see Hikari and Yaya reconcile with each other, Tamao is going to make it happen.
After all… this is Tamao whom we speak of here. The one girl whose information network can only be rivalled by Chikaru’s. :P
So ‘Operation Make Nagisa Happy For Her Friends( Along With Side-Benefits)’ begins. Notice that it is Tamao who personally approaches Yaya. This is appropriate, since Yaya is the one she owns a favour to( and also to bewitch Yaya, I will explain further below). ;) Tsubomi( who is, by the way, once of Tamao’s regular informants) and Nagisa meanwhile, goes after Hikari.
The first sign that there is more than meets the eye is when Tamao expresses surprise at the existence of the Cathedral’s backyard. Really? This coming from a girl who knows about the vacation habits of her seniors, the lores of old of her school, practically every student’s name, memorised all the traditions, and keeps diaries of her room-mate’s every nuance, amongst others. This girl?
BULLS***.
Confirmed by her very next sentence, “But, no one comes here.”
How would she know about that if she has never been there before? How would she know that it was a deserted place if she did not even know of its’ existence? Ergo, she lied. Yaya though, is oblivious of the implications of what Tamao said because she is too busy angsting about Hikari( ANGST, YAYA! ANGST!), so Tamao’s plan narrowly escapes detection.
Plan? What plan, you say?
You see, not only is this a plan by Tamao to make Nagisa closer to her( “Oh Tamao, how nice of you to help out Yaya and Hikari!”), Tamao is also gathering allies for her inevitable battle with Shizuma. Whether she likes it or not, Shizuma currently holds a lot more influence than Tamao, but… mainly in Miator. True, Shizuma has influence in the other two schools, but it is not as extensive as the grip she has over Miator. Also, quality over quantity. Through Yaya, she also gains Hikari who da-dum-da-dum!… is lovers with Amane, a damn fine ally to goes against Shizuma with. We will see more of Tamao’s creeping influence in the next episode, where she is given the power to dictate the casting for the schools’ play.
Power indeed… observe how delirious with power she is in the preview for Ep15. ;)
And so we end the episode, with Nagisa’s opinion of Tamao at an all-time high, and Yaya becoming closer buddies with Tamao. All is going well in the ‘Conspiracy of Suzumi Tamao’.
Cheers, and thanks for reading. ;)
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Coming up next, opinion on the new OP & ED.
Right, so I was surprised to learn that SPanic was going to have a new OP and ED for the second half of the series. My cynical side says it is because they want to sell more singles, my optimistic side says that it shows the effort the production team is putting into the series. Since SPanic has been entertaining me highly thus far, I am going to be nice and give them the benefit of the doubt.
First things first. I never liked the first ED, and I also do not like the new ED. It just… somehow does not fit into the episode. Like they are playing an ED for the sake for having an ED.
The OPs on the other hand, is a different story. They get me sufficiently hyped up to watch the episode, and gets me into the mood. Similar to what Black Lagoon’s OP does. It gets me excited to watch the show. Wakes me up, so to speak.
I would suppose the main difference between the first OP’s animation and the new OP’s animation is that they are hammering us with the pairings that are going to be played out. I was also happy to see a scene of Tamao by the window in the dark, because if anything, it strengthens my belief that they are going to make Tamao into a manipulative girl, a girl who operates from the shadows, behind a smile, an oh-so innocent smile.
This is how Nagisa sees Tamao. Family, with Chiyo as their little kid.
.
.
.
.
This is how the audience sees Tamao. Batshit insane. Constantly operating from the shadows.
I also noticed that Tamao was missing her long bangs in that scene… an indication that she is going to cut her hair? Hmm… Also, the usage of black feathers… I dunno about you, but in 99.99% of the cases where black feathers are involved in anime, the people associated with it are usually antagonists. A sign of things to come between Tamao and Shizuma?
Speaking of Shizuma, they recycled her scene from the first OP, only this time, instead of a sunset, the background is a full moon and she cried for Nagisa. An indication that Shizuma is now even deeper into the dark( depression)?
Looking forward to Ep15. :D
Cheerio. :)
Skane, I think Tamao and Yaya have something in common to reinforce their friendship. Both desire their roommate but faces massive competition from an extremely popular senior to whom respective roommate is also strongly attracted to. Misery loves company.
About your batshit insane Tamao screencap from the OP, I don’t think that’s Tamao at all. It is almost certainly Shizuma’s previous partner from last year’s Etoile battle. We’ve already had a flashback of this girl which stopped Shizuma from ravishing Nagisa. And we also know that the Etoile battle requires a pair (thus Kaname’s constant efforts to break Amane and Hikari up) to qualify for entry.
I’m so keen on the new OP and ED music but I like the visual sequence for the OP. Quite beautiful to look at, esp the Amane x Hikari still. Useful plot foreshadowings even if the white/black feather fall image is so overused.
Well… that leads to a crazy thought. If that girl in the OP is really Shizuma’s previous partner, what if it was also Tamao? A younger Tamao before she grew her bangs…
Tamao&Shizuma as the Etoile-pair before they broke up? Tamao certainly has the knowledge to be in an Etoile-pair. Something happened, and she is now stealing Nagisa away from Shizuma as revenge?
*scratches head*
It would be a nice twist from the source material.
yay at last something from you skane XD I’m your fan!
That is not Tamao at all, but Shizuma’s dead lover. I think her name is Kaori.