Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo

[Talon87]

I'm not sure you're using the term "ball-buster" correctly. ^^; See The Free Dictionary.

I'm also not sure what you mean about "opal." I don't recall them using the word during any of the episodes. Regardless, you couldn't have heard "shiro" in there. The words for opal are either オーパル ooparu (a loan word) or, when describing something as being opaline, 乳白 which means "milky white" but is read にゅうはく nyuuhaku. (The "haku" is where 白 shiro is.)

But speaking of colors, you have nailed another thing I've meant to talk about since Day One but neglected to and that's the somewhat obvious foil between Hikari and Mashiro. To be honest, I'm a little impressed you picked up on it given your lack of Japanese knowledge. Mashiro's name is a play-on words of 真っ白 masshiro which means "pure white." This could be said to fit her on a number of levels. She's half-English with fair skin, blonde hair, and brown eyes, so "whiter" than a Japanese woman. She's innocent / naive, fitting the purity idea behind white. She's pure-hearted too. So on and so forth. But things are kicked up a notch when you consider Sorata's first adopted cat, Hikari, is a pure-white cat. Just as Sorata couldn't abandon Hikari, so too could he not abandon Mashiro. Just as he's Hikari's caretaker, he's Mashiro's caretaker. I'm not sure we have any more substance than this to go off of for now to argue that the two are reflections of one another but it's clearly not an accident.

Mashiro's other name, Shiina, is 椎名. 椎 means "Castanopsis cuspidata", a species of tree, while 名 means "name." Shiina isn't a family name I'm familiar with but looking it up in the dictionary I can confirm that it is very real. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castanopsis for more about the tree. Note that the "shii" in shiitake mushrooms is the same shii and refers to the fact that shiitake mushrooms specifically grow on these trees.) I'm not really sure if this plays directly into the pun for her given name of Mashiro or not but I did see that WWWJDIC actually defines the kanji character 椎 as oak rather than C. cuspidata and that the English common name given to C. cuspidata, "chinkapin," is apparently also the English common name given to Quercus muehlenbergii, a species of oak in the group of trees collectively labeled as the "white oaks." So that could be partly what's going on here. Perhaps the Japanese understanding of 椎 bleeds between the Castanopsis genus and the Quercus genus (both trees are in all the same taxonomic groupings right up until the level of genus) while the two trees are considered more different by Western botanists. *shrug*

Not sure why you didn't like Misaki's joke in the start of Episode 01. I thought it was a clever twist on the classic line. And the line is classic: it goes way beyond what you seem to be treating it as being. You roll your eyes at it like "*yawn* this is so cliche, I have seen this so much in so many anime" but this line has nothing to do with being a story trope. I'm struggling to think of an English equivalent but ... well, anyway, I was searching for when the expression first turned up in recorded history and happened upon this. Made me laugh quite a bit. The guy who asks the question asks, "Are there really people in real life who say this?" The top voted answer was "There's no way in hell such people exist! LOL" But I like the comments below it. Most of them explain that this is something that newlyweds say in jest. One commenter explains that if the guy then jokingly replies "Okay then, how about dinner? " the woman then follows up with "This is where you're normally supposed to say 'me'! " Another commenter writes in that when her boyfriend comes home, she'll jokingly begin the expression and they both laugh. But that she's then told by him, "Okay, I'll take a bath." ^^; As for my original question, I can't seem to find evidence of when exactly the expression started but I did find one person speculating that it goes back to old TV dramas where the housewife would greet her husband when he came home with "Would you like to take a bath? Or how about dinner?" Others speculate that the phrase either originated with or else was popularized by television comedian Shimura Ken in a sketch where he played the returning husband and a female co-star played the housewife.

If you've seriously not watched ToraDora, you should give it a go. I just re-watched the entire series (less Episodes 01-04) in just a matter of days. Your personal mileage will probably vary but that really isn't the point: the point is you shouldn't allow the fact that no one else is watching it right now or the fact that it isn't airing on TV right now to dissuade you from watching it. I've actually considered making a thread for it. The only reason I decided against it was because it'd be a lot of effort for what I figured would be no reward: I thought every one of the 2011-or-earlier regulars here had already seen the series.

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I'm not sure you're using the term "ball-buster" correctly. ^^; See The Free Dictionary.

UD uses it to describe a woman whose kicks crack the king's crown, but I've always used it as a play on "block-buster" with the metaphorical visual, "so exciting/un-expected one's balls explode in delight".

It's funny because exploding balls would actually be really painful!

Originally Posted by Talon87

I'm also not sure what you mean about "opal." I don't recall them using the word during any of the episodes. Regardless, you couldn't have heard "shiro" in there. The words for opal are either オーパル ooparu (a loan word) or, when describing something as being opaline, 乳白 which means "milky white" but is read にゅうはく nyuuhaku. (The "haku" is where 白 shiro is.)

Opal was what my suspected "troll subs" used in place of main guy's self-described colour. That being a liberal translation probably explains why I wasn't able to hit on any word-play.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Not sure why you didn't like Misaki's joke in the start of Episode 01. I thought it was a clever twist on the classic line. And the line is classic: it goes way beyond what you seem to be treating it as being. You roll your eyes at it like "*yawn* this is so cliche, I have seen this so much in so many anime" but this line has nothing to do with being a story trope. I'm struggling to think of an English equivalent but ... well, anyway, I was searching for when the expression first turned up in recorded history and happened upon this. Made me laugh quite a bit. The guy who asks the question asks, "Are there really people in real life who say this?" The top voted answer was "There's no way in hell such people exist! LOL" But I like the comments below it. Most of them explain that this is something that newlyweds say in jest. One commenter explains that if the guy then jokingly replies "Okay then, how about dinner? " the woman then follows up with "This is where you're normally supposed to say 'me'! " Another commenter writes in that when her boyfriend comes home, she'll jokingly begin the expression and they both laugh. But that she's then told by him, "Okay, I'll take a bath." ^^; As for my original question, I can't seem to find evidence of when exactly the expression started but I did find one person speculating that it goes back to old TV dramas where the housewife would greet her husband when he came home with "Would you like to take a bath? Or how about dinner?" Others speculate that the phrase either originated with or else was popularized by television comedian Shimura Ken in a sketch where he played the returning husband and a female co-star played the housewife.

I didn't take her comment as a idiomatic play, though. Granted, there seems to be a trend where if I see something stereotypical in the opening scene of a show, I'm repulsed by it. I don't think I'd have had such a reaction had that line appeared even later in the episode, after the character had a little bit of fleshing out.

Originally Posted by Talon87

If you've seriously not watched ToraDora, you should give it a go. I just re-watched the entire series (less Episodes 01-04) in just a matter of days. Your personal mileage will probably vary but that really isn't the point: the point is you shouldn't allow the fact that no one else is watching it right now or the fact that it isn't airing on TV right now to dissuade you from watching it. I've actually considered making a thread for it. The only reason I decided against it was because it'd be a lot of effort for what I figured would be no reward: I thought every one of the 2011-or-earlier regulars here had already seen the series.

Barring the wimpy stuff, there's just too many shows on my back-burner to revisit TD right now. I haven't completed a series in a while...not since tsuritama, at least. I already know TD to be good and I'll get to it someday, but it's not a high priority. Especially since knowing there's a good show waiting to be watched is comforting, because there aren't many of those left!

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Opal was what my suspected "troll subs" used in place of main guy's self-described colour. That being a liberal translation probably explains why I wasn't able to hit on any word-play.

If they translated Sorata's color as "opal," then you can throw them out: both because they don't speak the language well enough to be translating as well as because they've demonstrated gross laziness in looking up such an important word for them to have looked up (given that they didn't know it and given how it played a big role in that conversation).

Sorata's color was 玉虫色 tamamushi iro. The English word for this is iridescent but since a lot of people don't know what that word means you'll often see people translating it as "multi-colored" or "rainbow-colored" instead. The word tamamushi is the name of a Japanese bug you can read about by clicking here. So when Sorata answered Mashiro and told her his color was tamamushi (iro), he was basically telling her his color has yet to be determined. That he has the potential to become any color but he has yet to commit himself to any one color yet.

So no, his color is not opal. Which translation was it that you read which said this? Hadena kind of bungled the line a bit but they got the color right ("iridescent"). CrunchyRoll/HorribleSubs got the line perfectly as well as the color ("iridescent"). Rori ... AHAAAAAAAAAAA! *has found Strike #1 and a good reason to hate on Rori* So it was Rori Fansubs who fucked the line up! HA HAAAAAAAAAAA! Now I'm really going to have to go back and re-watch Rori's episodes 01-03 and give 'em the ol' rigorous translation check. Current translation quality ranking would be: CrunchyRoll > Hadena or Rori > Rori or Hadena. Before this discovery, I'd have put Rori ahead of Hadena (though not by much). But now ... now I'll have to go back and really listen. Hadena didn't translate words wrong so much as they got syntax wrong. But this ... this is embarrassing. I mean, Tamamushi City is the Japanese name for Celadon City, ffs. -____-; So like, what the hell sort of translator does Rori Fansubs' translator call himself when he can't even fucking get a word right that children ages 5 and up have known for the past twenty years thanks to Nintendo? C'mon, man. No excuses.

[Doppleganger]

Tamamushi iro explains why I heard a "shiro" in the colour.

Prismatic, rather than iridescent?

[Doppleganger]

I watched Episode 2 and I'm pretty sure this is a slam-dunk show. I laughed, which is something that I don't usually do for a show that trots out all the stock scenarios. The trick was, they went more risque than I thought possible, and when it came to misunderstandings, they went a step further.

Scenes I liked-

1. Jin banging the nurse early in the episode. This guy isn't a self-styled ladies man, he's an actual, dangerous playboy. That makes his relationship with Misaki potentially tragic - she's obviously sexually extroverted, but all signs point to her wanting Jin, but Jin's attitude seems to be everyone but her. They have a complementary skillset and friendly rapport, so the scene feels like a "FRIENDZONE" a la Muv-Luv and Hyouka, with the unfortunate reality of Jin sharing intimacy with other girls.
2. Aoyoma reacting badly to "screw". Like the last episode, this felt like a localization choice but I was prepared for it this time, so I ended up a lot more amused than with Rori's sub. I presume I'm not watching a Rori sub still...
3. The stripping scene, where Kanda was dead-set on not stripping and Shiina was dead-set on seeing him strip, one way or another. Once we assume Shiina'd settled on a middle ground...nope! Then she mounts him. Then she asks him a really bad question while she's pressing his prostate.

Kanda is a knight. He really is, and has my respect. He might not have any un-balancing, extreme talents, but his ability to bounce off of these crazies is an under-valued asset.

I'm not a fan of Aoyama beyond her serene voice. Stereotypical tsundere with an invisible claim on Kanda as her property.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

2. Aoyoma reacting badly to "screw". Like the last episode, this felt like a localization choice but I was prepared for it this time, so I ended up a lot more amused than with Rori's sub. I presume I'm not watching a Rori sub still...

I'd only seen CrunchyRoll's when I read you say this, and they most definitely got the scene with Aoyama right and did not say "screw"! So I checked to see if Rori messed up ... and they didn't. Actually, their lines are startlingly similar to CrunchyRoll's right up until the very last moment when they translate (imo inaccurately) Sorata's exasperation as "Yeah ... I'm done." (CR did the superior "Oh, forget it.") So now I'm left wondering whose on earth you are watching. *sigh*, let me grab Hadena's and see how they handled the scene ...

(Spoilers for Episode 02)

Spoiler: show

Well, Hadena's translation of 男子 is pretty bad. First they translate it as "man." It definitely doesn't mean man. (See: 男子 for boys vs. 男性 for men) Then they translate it as "male". Well, that's not quite right either. (オス / 雄 / 牡 would mean male as again would 男性 when used in certain contexts.) They'd have been better off doing what I believe CrunchyRoll did which was to simply say "Sorata was my first" instead of saying (as Shiina literally says) "Sorata was my first boy." But this is beside the point! Regarding the question of "screw", well, no, I don't see Hadena using that word either. At least not in the misunderstanding scene with Nanami and Mashiro in the early half of Episode 02.

So I've no idea who you're watching with. In any event, I would recommend CR. (And you should know better by now that you can easily watch with CR via HorribleSubs who provide DDL links for people like yourself as well as BT links for the rest of us!)

As for a new sub assessment, well, I haven't watched anything besides this scene since the last time I posted, but for now my updated rankings would be: CrunchyRoll >> Rori > Hadena, with Hadena making questionable translation choices and Rori (afaik) having made only one really bad gaffe so far. More research will be required but I may be too lazy to conduct it considering CR's doing a better job than both of the amateur groups.

[Doppleganger]

I think you're watching the wrong scene, what I'm looking at is at 6:50, where some guy talks to Aoyama and she flips out.

I can't distinguish the words very well, but I'm pretty sure Aoyama mishears what the guy says, even though the subs both treat the two words as "screw". I think the guy goes "mata" and she interprets it as "yata", and I have no idea how those connect.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

I think you're watching the wrong scene, what I'm looking at is at 6:50, where some guy talks to Aoyama and she flips out.

I can't distinguish the words very well, but I'm pretty sure Aoyama mishears what the guy says, even though the subs both treat the two words as "screw". I think the guy goes "mata" and she interprets it as "yata", and I have no idea how those connect.

Hadena: safe.
CrunchyRoll: safe.
Rori: THE CULPRIT. -.-; "Did he screw something up again?" "S-screw!?"

That stated, I'm actually going to have to give a bonus point to Rori here, believe it or not. More after the break.

Spoiler: show

やる yaru is the crude/vulgar form of the verb する suru "to do." I use those terms ("crude" and "vulgar") quite academically stringently: I'm not saying the word is always a naughty word but that it is the culturally baser way to say "to do" and that it is indeed the verb that's used in English equivalent crude or vulgar contexts. But you will hear people use it non-crudely, usually when amongst social equals. That's exactly what's happening here in Sakurasou Ep02. The guy who says yatta (past simple tense of やる) isn't being crass with Nanami or suggesting that what Sorata did is vulgar. He's just not being average-level polite (using する) because they're teen friends / peers / equals and it's casual.

But now here comes the rub: yaru can be written as 犯る, a special case for the verb 犯す okasu (lit. "to rape" but English equivalent would be "to fuck"). So like, when the Japanese say that two people fuck, they'll often use yaru (written either as 犯る or やる), and thus when Sorata's friend asks Nanami if he's done something again, she misinterprets what he said as the verb "fuck" (it's a pun, see) and freaks out. Rori had the politeness to put "screw" here to be less vulgar.

tl;dr Rori tried to preserve the pun for their audience (at the expense of seemingly trollsubbing) whereas Hadena and CR just said "We'll translate this literally, apologies for the pun being lost in translation." I'm pretty sure the latter way is the way most editors would prefer someone to have translated yaru in this situation but tbh I value that Rori tried to preserve the pun and did so fairly seamlessly. So yes. +1 point to Rori. They're still behind CR though from what all I've watched so far. But who knows, who knows. I've still yet to watch Rori's subs of 01, 02, or 03 as well as CR's sub of 04.

[kaisap112]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Hadena: safe.
CrunchyRoll: safe.
Rori: THE CULPRIT. -.-; "Did he screw something up again?" "S-screw!?"

That stated, I'm actually going to have to give a bonus point to Rori here, believe it or not. More after the break.

Spoiler: show

やる yaru is the crude/vulgar form of the verb する suru "to do." I use those terms ("crude" and "vulgar") quite academically stringently: I'm not saying the word is always a naughty word but that it is the culturally baser way to say "to do" and that it is indeed the verb that's used in English equivalent crude or vulgar contexts. But you will hear people use it non-crudely, usually when amongst social equals. That's exactly what's happening here in Sakurasou Ep02. The guy who says yatta (past simple tense of やる) isn't being crass with Nanami or suggesting that what Sorata did is vulgar. He's just not being average-level polite (using する) because they're teen friends / peers / equals and it's casual.

But now here comes the rub: yaru can be written as 犯る, a special case for the verb 犯す okasu (lit. "to rape" but English equivalent would be "to fuck"). So like, when the Japanese say that two people fuck, they'll often use yaru (written either as 犯る or やる), and thus when Sorata's friend asks Nanami if he's done something again, she misinterprets what he said as the verb "fuck" (it's a pun, see) and freaks out. Rori had the politeness to put "screw" here to be less vulgar.

tl;dr Rori tried to preserve the pun for their audience (at the expense of seemingly trollsubbing) whereas Hadena and CR just said "We'll translate this literally, apologies for the pun being lost in translation." I'm pretty sure the latter way is the way most editors would prefer someone to have translated yaru in this situation but tbh I value that Rori tried to preserve the pun and did so fairly seamlessly. So yes. +1 point to Rori.

Adding my two cents as a translation student:

The use of "screw" and "do" in this case is most likely what my teachers would tell me to use - it doesn't stop the flow of the dialog and to an English audience, that we're assuming are not fluent Japanese-speakers and pun-experts, it's easy to understand. If a translation of a sentence requires an A4's worth of explaining to make it understandable, it's a bad one. In this case I also feel the humor of the situation is what needs to be realized by the viewer/reader, not the exact words they're saying in the dialog.

I'm just saying this from a translator's perspective, I love the Japanese puns and wordplay as much as all other anime-fans here.

[Doppleganger]

Okay, Episode 3 time.

-wow, this development is happening fast. Enough so that it was a bit odd to see Sorata get confused so early in the show (which is slated for 24 episodes) when he's only been around Shiina for a short time, but freaking Misaki opening her heart...just...ouch.
-I wish Sorata would stop freaking out already. He's already cool with everyone else in Sakurasou, including Misaki sleeping with him and checking out his package, him freaking out over Shiina gives off the impression he's got the "foreigner enchantment" spell cast on him.
-I thought Jin's advice, while stern, was pretty spot-on. Sorata might not have the talent the others have, but what he doesn't get is the drive doesn't derive from talent, it's born within. Whether he's dedicated to caring for the cats or dutifully looking for an owner, he's definitely in limbo right now when it comes to motivation. I wonder why, then, he moved into Sakurasou to begin with.
-I thought asking Ryuunosuke about the game was a bit weird. The whole convo was amusing though, because it's just like any of the chats I have with Morg, Dami or on the rare occasion Snor. I can understand Sorata's situation though - if he's interested in making a game, his talent can't compare to Ryuunosuke, so maybe that's why he pulled back? When I was younger, I was intimidated by people obviously better at something than I was, with more experience. In fact, I still get bothered by that at the gym from time to time. Experience tells one that such self-consciousness impedes progress, so I'm not surprised he's suffering from it.
-Misaki saying "You wanna get cuckolded, huh?!". I missed the word, but I strongly suspected netoare aka NTR. Really amusing. If someone asked me that, I'd definitely say "no way" but it's curious because Sorata/Shiina aren't even close to the relationship level where that matters at all.
-the yaru joke Talon explained came up again.
-I didn't get the "sekihan" line. It wasn't translated.

[Talon87]

Sekihan (red rice) is served on special occasions. Like making a baby, amongst other things. See: Wikipedia, which explains the various things it's used for. You'll hear it come up in quite a few oddball anime places from time to time. (I think the first place I picked up on it was Nyan-Koi back in like 2008, 2009, whenever I watched that series.)

[Doppleganger]

Episode 4 was the first real disappointment of the series.

Perhaps it's just personal dissatisfaction, but I didn't like how Sorata concluded that he was giving into "pressure" to leave Sakurasou. If he caved into that, what did he just break over when Shiina's agent showed him her manga pages...?

Sorata had no direction in life, no special talents. He was utterly indifferent between Sakurasou and the regular dorms until realizing he was grossly inferior to the people around him, and while Jin's comments earlier in the episode suggested that his path should be to strive to be worthy of the elite's company, I saw leaving Sakurasou as an equally valid step toward him finding drive. The end result is the same - Sorata finds direction. His goal was set, he just had to focus on it. Staying at Sakurasou had no impact on either. The anime's preferred path is of course direction that leads to a Sorata x Shiina pairing, but I didn't buy that he'd felt lingering feelings for Shiina when their development has (apparently) leaped tremendously over the past four episodes.

We haven't seen Sorata care for Shiina meticulously over months time, seeing him get worn down by her autistic-like behaviour, seeing him grow oddly comfortable with his abnormal surroundings. It's hard to buy the result when I haven't seen the process.

Notes:

-I like the Jin/Misaki development. Jin is obviously aware Misaki likes him, but doesn't consider himself good enough for her. It's not all about him - if he gets close to her, he'll end up self-immolating and that'll ultimately break her heart. Misaki herself is incapable of empathizing with his position (she cannot understand him), so Jin's trying to put himself in a position where she won't have to.
-I'm equally impressed that Jin isn't on the same level of talent that Misaki/Shiina are. From Episode 1-2, we were lead to think Jin was equally isolated. Hinted at last episode, and confirmed on this, while he does have elite talent, it's not genius-level, and he's perhaps a more gifted and older version of Sorata.
-I like the cat parallel. The colour thing at the end was obvious, but here Sorata gave away all the cats save Hikari (the Shiina parallel) and Nozomi (which I assume means "wish/hope"). I don't see where Nozomi fits into the story yet, but that's a female name.

[Talon87]

I still have yet to write up my own lengthy thoughts on Episodes 03 and 04. But for now I'll say this in response:

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Episode 4 was the first real disappointment of the series.

While I strongly disagree with this ^^; ...

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

We haven't seen Sorata care for Shiina meticulously over months time, seeing him get worn down by her autistic-like behaviour, seeing him grow oddly comfortable with his abnormal surroundings. It's hard to buy the result when I haven't seen the process.

I strongly agree with this.

This to me is the biggest single difference between ToraDora! and Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo, the two series being compared quite a bit not just by us here at UPN but by fans on other boards too from what I've seen. In fact, I mentioned this in my post the other day:

Originally Posted by Talon87

I do have one complaint about the series and that's just how emotionally attached Sorata and Mashiro are depicted as being even though they've only lived together for about 2-3 months and we've seen so, so little interactions between them onscreen. ToraDora smartly took its time (and over 20 episodes) with what was obvious from Episode 01. Sakurasou seems to be doing a lot right too but this isn't one of them. I feel like what we saw at the end of Episode 04 would've been appropriate for the series finale or the mid-series finale. Then again, a similar concept was one reason we all praised ToraDora ("They did that in Episode 02!?") so perhaps I'm being unfair here. But I don't feel like the two are quite the same.

So let's go into some more detail on that front, shall we?

WARNING! Spoilers for both ToraDora! (entire series) and Sakurasou (up thru Ep04)! Read at your own risk!

Spoiler: show

ToraDora!'s strength is its central premise. If you're an intelligent and experienced purveyor of stories, you know what the destination is going to be before you even finish Episode 01. "This guy Ryuuji has a crush on this girl Minori. The girl Taiga has a crush on this boy Kitamura. It just so happens that Ryuuji and Kitamura are good friends and that Taiga and Minori are best friends. Thus, Ryuuji and Taiga decide to work together: they will help one another out become boyfriend-and-girlfriend with their respective crushes. But as Ryuuji and Taiga spend more and more time together trying to help one another out, ..." And you can fill in what comes after that ellipsis so easily: they fall in love with one another. But ToraDora never pretends to be a difficult riddle for the reader/viewer to figure out. ToraDora is, from Day One, all about the fun of the adventure. Even if we know Ryuuji and Taiga are going to wind up falling in love with one another, they don't know it. So we get to watch these two become one another's most solid support and we get to see how bit by bit they are falling in love with without even realizing it. That actually makes the big revelation so much sweeter in the end. Some of the series best moments are when Taiga realizes how she truly feels about Ryuuji (Episode 19), when Ryuuji discovers how Taiga feels about him (Episode 21), and when Ryuuji himself is made to realize that he may have had a lingering crush on Minori but for quite some time now he has been in love with Miss Aisaka Taiga (Episode 24).

Sakurasou isn't pursuing this path at all. Just like ToraDora!, it isn't about to insult the reader's/viewer's intelligence and pretend like Sorata and Mashiro aren't going to wind up together. Of course they're going to wind up together. The author knows it. You know it. We all know it. And the author knows that we know it. But unlike ToraDora -- so completely, entirely unlike ToraDora -- Sakurasou decides to have Sorata and Shiina mutually confessing their feelings for one another (albeit somewhat indirectly, Sorata deciding to stay and telling Shiina how much she means to him, Shiina confessing to Sorata via her manga) as early as Episode 04 of the TV series, something like Volume 02 at the latest in the novels. Sakurasou isn't interested in exploring how Mashiro and Sorata spend time together while they're in each other's non-lover zones before bumping their relationship up to the next level. This isn't a ToraDora! where we'll spend the next 20 episodes knowing the the ultimate destination but enjoying the awesome journey. Sakurasou's destination from the outset cannot be the same as ToraDora!'s: because if it were, Sakurasou would only be a four-episode series and we'd be done.

So what exactly is the focus going to be here? To be honest, while I expect Sakurasou to continue to be a romantic comedy, particularly because neither Sorata nor Mashiro managed to get their feelings across to the other party in an unambiguous and direct manner (Mashiro slept through Sorata's and Sorata only figured out how Mashiro feels by guessing it from her manga), I don't expect the series' primary focus will be on these two becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. I think the promise with Sakurasou -- and if I am right about this then it will make it one of the richest romantic comedies we've gotten in years -- is that the focus is mostly going to be on Sorata's and Mashiro's respective adventures from childhood to adulthood. We're going to witness major growth for each of them, not romantic growth but professional / self-achievement growth. For Sorata, it's going to be working on his dream project -- making his own video game. For Mashiro, it's going to be ... we don't quite 100% know yet. If I had to guess, it will probably be the somewhat stereotypical "genius who for the first time in her life has failed and doesn't know how to cope with failure" routine. But even if I'm right, I still think the author might try and give this old routine a fresh spin. And if he manages to pull it off, it could work very well. We might see Mashiro pulling her own Volume 2 Sorata and threatening to return to England to work on her painting, spurred on by her parents or by some other force, only for her to ultimately decide that she is running away because of a fear of failure; and then her choosing to stay behind in Japan because she doesn't want to lose Sorata. And I have hope/confidence that there's more to the franchise than even just this. I have hope that Ryuunosuke (the computer hacker) will have some interesting development beyond the obvious problem of his hikikomori-ism. I have hope that Nanami will not be some bland, boring childhood friend character, especially considering we the audience are all in such strong agreement right from the get-go that she ain't gonna get Sorata. (If she's not there as a believable rival for Sorata's affections, then she must be there for some other reason or else she's a waste of space as a character.) Only time will tell though whether my hopes are well-placed or not. I could get burned. This author could burn me. But I have confidence he will not. I like what I've seen so far. And despite bbb's misgivings about the studio I have faith in J.C. Staff's call on this one. These are the same guys who saw that ToraDora! was a diamond in the rough and animated it. And it's one of my favorite animes of all time. Now they've come along again and picked up Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo. Does that mean I trust J.C. Staff no matter what they pick up? Of course not. But ... I can't tell you why, but I feel like this is ToraDora! all over again for so many reasons. And if it is, then I am oh so looking forward to the series' final stretch of episodes.

Oh shit, I started babbling and I forgot to address this:

Originally Posted by Talon87

I feel like what we saw at the end of Episode 04 would've been appropriate for the series finale or the mid-series finale. Then again, a similar concept was one reason we all praised ToraDora ("They did that in Episode 02!?") so perhaps I'm being unfair here. But I don't feel like the two are quite the same.

What do I mean by this? Well, as you probably recall from ToraDora!, Taiga confesses to Kitamura at the end of Episode 02. This surprised pretty much everybody who watched the series, myself included. Everyone called that this scene would happen. But everyone also called that it was going to be saved for like the series' third-to-last, second-to-last, or final episode. Nobody in a million years thought "Well yeah, duh, that's totally going to be how the second episode ends!" And yet it happened. So say someone then says to me, "Well, Talon, how is Sakurasou Episode 04 any different? You didn't think things would advance this quickly. And yet they have. So why do you praise ToraDora! yet condemn Sakurasou for doing the very same thing?" And that's just it: they're not the same thing, and that's why I am able to criticize one while praising the other. With ToraDora, we're told at the very start of the series that Taiga has had a crush on Kitamura since the previous school year. (We later find out that her crush probably started to form very early in her first year of high school considering that the seed for her feelings was Kitamura's very own confession to Taiga on the first day of high school.) So when we see Taiga squirming about confessing to Kitamura, it's understandable. Also, it's only ever presented as just that: a crush. It's never presented as a serious love felt between two soulmates or something. She has a crush on him, she wants to ask him to be her boyfriend, the end. We the audience can accept that. We don't need to see Taiga and Kitamura interacting for 10, 15, 20 episodes before we buy that she's got a crush on the guy. But crushes are crushes, and a deep love is a deep love. Sakurasou Episode 04 asks us to believe that Sorata would stay behind in Sakurasou for two reasons. First, that he wants to become "one of the elite," as Doppel put it, and he's willing to work hard towards that goal surrounded by elites. Second, Shiina Mashiro. Undoubtedly Shiina Mashiro is Sorata's second huge reason for wanting to stay behind. But like, the way it is presented is not at all like Sorata is closing the door on a potential girlfriend. The way it is presented is like he was closing the door on the love of his life and that only once he realized he was the love of her life did he change his mind and decide to stay. It's like, what? Unlike ToraDora's scenario where we can accept Taiga's relationship with Kitamura via exposition, we cannot just be told that Sorata and Mashiro are very much in love. That doesn't work. ^^; All the audience knows is that these two live in the same dorm, Sorata helps her get dressed in the mornings and holds her hand as he drags her to school, and Mashiro has him undress for her so she can have a male nude model for her drawings. We have seen zero dates. We have seen zero other shared experiences period. Watching a film together on a Friday night? Rescuing one of the dorm's cats from a tree? Going to the beach? (I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M ASKING FOR THE TOKEN BEACH EPISODE! ) One of them teaching the other how to ride a bike? So on and so on and so forth. They have had very few shared onscreen experiences and so as a result the audience has a hard time believing that these two are very romantically linked to one another. That's the big difference between ToraDora and Sakurasou. ToraDora skipped the details when they didn't matter but spent an entire series showing us the details when they did matter. Sakurasou on the other hand has skipped the details even when they matter most ... which suggests that, in Sakurasou's case, they may not matter as much as we thought they did.

*phew*, that was a lot of words. I hope Doppel reads it all if nobody else ... although I forgive him for reading zero of it if he's wanting to watch ToraDora @ zero spoilers. Oh well. It was something I was going to end up addressing in my own review post for Episode 04 eventually anyway so I may as well have gotten it out of the way here.

[Doppleganger]

I read it. I agree that the final destination isn't going to be the same as TD...but something that seems obvious to me is that Sorata is set up to be portrayed as a "late bloomer" or someone with an in-tangible talent that pole vaults his value beyond Shiina's. To the right person (Aoyama?) of course, but if there's to be professional-personal conflict between Sorata and Shiina's callings, this has to be a taken path in order for Sorata to not be "dominated" by their relationship. The story can't revolve around Shiina's talent because Sorata is destined to fall in love with her - if Shiina's talent doesn't compete with his, he submits to her destiny and there's no interesting conflict.

Sorata obviously has the charisma/affective traits that allow him to lead the other, talent-dominated cast members. But he currently has no medium to flex those muscles... so given this...something I'm just going to shoot out here is the possibility of everyone in the show converging on making a visual novel. Hello, anime game that needs artist/voice acting/programmer/writer/animator!

To rope in BBB's concerns as well, if the show isn't that super focused on the Sorata/Shiina relationship and does intend to tell a love story defined by their professions, the childhood friend Aoyama does complicate things. She adds unnecessary friction to an under-stated part of the story, I can only imagine her inclusion as a contrast to Shiina's situation, but the problem is she's already made redundant by Sorata beyond being poor.

I can only hope she's just included as comic relief, like Misaki mostly is. Or perhaps as a development catalyst for Sorata - after-all, the last time were learned something about Sorata's past, Shiina had to mount him to eek out an answer.

[Talon87]

I don't think we'll see Sorata proving to be Mashiro's superior in the creative arts. A, because I personally would dislike that sort of development and I have a feeling that Sakurasou is written for me. ^^; B, because we already saw this in Uchuu no Stellvia so if you want to see that you can go watch it there. ;P Okay, so neither of these are convincing counter-arguments at all ;_; but all I can say is that if they do do this I'll be kinda pissed off. What I'd prefer to see is that Sorata and Mashiro, as incomplete individuals right now, complement one another and together make a strong whole person -- and yet each will strive to become a complete individual on his or her own.

For Sorata, I agree it's clear that he's artistically standing in Mashiro's shadow and so his game is going to be all about getting better at what he chooses to do for a career. But like, I don't think he'll ever eclipse Mashiro. Not even within his own professional field. If glimpses of Wikipedia from when I made the character page are to be believed ...

Spoiler: show

Sorata's professional future rests in making video games. There's very little crossover here with Shiina. The closest you could get is if Sorata becomes a graphics designer or graphics engine programmer, and thus brings the art side of the equation to modern-day video games, but even still I don't think we're going to see Sorata become a world-famous graphics engine programmer or something.

Even were that to happen, he still wouldn't eclipse Mashiro in fame and fortune: he'd merely catch up to her. So no, I reject the notion that Sorata will surpass Mashiro artistically and that their two talents will be forced to compete with one another. This is not Hikaru no Go. They are not Shindou Hikaru and Touya Akira. But I do agree with you that the growth we'll see for Sorata will be more on the professional side of things.

For Mashiro, I don't think her conflict will be being eclipsed by Sorata. On the contrary, I see her conflicts as being any of the following:

(light spoilers from Wikipedia)

Spoiler: show

Wikipedia mentions that Mashiro struggles academically but that once she knows the test answers she can recall them. Sort of like a savant, I guess you might say, though we'll have to see it in action before we can properly label it. Anyway, the point is that she isn't very good with schoolwork. So what could happen is that Sorata decides to go to a university with a good program for computer software designers and/or video game designers and Mashiro doesn't want to be left behind. So one of her own little miniature endeavors might be, might be, studying real hard so she can tag along with Sorata. However, this seems dumb to me since 1) she's mega-wealthy from her painting career (or she could be if she isn't already) and 2) a mangaka doesn't really need a college degree. ¬_¬; So while I'm throwing this one out there, I doubt it'll happen.

So that's the first possibility. The second, more probable possibility is just her grappling with her dysfunction in general. She may become frustrated with the fact that she is so weird and so unable to take care of herself. Think Katawa Shoujo's Hanako for that second bit. A strong urge to be able to take care of oneself may be Mashiro's personal fight for which we the readers/viewers cheer her on for over four or five novels' worth of episodes. Sorata not only can take care of himself but is taking care of her, cats, and so on; just as Sorata can only at best match Mashiro in the art world but he'll likely never surpass her, so too do I think Mashiro won't be portrayed as being able to "fix" herself since this is a biological part of who she is but I do think she may get better at it and achieve some satisfaction from her accomplishments.

I could keep throwing out speculations for Mashiro but they're just that: speculation. We really don't know enough about her yet to be able to gauge what her big goals (beyond making it as a mangaka) are going to be. But, just as with Sorata, I don't think that Mashiro's goals are going to require her to compete with Sorata. I don't think this will be one of those stories, one of those "you and I are rivals but by competing we each better the other" stories. To use a color analogy, I think it's more the case that fully-actualized human beings are able to combine red and blue paints to make purple, that Sorata and Mashiro currently each only have one color (Sorata blue, Mashiro red), that together they can currently make purple, and that as the story progresses we'll see them each acquiring their missing color so that they can make purple on their own. Sorata's missing paint is professional competency; Mashiro's is domestic competency.

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I don't think we'll see Sorata proving to be Mashiro's superior in the creative arts. A, because I personally would dislike that sort of development and I have a feeling that Sakurasou is written for me. ^^; B, because we already saw this in Uchuu no Stellvia so if you want to see that you can go watch it there. ;P Okay, so neither of these are convincing counter-arguments at all ;_; but all I can say is that if they do do this I'll be kinda pissed off. What I'd prefer to see is that Sorata and Mashiro, as incomplete individuals right now, complement one another and together make a strong whole person -- and yet each will strive to become a complete individual on his or her own.

I don't think he'll ever be her superior. Sorata's talent cap has to be lower than Ryuunosuke's current level, but he'll inevitably find an opportunity that takes advantage of his leadership qualities on top of whatever game skills he builds up. It'll be an opportunity that clashes with staying at Sakurasou and Shiina. We've already seen that conflict here, at this rudimentary level where the two aren't even fully aware of their mutual feelings, inevitably it's got to happen again assuming the trajectory of the two growing in their profession. Like you said, what we've seen in Episode 4 is much more fitting of the conclusion of a major story arc, rather than something seen early in a story.

Japanese stories can tend toward this, I think, because of the emphasis on romantic transience. I read a story called Velvet Kiss that ended with the two main characters basically parting ways, because they lived in two different worlds. But that was fine, they shared good memories!

I can't forecast if Sakurasou is destined for the more Western-influenced happy ending, but I'd be more critically appreciative of a bitter sweet or tragic end.

[big bad birtha]

I just watched episode 5. It seems my fears about this episode were not only present, but they punched me in the face repeatedly until I was wishing the episode was over. I would like to say the episode put a bad taste in my mouth, but the metaphorical blood overtook all of that.

Anyway, why did I dislike this episode so much? Aoyama doesn't deserve a name. She should just be called "childhood friend" by everyone. She's a stereotypical, stock childhood friend character you could find in any romance or harem. The fucking second she appears with the main guy and Mashiro, we get a large heaping helping of "misunderstanding". Almost the entire episode was flooded with it too. God I fucking hate childhood friend characters. All of them are the same.

There was some decent development here and there, but due to the annoyance, I could hardly appreciate it.

[Talon87]

I have been so procrastinatey with posts here. @_@ I love the show so much I want to write the best post possible ... and then that scares me off and I procrastinate. Suffice to say in super-brief, I watched Episode 05 half a week ago and I enjoyed it (though it was the weakest yet ... though it wasn't nearly so bad IMO as bbb felt it was).

So why am I compelled to post right now? Well, I was just watching Hadena's sub for Episode 03 (very recently released, you see) and it's ... not good. ^^; Don't get me wrong: they get quite a lot right still. But it's astonishing how much they flat out get wrong / too loosely translate. Like translating "I'm signing off now then" as "Good night then." Or like translating "Who cares, it's just a date ..." as "Who cares, let them ...". It doesn't impact the overall meaning of the story too badly but it's still borderline rewriting given just how much it's coming up. It's bad enough in 03 I'm considering not even watching Hadena 04 or Hadena 05 and deleting all five Hadena episodes. No point in backing up such a flawed product.

Now, Rori's not exactly off the hook yet either. I have yet to go back and watch theirs more closely as I said I would. For now though, I'm pretty happy with CrunchyRoll's translations. Only real complaints I have with them are 1) no subs for OP and ED and 2) occasionally "too professional" by inventing Western replacement puns when Japanese puns pop up rather than just preserving them and TL Note-ing them. And I mean, even CR takes liberties here or there, like, I popped open 05 again just now and can clearly hear Jin saying "[Because] their ability to focus is not normal[, right?]" but CR opted to morph "not normal" into "extraordinary". I mean, semantically that's perfectly fine but syntactically they morphed a grammatical negative into a grammatical positive which you're really not supposed to do if you can help it. But like, even I do that when I am speed-translating. It's not the sort of practice I'd berate them for. Unlike what I witnessed earlier in Hadena's Ep03 ...

Current ranking: CrunchyRoll > Rori > Hadena

Hopefully next time I'll have delightful pictures and comments about episodes instead of more of this negative and quasi-off topic fansub quality discussion stuff. Until then!

[Char]

Episode 6...Liked it.

Spoiler: show

Lol at the Torajirou scene.

[big bad birtha]

Admittedly I probably over-reacted last week, but it took a really bad anime pet peeve I have and hit me really hard with it.

I watched episode 6 and I thought it was really good. While I'm not crazy for her, Aoyama had some great development this episode. Also some Shiina background moments were amusing.

A little rambling about episode 6

Spoiler: show

I thought Shiina really shined this episode. Her pushing for everyone to let Aoyama go to the rehearsals was cool of her. Also her getting water splashed on her in the background and not caring in the least was amusing.

Actually I really liked that whole scene where they pushed Aoyama into the taxi.

Animator going to Sorata for advice was also a nice scene. Though I kinda wished Sorata had a better way of helping.

[Doppleganger]

Sakurasou in the news...sort of.

Spoiler: show

I can't read that thread, but the reports indicate that it was the top topic on 2ch today. Apparently, JC Staff altered a scene in Sakurasou 6 versus the source where Sorata fed Aoyama porridge, but it became a Korean dish. Since many of the animators are Korean, this was probably done for budget considerations, but it stimulated a racial nerve ending and the Japanese coast exploded in anger.

[Talon87]

Light Novels:
Just a few days ago, somebody upped a batch torrent of Volumes 1 thru 7 (including Volume 5.5). This is almost the entire collection to date. It's missing Volume 7.5 which came out in August of this year as well as Volume 8 which came out on October 10. But still, it's the most complete collection I've come across. So if you're interested, check it out. Just go to the kitty cat's corner of the Internet and search for さくら荘のペットな彼女 under Books; or, more specifically, you can search for (一般小説) [鴨志田一] さくら荘のペットな彼女 第01-07巻.

As for some benchmark comparisons with the light novels, I was skimming through Volume 1 just now to see how all it differed. Here's what I noticed. Spoiler tagging for those who don't want to know. WARNING! IT'S QUITE LONG! If it's too long for you to handle right now, that's fine, skip it and move on to my television episode comments below. But do be sure to come back to at it some point if you're interested! Until someone translates the novel into English for you, this could be the best treasure trove of insider information you're going to get. I wrote it for you guys, so make good use of it!

Spoiler: show

Chapter 01:

Spoiler: show

The book is narrated by an omniscient narrator in the third person. So like, you have someone else talking about "Kanda Sorata" a lot rather than Sorata himself narrating the story. This surprised me, and it would've surprised me even more were it not for me sneaking a peek at my copy of ToraDora the other day and rediscovering that that one too is narrated by a third person omniscient narrator rather than, as I had expected it would be, by Ryuuji.

Sorata explains how he wound up in Sakurasou (the whole deal with the headmaster giving him an ultimatum) in the very opening pages of the book, before Misaki wakes up. I actually like/prefer how the anime dealt with it. Not that this way doesn't work too, but the anime's way just felt so much more natural or professional to me. So kudos to J.C. Staff there for that tiny edit.

On pages 029-031, Chihiro-sensei shows Sorata Shiina's picture and requests that he pick her up at the train station first. Then they talk about other stuff leading up to her comment about how she forgot her manners while she was still inside her father's testicles and Sorata's all "That's the first time I've ever heard a woman say 'testicles'! @_@" He then follows this up with "That's a Level 30 Amazoness for you," referencing the fact that Chihiro's already past 30 years of age, and she then protests and says that she's 29 years and 15 months old, the same thing J.C. Staff had her say in the opening scene of the episode as she leaves for school. Both ways work, but once again I have to give kudos to J.C. Staff for a pretty effective edit.

Speaking of edits, the opening scene to the show is a mishmash of lines and scenes from Chapter 01 that occur (in the book) all over the place. For example, Misaki's "I look really good naked!" line is on page 56 (after we've already met Mashiro) and we meet Jin for the first time in between Chihiro giving Sorata the instructions on picking up Mashiro and him actually picking her up.

Around page 064 is when Sorata goes to check on Shiina / wake her up. Page 068 he's trying to get her to come out from under the computer desk.

Page 077 is when, in Episode 02, we see Sorata and Mashiro go to the convenience store and she starts eating a baumkuchen without having first paid for it. After they leave the store they run into Chihiro-sensei and ...

The chapter ends with the opening scene of Episode 02 where the group is all gathered around the kitchen table and they all dump Mashiro onto Sorata and she says to him "I hope we can become good friends." (d'awwwww ) The chapter ends on page 085.

Chapter 02:

Spoiler: show

The chapter opens with a cute little explanation that Sorata's mornings begin not with the alarm he has set on his cell phone but rather with either Hikari (his white cat) sitting her butt on his face or else Nozomi (his black cat) sticking her face in his face, and how if that doesn't work then his calico cat Kodama will "body blow" (body slam? ) him.

The chapter also opens with a chat with Ryuunosuke that I guess got cut from the anime for the sake of time. Apparently Ryuunosuke and Sorata are actually in the same class this year (not that it makes much difference if Ryuunosuke is a hikikomori ^^; ). I should actually note that computer chats came up a lot more in Chapter 01 too. Anyway, not going to sit here and read the book this second ^^; so skipping ahead to see what all is covered and where exactly this chapter ends ...

The bit where Mashiro comments that "Sorata was my first" originally takes place in her bedroom after Sorata blowdries her hair. It's just the two of them in there and while their reactions are pretty much identical to what they did in the anime version it feels very strange to see this playing out without Aoyama around.

In the same scene, Sorata tries to explain to Mashiro that men are wolves when it comes to a pretty girl dressing as she did that morning (as seen in Episode 02 when she comes downstairs half-dressed). When he mentions wolves, she takes him literally and is like "But there aren't any wolves here." This got cut for time, I guess.

Nanami isn't introduced in the novel until Chapter 02. She seems to be a hell of a lot more tsundere in this debut scene of hers than she is in the anime. She talks about eyesores and what she does and doesn't want Kanda doing (whaaaaa... ) but then she turns around and tells him that this is the 36th time he's yawned to which he replies "What, are you counting? What are you, my stalker?" and she gets flustered. She then busts out some non-Tokyo dialect and Sorata teases her for it, saying that no one around here uses that word. So she tries to fix what she says but the new word she chooses is one which Sorata tells her still doesn't suit a girl. (Note: Osaka dialect is considered a gruff or masculine dialect by most Japanese.) And then she tells him to shut up. haha

Sorata tells Nanami about Mashiro in school. She's a bit upset he hid her from him (though he wasn't really hiding her ^^; ) and guesses that she's probably cute. Soon after is the part from the episode where Shiina then comes to Sorata's class to talk to him. Since the misunderstanding scene with Aoyama doesn't happen in the book, what could Shiina possibly be coming here to discuss with Sorata? Well ...

"Sorata, I'm hungry."
"Haa? What're you trying to say?"
"I want to eat a baumkuchen."
"And why are you telling me this?"
"Do you not have one?"
"Of course not!"
"Rita used to give me one."
"Who the heck's that!?"
"Darn..."

Sorata ends up skipping 4th period to take Mashiro to a nearby convenience store to buy her something to eat.

Sorata asks Mashiro what she has for 4th period. P.E., she tells him. He asks if it's okay for her to be skipping. She explains that they're doing volleyball this week and that she had permission to sit out and watch. And when he asks if she has some sort of physical problem which prevents her from playing, she explains to him that she cannot allow her fingers to get injured. Interesting. Kinda wish this hadn't been cut from the anime because it sets up for possibly interesting developments for her in the future, like (perhaps) the fact that she had a very insular childhood since her parents were afraid to let her do things which might damage her hands. Never mind. xfd Turn the page and discover that Mashiro says she can play volleyball perfectly fine but it's the teachers who won't allow her to. ^^;

Sorata asks Mashiro why she came to Japan when Europe is so much better when it comes to private art schools. And when Mashiro just flatly tells him that she plans to become a mangaka, Sorata gets angry and raises his voice at her, asking her why, surprising even himself just how loud his voice got.

Soon after, Chihiro shows up and Sorata asks her about Shiina, expressing how he's frustrated that someone with Mashiro's talent is squandering it on becoming a mangaka. Chihiro tells Sorata that that's not really for him to worry about since it's Mashiro's life and thus Mashiro's decision. The conversation then swerves into what we saw in the anime with Chihiro asking Sorata to hand in his "future plans" sheet. This takes us up thru to page 124.

I should note that, unless I missed it somewhere, Sorata has yet to find out that Mashiro was an accomplished painter back in England. So I'm not exactly certain why he's so confident that he knows she's got talent and that she's wasting it by being here in Japan. All he's seen up until now was her computer the one time he woke her up. Page 096, it looks like. But if this is it, it's quite different from the anime. He seems a lot less blown away here than he did there.

The cabbages come up the next day (page 125). Sorata recalls an amusing story of last year's Halloween where Misaki got her hands on a pumpkin, went to school in costume as a witch, and other things. At Christmas she gave Christmas presents with equal enthusiasm to friends and strangers alike while wearing a mini-skirt Santa suit. Sorata recalls all these things as evidence of Misaki's alienness. And this year? She's focused on cabbages having some connection with Children's Day.

When Sorata asks Jin if she did something similar to the cabbages last year, this is where he brings up what we saw in the episode: how last year she covered her naked self in chou creme while waiting for Jin to return. Sorata asks if today's Jin's birthday and he confirms that it regrettably is. When Sorata asks, "But why cabbages? ^^;", Jin surmises that Misaki's logic was probably something along the lines of "They're so green and pretty! ^-^" When Sorata makes to leave, Jin protests that shouldn't Sorata normally think to rescue his senpai who is always taking care of him? When Sorata says that Jin doesn't really take care of him, Jin says, "No, no, of course I do! Like, I treated you to lunch!" Then Sorata answers "Just the one time! Please let go of me! x_x" hahaha Anyway, this is clearly the Misaki-in-the-box scene so I'm going to skip ahead.

And as soon as I say that, I have to share these lines. XFD

「仁、誕生日おめでと～！」 "Happy birthday, Jin!"
獲物を見つけた獣のように、美咲が箱から飛び出してくる。 Like a beast which has caught sight of its prey, Misaki sprung forth from her box.

Nice simile.

In the book, as Sorata makes to escape from the scene, he bumps into Mashiro who is standing right there by the door. She tells Sorata she has a request, thus giving him the excuse he needs to abandon poor Jin. They go back to her room and she tells him to strip. (Page 132) So the anime inserted the scene in between where he's talking to Ryuunosuke. But in part I think that's because so much Sorata & Ryuunosuke chit-chat scenes have already come up in both chapters yet this was the first we really saw the two talking in the anime. So yeah, that's probably all that that is.

All of this (pages 133 thru 150) plays out exactly like in the show and carries us up through to where Mashiro is telling Sorata how she believes her manga to be boring and that Ayano said so. Sorata returns to what's been bugging him ever since he met Mashiro and he asks her, "Why manga? =\" And ...

"Because it's interesting."
"Eh?"
"Because it's interesting."
"And your paintings don't satisfy you?"
"Paintings aren't interesting."
"That's pretty bad for you of all people to be saying that."
"But it's the truth."
"Then ... if you're going to say that you don't need it, then give me your talent as an artist."
"Okay."
"There's no way you can do something like that!"
"You're the one who said it."
He knew that.
"The one who wants what I don't even care about ... is you, Sorata."
She hit him right where it hurts.

It's an interesting insight. The anime established it kinda well, I felt, but it didn't go the full nine yards to explain that Mashiro doesn't really give a crap that she's so talented at painting: what she wants is to be an accomplished mangaka. I'd liken it to somebody who has such a natural affinity for math and physics that it would be a crime, say, for him to not pursue a career in advanced mathematics or in quantum physics or some such ... but he says, "No, my dream is to become the #1 Counter-Strike player in the world." I mean, it's not quite 100% the same, comparing being a mangaka with being a pro video gamer ... but they're not too far apart when you think about it. ^^; To me, Mashiro's dilemma is deeply personal. That may be part of the reason why I am enjoying her and this show so much and why I look forward to what the author plans to do with Mashiro in the future. For now, I watch with bated breath. As for viewers who more strongly identify with Sorata, I can only imagine how depressing or angering her words to Sorata quoted above must feel. That she would so easily trade away A+ level talent in an elite field in exchange for A level talent in a much less glamorous field but one which she personally prefers. TBH, I hope that Mashiro's answer will warm those viewers' hearts. I am looking forward to her explanation about what manga means to her and why she believes it is more valuable than regular paintings.

Page 152's the hysterical end ("I won't let you sleep tonight" [/seriousface][/seriousvoice] ) to that scene. This is where we also bleed into Episode 03.

Page 155/156 is where Jin tells Sorata he just got off the phone with an anime company who wanted to talk with Misaki, which is what we see as one of the early scenes in Episode 03. It continues just as we saw in the anime with Sorata complaining that everyone in Sakurasou is amazing except for him, Jin explaining that Sorata has his own special talents or oddball traits, but then Jin getting frustrated with Sorata and telling him (at the top of page 159) to leave Sakurasou instead of always threatening that he will but never actually doing it.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA, there's a line here I don't remember being in the anime. After Jin tells Sorata that he'll find homes for the cats and assume responsibility for Mashiro, he backpedals a bit and tells Sorata "To be honest, I like you, Sorata," to which Sorata replies, "I never thought that the first confession I'd ever get in life would come from a guy." Jin goes on to tell Sorata that he likes Sorata's tsukkomi retorts in so many situations, to which Sorata suggests the two of them form a comedy duo, to which Jin answers "Let's put that on hold as our dream for the next life, partner."

Then on page 160 Jin reaffirms that he's not joking and that he'll seriously find homes for the cats and take care of Mashiro, and once again Sorata's all "But ...". Jin tells Sorata to make a decision. Whether he chooses to leave Sakurasou or whether he chooses to remain, make a decision and make it himself. In the book version, it's then Jin who rises from the table and leaves the room. The narrator comments that Sorata couldn't lift his face from the table. And then as Jin has left, Sorata makes his decision to leave Sakurasou.

On Page 161, what follows is the conversation which in the anime version took place on the bridge after Sorata and Mashiro spent the night at a love hotel together but here takes place inside of Sakura Hall:

"Are you leaving?"
"I'm leaving. That's been my intention since the very beginning."

And Chapter 02 ends soon after on page 162.

Chapter 03

Spoiler: show

Early bits of this chapter seem to be either novel, omitted from the show, or else modifications on things which showed up in the show. Skipping ahead to page 173, Jin teases Sorata by threatening to steal Mashiro away from him. And when Sorata retorts that Shiina isn't his girlfriend or anything, Jin challenges, "Then what is she to you?"

There's a lot of conversations here that either were cut or I haven't seen yet on television. An extensive conversation between Sorata, Aoyama, and Chihiro-sensei. Another where Sorata asks Mashiro about an umbrella that doesn't seem to suit her and she answers that it isn't hers but Misaki's. Shiina talking about how she thought the word "mangrove" was a perverted word until just recently. But then this bleeds right into her requesting Sorata go out with her on Sunday, which is exactly what we saw in Episode 03 ... so I guess all the other stuff just got cut for time. It happens, especially if they're trying to fit 10 novels into 25 episodes.

The book follows up Sorata's rejection of Shiina's date offer (and telling her to ask Jin instead and her saying that she'll do just that) with a cute little bit about Shiina's spaciness where she heads off and Sorata calls out to her.

"Hey, Shiina."
"What?"
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going back to Sakura Hall."
"The dorm's in the other direction!"
"i know that."
"You liar! You were heading off just now like you were totally confident [the dorm was that way]!"
"I wasn't."
"You were!"
"No, I wasn't."
"You really are hopeless."

And so on. Cute imo. Not really sure why they cut this out as it would've only added 10-15 seconds to the episode. Then again, we know that they felt pressed for time in Episode 03 because they opted to omit the ending credits' visuals that episode and to overlay the ending song with continuing footage of stuff happening (like Shiina placing blankets or towels on top of Sorata), so I guess they really didn't feel like they had 15 seconds they could afford to cut to squeeze this cute bit in.

On page 187/188 is where Misaki barges into Sorata's bedroom with the "We have an emergency!" announcement about Jin going out on a date with Mashiro. lol at this little exchange between Sorata and Chihiro-sensei that got changed up a bit in the anime:

"Can you possibly think that that Maharaja of a senpai would go to a love hotel and not do anything!? You can't, can you!? It's impossible, right!?"
"Well, that's true."
"Of course it's true! That's what I'm saying! That it's as unlikely as Sensei finding a marriage partner!"
"Huh? Just now, did you say something rude? You just said something rude because you think I'm drunk, didn't you? Didn't you? For your information I heard what you said, quite clearly."

Little things like these seem to be being omitted for time. It's a shame though. ^^; They're not crucial crucial to the story, no, but they help to establish characters. Argh, makes me wish that television wasn't such a confining medium what with its "25 minutes per episode" nature and that artists could just, y'know, write one week's episode to be 35 minutes long, another week's 22, a third week's 26, and so on, just ... writing for content rather than for time limits. Alas.

Skipping ahead to page 199 (in between was basically Misaki pressing Sorata to hurry it up, just like we saw in the anime), we have the duo running into Aoyama at the mall. Misaki refers to her as Nanamin (just like how she calls Mashiro Mashiron) and Nanami gets a little agitated and says "Kamiigusa-senpai, how many times have I asked you not to call me that?" To which Misaki replies "Would you prefer Nanapon?" Aoyama bristles and says "Just 'Aoyama' will do fine." "How about Aoyan?" "Please just call me 'Aoyama' normally!" Sorata then cuts in telling her to just give it up and pointing out that Nanamin would've been the best of the lot after all. Anyway, after this the scene plays out identically to the anime. Pretty much like 99% identically from what I am seeing. Page 207 brings us to the bridge with Misaki crying and telling Sorata she's going home. (The author actually kind of poetically describes it by saying that it started to rain, then saying "But the sky was clear," and then saying how despite this the rain continued to pour down.)

Skipping ahead without looking too closely since I'm impatient. ^^; Page 216 and Shiina and Sorata are still talking inside the love hotel. From what I glimpsed, it looks pretty identical to the anime.

Thru page 224 now. Sorata's and Jin's cell phone conversation is a lot longer in the book and covers a bit more ground. Jin basically reprimands Sorata explaining that if he doesn't want someone else to snatch Mashiro away from him then, as her "owner"/"master", he has a responsibility to look after her. The bit in the anime with them discussing Misaki is there too, verbatim. Although the bit where Jin says he'd want to fuck Misaki's brains out if he saw her like she is right now isn't followed up the same way in the book. Sorata replies with a "Wha!? You animal!" And then Jin tells Sorata that there exists an animal inside of him who wants to do things to Misaki ... but at the same time, Misaki is special to him. So special, so dearly special he emphasizes, that he hesitates to lay even one finger on her. Hmm, they also reveal something which could constitute a spoiler so I'll spoiler tag it. ^^;

About Jin's first sex partner:

Spoiler: show

Sorata asks if that was Misaki's older sister and Jin says "Whoa, Misaki told you that?"

After that scene ends, and as Sorata and Shiina are leaving the love hotel, I guess in the book it was raining (didn't catch that) because Sorata pulls out an umbrella that he gives to Shiina as a gift.

"Why are you giving me this?"
"A certain someone was eyeing this really longingly so I decided I'd buy it and give it to them as a present."
"Is that so? In that case I'd better return it."
"It's okay, you keep it."
"But what will you do about the present for that certain someone?"
"I think you're misunderstanding something."
"No I'm not."
"The 'certain someone' is you, Shiina."
And then after some narration to create a bit of silence ...
"Thank you."

Awwwwww.

Oh man, what follows is the two of them getting stopped by a police officer who spots them coming out of the love hotel and asks them if they're high school students. Shiina tells him that they are at the same time that Sorata tries to lie to the officer and say that they're college students. When Sorata then tells Shiina that this situation is one where you'd ordinarily lie, Shiina asks why. ^^; When the officer rambles on, saying how no matter how much the two may be lovers it's not appropriate for high schoolers to be going to a love hotel, Shiina answers "We're not lovers" and Sorata's like "SHIINA! You don't need to tell him any more! >_<" So then the officer asks what their relationship is and ... Shiina tells him "Sorata is my owner/master." Needless to say the officer is stunned. XD (Page 234)

In the book, Sorata addresses Shiina directly and tells her to tell him how she feels about his planning to leave Sakurasou, and she asks him to not leave. I'll give the point to J.C. Staff here once again: it's not that the book's way is necessarily bad, but I liked the anime's version where Sorata found out through that luncheon with Ayano where he was shown Shiina's manga submission for the contest and it was clearly about Sakurasou only with the genders reversed for the Shiina and Sorata characters. I liked how in the show this was how Sorata found out about Shiina's feelings. Finding out through her artwork, i.e. having it be that this girl who struggles to understand and be understood by others was understood by someone else through her artwork, just seems very fitting.

Awwwwwww though.

Chapter 04:

Spoiler: show

On Page 264, it becomes apparent what became of the scene with Ayano at the diner. It was made for TV but was adapted from some material that was originally in the book. There's a longish scene with Misaki and Sorata that was completely cut from the anime. But after this scene, Mashiro shows up and reports that she's done (meaning done with her manuscript). Misaki enthusiastically asks to see it and the three of them look at it together on the computer. At which point (on page 264) it dawns on Misaki that the guy in the story resembles Sorata while the girl in the story resembles Mashiro. Then the narrator explains that as they read it they saw that the roles (as in the anime) seemed reversed, with the boy being the spacey art genius and the girl being the one who looked after him.

Oh my god. On Page 267, something quite different (and pretty heartbreaking) happens in the book. After Misaki and Sorata finish reading Shiina's manga, she asks them what they thought of it and they say that they liked it and even think it has what it takes to win the competition. Then suddenly, Shiina's computer starts acting up, freezes, and crashes. Sorata turns the computer back on but after it gets past the BIOS bit with a memory check, the screen stays black. One of them comments that the noise they heard coming from the PC before it died makes them wonder if it was a hard disk failure. Misaki goes back to the BIOS screen and though it's all in English so they have trouble understanding it, they can plainly see from the alphabet letters present that the hard drive isn't being detected. So then they ask Shiina, "Did you back it up?" And of course Shiina answers with a question: "What's a backup?" Shiina goes silent for a bit, worrying Sorata. So then ...

"Hey, Shiina?"
"I'll redraw it."
"Y-you say that, but isn't your deadline ...?"
"Tomorrow."
"There's no way you'll make it in time!"
"But, there's no other way."

Sorata asks her to wait. Surely there must be some other way!

And this then bleeds into an awesome hero scene ... that J.C. Staff implemented in an entirely different way in the anime. ^^; Not sure why they chose to do this since, imo, the book's version is way better. Anyway, what happens is that our heroes realize that maybe the computer genius Ryuunosuke might be able to help them. So they contact him and he tells them that he's already backed up Shiina's PC. When Sorata asks why Ryuunosuke has a backup of Shiina's PC, he says that that's a dumb question. Obviously he hacked her computer. Sorata tells him not to speak so smugly to which Ryuunosuke replies cheekily "I hax0red her. lolz" Sound familiar? This is the scene in the J.C. Staff anime in Episode 03 when Sorata was going to ask Ryuunosuke about video game programming and Ryuunosuke then guessed what Sorata was going to ask him before he'd even asked his question. Same exact "hakkingu dechu" scene, completely different context. No idea why J.C. Staff decided to gut the Shiina PC crash scene like this. Oh well? ^^;

The scene ends on page 271 with Sorata wondering if Ryuunosuke was serious about having the backup, Ryuunosuke telling him he was quite serious, Ryuunosuke explaining that he has backed up the digital contents of every single computer in Sakurasou (including Misaki's anime projects and all of Sorata's treasures) to a server of his. Ryuunosuke says he'll copy Shiina's data over to a USB stick and leave it in front of his bedroom door for them to pick up. And then before they can say anything he logs out.

Afterwards (page 275) Sorata chats with Ryuunosuke again and this is the part where Ryuunosuke tells Sorata he's giving him his old textbooks on computer programming since he no longer needs them but they might help Sorata out.

Right after this conversation there's a knock on Sorata's door. He calls out to them and they open the door. It's Mashiro. And she's wearing a yukata. Sorata asks her what she came for and she's like "No reason" and he doesn't get that she wanted to impress him with her yukata. Then Misaki reveals herself and is like "KOUHAI-KUN NO BAKAAAAAA!" as in the anime, followed by Mashiro likewise saying the same blunt "Baka " she said in the anime. So J.C. Staff kept a lot of things, they just ... rearranged them, is all. ^^;

And now it's the night of their Tanabata party. Sorata and Jin talk a lot more in the book, and on page 288 their lengthy conversation leads Sorata to once again plea to Jin, "Please don't make Misaki-senpai sad anymore." Jin then says, "If you like Misaki so much, why don't you make her happy, Sorata?" To which Sorata answers, "You're joking, right?" Jin then answers in a way referring to how he, like Sorata, doesn't feel worthy compared with geniuses like Misaki or Shiina. "Even if we were to stand by her side, until we can go through life without hating ourselves ... if we can't even make it that far, then in the end we'll just wind up ruined." The narrator then says that Sorata didn't ask Jin if he thinks they can make it that far.

On the end of page 288, Sorata walks over to where Shiina is (page 289). Shiina leads off:

"What did you write, Sorata?"
"You first."
"I can't say."
"Just wish that you win the competition."
"I don't need to."
"Ho hooo? Confident, are we?"
"It's something I want to win by my own efforts."
A pause. Sorata then says,
"... you, you're amazing, you know that?"
"How so?"
"That confidence of yours."
"You said it was interesting, Sorata."
"Don't try and blame it on me if you lose."
"Ayano said it could win it, too."

Similar to what we saw in the anime.

Taking us through to page 300, we have them going back inside and Shiina getting the phone call that informs her she lost. Before that there's a cute little scene where Shiina says one of Sorata's cats is bullying her and when he says it's not his fault she goes on to say that she was simply trying to help him become a tiger, to which Sorata tsukkomi-replies that cats don't become tigers but instead they simply become fat cats when you overfeed them. Aside from this, the scene plays out as shown on television with one exception: instead of saying the wrong things to Shiina in an attempt to console her, Sorata is instead silent. It gets the same response out of Misaki, Jin, and Sorata himself though as he angrily leaves. And then he talks to Jin.

Pages 301ish thru 310ish are Sorata thinking a lot to himself, about his own situation with Sakurasou and about Shiina, and it culminates in him talking to her through her bedroom door and telling her how he plans to study hard so he can go to college and become the person he wants to become, and how he plans to study game design more, and so on. And he tells her that he plans to enter the video game design competition and credits Shiina with eliciting this change in his outlook/mindset. Eventually Sorata and Mashiro come face-to-face in her bedroom. She tells him, "Sorata, next time I'll win." "I know," he tells her. After a pause she then tells him she's super hungry (since hasn't had anything to eat since last night). But then ... then she tells him something which catches me by surprise. ^^; I actually like J.C. Staff's change, though I wonder what the original author thinks? Y'see ... Shiina explains to Sorata that Ayano contacted her again and told Shiina the full story (because Shiina hung up on her too soon last time, I guess). The full story is, Shiina was eliminated from the tournament ... because the publisher wanted to publish Shiina's work immediately and have her make her professional debut. ^^; So it's not so much that she lost as ... as it is that she was disqualified for being an Olympian who ran a mini-marathon for children. ^^; Makes me wonder why she's even telling Sorata she'll win next time. (What "next time"!? ^^; ) The others all show up after this to also congratulate Mashiro on her professional debut.

On Page 321, Shiina asks Sorata to call her by her first name. This bit plays out identically to the anime (although there was stuff leading up to it which was different, involving Sorata helping Shiina get dressed).

On Page 325, the author resolves that Sorata has decided to stay at Sakurasou, or rather, that Sakurasou is his home. And ... that's it for Volume 1!

Closing thoughts:

Spoiler: show

So it looks like Volume 1 roughly matched up with Episodes 01, 02, 03, and 04. Now, a comment about this. While the episodes' contents didn't 100% match up with each chapter in the book, I will say that the original Sakurasou novel is divided into four chapters, each of which in turn are divided into numerically identified sub-chapters. So you could approximate, going off of Book 1 and Episodes 01-04, that J.C. Staff is on average creating one episode per book chapter. If that's the case, we can sneak a quick peek at the other volumes and count how many chapters there are to see if there's any merit to the argument that Sakurasou is only going to be a 25-episode long series. *tallies chapters*

• Volume 1: four chapters
• Volume 2: four chapters
• Volume 3: four chapters
• Volume 4: four chapters
• Volume 5: five chapters
• Volume 5.5: five chapters
• Volume 6: five chapters
• Volume 7: four chapters

I don't have 7.5 or 8 on hand but if we assume that they each have four chapters too, then that brings out total chapter count to 43 chapters. Possibly more. This ... makes it seem incredibly unlikely that Sakurasou is only going to be 24 episodes long. Considering how much material we've identified that they already cut without replacing and considering how even doing that they still have averaged one chapter per episode, I don't see how it's even remotely possible for them to animate this show in only 24 episodes without making some serious, serious cuts to the story. Ooooooooor ... perhaps they don't plan to animate the entire thing. They could do that. They could be planning to pull a Sword Art Online and just animate the first four or five books and then circle back around for the rest of them should the television viewership and the Blu-Ray revenue warrant it. Hrm. That would be unfortunate. ^^; Looking at Wikipedia's and MyAnimeList's pages for the series, it does look like the anime is still only slated for 24 episodes. That's not good. It either means few cuts but a majorly rushed pace (boo), nice pace but with gobs and gobs of cuts (boo), or nice pace and few cuts but with a made-for-TV ending piggybacking off of the last volume they manage to reach (BOO!). None of these sound good. I want all the books' contents to be animated. I want the pacing they're doing right now. And I want them to cut less than they've been cutting, not more. 43 episodes was our estimate earlier, right? And that's without accounting for Volumes 9 and 10, the confirmed final two books in the series but which have yet to be released. Suppose between them they have nine chapters. That would bring us cleanly to 52 chapters, the magical number for a 52-episode anime. So aim for that, J.C. Staff. Give us a year of Sakurasou. Don't cut stuff out. ;_;

Episodes 03 & 04:
I promised I would offer some more detailed thoughts on these episodes. Originally I wasn't feeling very motivated to, but skimming through Volume 1 and noticing all the similarities and differences has put me in the mood to tackle these two together. I apologize for any repetition since I know I already shared a few of my thoughts in an earlier post.

Episode 03:

Spoiler: show

I really enjoy Sorata's interactions with Ryuunosuke. They're amusing. I am looking forward to when we get to actually see what Ryuunosuke looks and sounds like. The "What answer is there other than hacking?" scene was pretty darn funny the first time I saw it. It's still quite funny although now that I've read where this line originally came up in the book I don't think I'll ever be able to enjoy this scene in quite the same way again. ^^;

Misaki is amazing. I know I've said it a million times before but I love this girl to pieces, crazy though she may be.

lol @ how Jin tricked Sorata into winding up with Shiina at the love hotel. I do like though how Shiina's intentions were pure and how Sorata respects those and stays the night with her. One of the cutest scenes in the series thus far has got to be when she's trying to make sure Sorata keeps warm and so she just keeps piling towels or blankets on top of him, one after another.

Episode 04:

Spoiler: show

Sorata's reaction towards Shiina in the yukata -- "What's up with that outfit?" -- (embarassingly) reminds me so much of myself. I've done very much the same thing in his shoes many a time. ^^;

Misaki with the little kids was pretty adorable and totally fit her.

xfd @ Jin's reaction to that one little kid who is innocently placing his hands near Misaki's boobs for support as she lifts him up to put his Tanabata wish tag on the bamboo tree. "If you touch her, you'll be crossing not the Milky Way but the River Styx instead."

Noting the Tanabata wishes here (either I skipped past these too fast in the book or else they were missing):

• Misaki (forward face): That I can fire laser beams
• Misaki (reverse face): That some day he'll look my way
• Mashiro: That Sorata's wish will come true

Jin has shaped up to be a really great character. I was originally worried that he was going to be the obligatory "other male in a harem series" character but not only did Sakurasou quickly turn out to not be a shameless harem series (at least for the time being? ^^; ) but Jin has turned out to be a great senpai figure for Sorata. Sometimes they butt heads, sometimes Jin gives Sorata sage advice, and sometimes they cry on each other's shoulders. He's an interesting character, and his conversation with Sorata in the rain this episode was good character development for them both.

Ryuunosuke giving Sorata his old computer programming books was pretty kind of him to do.

Sorata's lit teacher @ 12m39s is pretty cute.

The scene with Ayano was what elevated this episode from being kind of slow and fillerish to being really solid stuff for the plot. I love the idea that Shiina was pretty much drawing her and Sorata (though with the genders swapped) and how she writes a really sad ending which satisfies no one -- that Sorata ends up leaving Sakurasou -- and that she insisted to Ayano on keeping this ending, even if it meant losing the competition, because "it's Sorata's wish."

Book spoiler

Spoiler: show

Too bad this scene was made for TV by J.C. Staff and things happened differently in the book. ^^; (See my book notes above.)

And I loved how Ayano had Shiina write the ending that Shiina wanted ... and so Shiina did ... and Sorata discovers it as he commits to staying in Sakura Hall. Really, really loved this bit (@ ~19m00s). And craziest of all,

Book spoiler

Spoiler: show

It didn't even happen in the book! So kudos to J.C. Staff for a plot change that I actually really, really liked. Not sure what the original author thought of it though. ^^; And I do still wish that they'd left the computer failure scene intact and had Ryuunosuke's "hakkingu dechu (w)" scene go here. Oh well. ^^;

The bit with the crying at 20m14s is just AWWWWWWWWWWW and makes you want to hold her tight.

Yay for the happy ending.

Episode 05:
Now to discuss some stuff you haven't heard me discuss before! Hooray!

Spoiler: show

The episode opens with a shot of all seven of Sakurasou's cats lounging out in the sun. This is J.C. Staff's way of indicating that Sorata got all of his cats back. Which is interesting ^^; ... on at least two levels.

TV show level: Sorata managed to give away five of the seven cats before he changed his mind about leaving Sakura Hall. We saw that some of the parties he gave his cats away to included families with children. This begs the question just how in the world he managed to get all five cats back. To me, that seems like something which would be incredibly unlikely to play out in real life. Not a single one of those people told him "No!"? Not a single one of them told him "Look, our son has already grown attached to the little fella. We're not about to just give him back to you and break our son's heart just because you're having second thoughts. You sold him to us, we paid for him, he's ours now. Sorry!" and slammed the door in his face? Man, the people in the world of Sakurasou sure are understanding!

Book level: unless I missed it (which is totally possible since I really started skimming towards the end), Sorata didn't give away any of the cats in the book. In fact, I don't recall if he even ever put flyers up with Aoyama and his nameless male friend. I do recall that someone offered to find the cats homes in case Sorata decided to move out, but that someone was Jin. And I don't think he got rid of any of the cats either. So I'm wondering if this was a made-for-TV element in Episodes 03 and 04. If true, then the above complaint I have would totally vanish in the book. This makes me think it's all the more likely that some writer on J.C. Staff's team thought that this would be a great idea and didn't fully think things through.

Anyway, it's good to have all the cats back. (Though I'm still predicting that Hikari will die before all is said and done. ^^; )

I can't explain what it is but Kamiigusa Misaki is all of the awesome of ToraDora's Kushieda Minori without any of the annoying. Love her, love her, love her.

Shiina's academic ineptitude coupled with her remarkable photographic memory seems to further cement the notion that she is perhaps an autistic savant. It is pretty funny though that even her English prowess is pretty much nil despite having lived in England for untold years. But the highlight of course is ...

... seeing Shiina walk out of that test center in record time with 100's on all of her exams. Once again I found myself being able to relate to Shiina (though our circumstances weren't exactly the same nor am I a fast test taker) and once again I felt a little guilty and wondered how all the people in the room who can relate more to Sorata must've felt. ^^; Sorry?

I know bbb says he hates situational humor or misunderstandings-driven humor but I guess that I'm a sucker for such things given my love of series like Love Hina or School Rumble. So it probably comes as no surprise that I've yet to tire of Aoyama, and I found the scene pictured above especially humorous. Mashiro asks Sorata to call her by her given name and this causes Aoyama to jealously flip out and conclude half-correctly that Sorata and Mashiro are boyfriend and girlfriend. This coupled with her financial situation results in her deciding to move into Sakurasou, just as bbb feared she would two weeks ago when he first saw the sneak peek for this episode. But personally, I welcome this development for a host of reasons.

First of all, how often does the jealous, easily-flustered-because-of-misunderstandings rival for the protagonist's affections get set straight before the series finale, if ever? Not very often. Now, let me ask you this: how long do you think it'll be before Nanami is set straight that she's going to be in Sorata's friend zone whereas Mashiro is the girl he's fallen for? I'm optimistically banking that it won't take very long at all. Ten more episodes max. And the biggest reason of all for this is the fact that she is now living right there with both the protagonist and the protagonist's romantic interest. This in and of itself is so, so rare in romantic comedies. Usually when the guy falls in love with the girl who is his neighbor or co-habitant, the girl who lives in her own apartment doesn't stand a chance and also doesn't really appreciate the intimate nature of the other two's relationship until it hits her in the face in the series finale(, again, if ever at all). But that's not what Sakurasou has done. Sakurasou has gone ahead and moved Nanami in with Sorata and Mashiro. She has front row seats to their budding relationship. So it should come a lot more naturally for her to realize, "Okay, even though I live under the same roof as Sorata it still hasn't brought me much closer to him than I would've liked. In fact, I can see that he likes Mashiro and she likes him. And I can see that they work well together. I see it with my own two eyes every single morning at breakfast, every single evening at dinner, and every single night as we do chores or homework. Okay then. Much as it pains me ... I guess Sorata and I will just have to be good friends." [/OPTIMISM!]

Second of all, I like that the author moved her into Sakura Hall because, let's face it, it should allow all three main girls to cleanly pair with all three main boys and there's simply no other way to have Ryuunosuke pair up with Nanami than to have Nanami move into Sakurasou. He's such an introvert that he doesn't even leave his room. But with Nanami actually living there, it presents opportunities for the two of them to meet and to hit it off. Nanami is such a hard worker and is so gung ho about things that I could see Ryuunosuke taking an interest in her. He too is a hard worker (consider his prowess at computers -- that shit is learned, not something you're born with) and perhaps her energy will help to draw him out of his hikikomori shell. Basically, I am optimistic that Nanami and Ryuunosuke will each help the other's character become more developed and interesting. And that's a good thing.

The scene with Mashiro really wanting that extra-large melon pan was cute and funny. "I'll give you this melonpan if you can promise me one thing." "I promise." "I haven't told you what the promise is yet!"

Nanami's moving day was fun. Her interactions with Misaki in the first volume of the books seem to suggest that she has a difficult time with people like Misaki and as a result dislikes her. So it'll be interesting to see how their relationship evolves (if at all) over the course of the series. We see hints of this when Misaki takes Nanami's tiger plush doll out of one of the storage boxes, says she really likes it and would like it herself, and then Nanami freaks out and demands Misaki give it back to her. It's small details like these that I appreciate: this exchange tells us that on the one hand the girls are more similar than Nanami seems willing to acknowledge (after all, they both really like the tiger plush doll) but that on the other hand Misaki's disregard for other's boundaries and Nanami's uptight maintenance of said boundaries is going to be a source of friction between them.

Nanami demanding Sorata be relieved of Mashiro Duty and Nanami taking it upon herself to be Mashiro's new caretaker was something I think each and every last one of us called the moment we learned that Nanami would be moving into Sakurasou.

But the anime did a good, fun job of showing us the difficulties Nanami experienced in trying to get Mashiro to become independent / self-providing. The laundry scene, the bath scene, the watermelon mishap. (I absolutely loved that look of Mashiro's when Nanami was scornfully glaring at her! ) All of these helped to establish what Sorata mentions at one point and then which comes up again at the end of the episode: Mashiro Duty is too much to handle for someone like Nanami who is juggling numerous part-time jobs between her school work and her other dorm chores.

I really liked the scene, awkward though it was for all three parties, where Mashiro (who misses Sorata) goes to his bedroom and directly asks him to fold her panties for him; then Nanami turns up and ... well, it's just easier to quote it so I don't get people's words wrong:

Nanami: Huh? What's that?
Sorata: Oh, this? This is my game pitch. I've been writing it over summer break, and I was thinking of submitting it to a development audition.
Nanami: Kanda-kun, you ...
Mashiro: *presenting her laundry basket to Sorata once again* Sorata, here.
Nanami: *grabbing hold of Mashiro's laundry basket* Then, it's even more important that you don't! *to Mashiro* You'll be a bother to Kanda-kun!
Mashiro: *makes a barely audible noise, looks at Sorata*
Sorata: *looks a little surprised*
Mashiro: *does an about face*
Sorata and Nanami: What?
(Mashiro exits stoically, Nanami calling after her.)

This was really well-conceived. Not yet sure whether the credit goes to J.C. Staff for this or the author of the books, but I thought this scene did a great job of saying much with little. It conveyed well how Nanami has basically forced her way in between Sorata and Mashiro; and it conveyed how Mashiro isn't too fond of this and, in her own idiosyncratic way, is trying to subvert Nanami's attempts to get between Sorata and her. When Nanami called Shiina a bother, she got upset and stormed off: but stormed off as only Shiina would, all quiet and calm and just walking away. And left behind is a confused Sorata who, despite his superficial confusion, seems to understand at a subconscious level what is going on here, namely that Mashiro is upset.

I was strangely disappointed by the expected "Mashiro sneaks into Sorata's bedroom one night to sleep with him" scene. Maybe because I've seen it done one too many times and Sakurasou's take wasn't particularly special? It was still cute, just nothing terribly major. I guess the core takeaway from this scene is that Mashiro ultimately "wins" in her fight with Nanami. No matter how hard Nanami tries to keep Mashiro away from Sorata, Mashiro is determined to spend time with him. And this culminates, in the cutest and biggest of ways, with her asking if she can sleep with him.

The episode ends with a fight between Sorata and Nanami. But first, the tsundere moment. This was actually the first moment all episode long that I found myself agreeing with bbb about his Nanami worries. "Great," I sarcastically thought, "another nutjob tsundere who is constantly reading into every single nice deed a guy might do as having some sexual ulterior motive to it. -_-;" I mean, sure, they had her realize she wasn't in her bedroom only a few seconds later, but like, so what if they had been in her bedroom? That's what bothered me here. The only reason she seemed to calm down was because she realized that they were in the kitchen. Does that mean that if her bedroom door had been open and if Sorata had been walking by, had seen her asleep at her desk, and had put a blanket over her that she would've still accused him of "sneaking into" her room to do perverted things to her? C'mon, girl.

Well, Nanami apologizes and it's looking like the two friends are going to be just fine again ... until Sorata finds out that Nanami has to memorize lines for a presentation for school and that the date of her presentation is the 10th of this month, the same as Shiina's deadline, i.e. Nanami won't have a second to spare for her studies if she preoccupies herself with Mashiro Duty. So Sorata offers to take on Nanami's other (non-Mashiro) chores for her. But Nanami bristles at this suggestion, seeming to take personal offense that Sorata thinks that she can't handle the workload herself. Her stubbornness upsets Sorata a little and so he lightly scolds her, saying she should accept the kindness of others. Well, this escalates things since Nanami doesn't want to be lectured. She snaps back at Sorata that it isn't her who's being stubborn but him, stubborn about trying to help her. When she tells him she can do everything by herself, Sorata loses his temper. Nanami's soon to follow and the two friends angrily part ways, Nanami tending to early morning chores in the kitchen while Sorata briefly talks with Jin.

And that's it! *phew* So, overall thoughts? Well, this was a setup episode, that much is obvious. So it's not like I could've expected it to be super-duper-mega awesome. But yeah, I guess I'd say it was overall one of the weaker episodes I've seen of the five thus far. Even though I don't hate Nanami the way bbb seems to, I do agree with him that she seems to be the weakest character of the bunch. Sorata is interesting, Mashiro is interesting, Misaki is interesting (though cliche in many ways), Jin is interesting, Ryuunosuke is (from what little we've seen of him so far) interesting ... but Nanami's a bit of a stock character. However, I think Sakurasou will deliver. I am confident that Nanami will turn out to be a unique, if not a solid, character in her own right. She's already made some steps towards this what with her financial situation and the story behind that (about her parents not supporting her career choice). And now that she resides at the dorm along with Sorata and the others, I'm sure she'll have plenty of opportunities to develop. Only time will tell, I guess, whether Nanami sinks or swims as a fascinating character.

Until next time!

Episode 06:
I still haven't seen it! After discovering quite a lot of questionable translation choices in Rori's releases of Episode 02 (which I saw after CrunchyRoll's) and Episode 05 (which I saw before CrunchyRoll's), I'm feeling more confident than ever in my personal decision to just wait for CR's delayed releases.

You might be thinking, "But didn't CrunchyRoll's release come out earlier today (Wednesday)? So why hasn't he seen it still?" Well, this post took quite a while to write up. I started writing it last night (Tuesday night), actually. ^^; And I didn't want to watch Episode 06 before finishing this post. So, now that the post is finished, I'll leave you guys to read it while I go and enjoy me some Sakurasou Episode 06 goodness. Then I'll post my Episode 06 thoughts tomorrow.

[Doppleganger]

I hope Ryuunosuke is a guy. I really do. I'd be pissed off as heck if he was actually a she-programmer.

[kaisap112]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

I hope Ryuunosuke is a guy. I really do. I'd be pissed off as heck if he was actually a she-programmer.

May I ask why it'd be such a bad thing?

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by kaisap112

May I ask why it'd be such a bad thing?

It pushes the show toward harem territory, and is especially shameless given Ryuunosuke's otaku tendencies. The last thing I want to see in another anime is idealized "female otaku" character.