hontou ni Stripey Insists Sisters Cry Oniichan Now

Hatsukoi Limited 10-12

It was good to see that Olympic candidate talent deteriorates in the absence of training; how I hate characters who get by purely on the strengths of their natural talent and constipated teeth clenching. Thank goodness the swim team relationships have been more or less resolved with the plot devices of A Challenger Has Arrived and Loved One's Words; they were my least favourite pair - can't even remember their names.

Wimbledon aside, I've also been holding back on watching these final episodes of Hatsukoi until I could see, among other things, how the Kei x Kusuda tsundere relationship was going to work out. They're hardly the besto couple candidates but I enjoy their bickering in the same perverse way that I enjoyed the depiction of soul-destroying matrimonial slow death in Black Heaven. Which is also why Kusuda's outburst and Kei's response (taking Doba-chan's return advice and apologizing) was such a spectacular moment; the centre cannot hold and things will have to change hereon.