The second season of Kimi ni Todoke closes its curtains with some rather happy moments and beautiful memories, at least for those rooting for Sawako and Kazehaya. For the rest, there’s nothing but the remains of shatter dreams and the tears that accompany them. Like Pin said in the beginnings of the episode, if good fortune exists in the world, then there must be an equal amount of misfortune. Well, I’m sure we’re all glad the good fortune exists for those who deserve it, like Sawako.
The focus of this episode, besides providing closure for all the characters and having Ryu be Ryu, was centered on Kurumi being the loser now that Sawako and Kazehaya are dating. She finally came to the realization that, no matter what possibly could happen, there was nothing that would allow her to be with the man she loved. And unlike Kent who goes after anything in a skirt or the other nameless girls who had their hearts broken, Kurumi has no second choice after Kazehaya. This was it for her. She felt the same way about Kazehaya as does Sawako. Had this happened to Sawako instead, it would’ve been a very painful story to watch, not only to see her get rejected but to see her ‘rival’ win in the end. So in that sense, I do feel torn when looking at Kurumi’s character go through this sequence.
Pin also had another funny moment later on when eavesdropping on Kazehaya and Ryu when he declared himself the MVP of the whole situation. That got me to thinking of who was the true MVP of the series. Before I could finish my thought, I knew the answer would be Ayane. Seriously, without Ayane, the romance in the series might’ve been a disaster. She was easily the best support member of the cast. She was able to identify issues when they were in their infancy and be able to direct the affected parties in the right direction with her sensible advice. She could also clear up any misunderstandings that some of the characters had. She also could anticipate what would happen and was able to do what she could in order to make things run smoothly. And I think she was the best straight-man for jokes in the series. Ayane’s role in the final episode was magnificent, calming down the Kazehaya-stalkers and articulating how Kurumi was feeling through most of the series. It’s too bad she can’t great a trophy for what she was able to do throughout the course of this season but I hope you all can appreciate what a great person she is.
Oh, and there was Ryu. It’s a shame that there wasn’t more time spent on Chizuru and Ryu’s relationship but we got a tease in the final episode. Yeah, Ryu confessed to Chizuru.
But the scene was played off as a quick joke and treated more like an afterthought than anything substantial. In fact, I found it a little insulting having these two fairly-developed and rich characters have their relationship be a nothing more than a joke that really didn’t fit in with the scene at all. It would’ve been better seeing them just walk off, arms linked and end the season like that but no, they had to go ahead and add that confession and reaction and end the season on that note regarding their relationship.
I don’t have a problem with how brief the scene was. It is kinda how I expected it would be with Ryu being swift and blunt (like a baseball bat) and Chizuru to have her surprised/denial reaction as a result. To be honest, I’m find with that. My problem lies in the placement of the scene. I wouldn’t have so much of a problem with that scene had there been more episodes to flesh out the topic. But there aren’t. That’s it. I was really hoping we would get to see Chizuru and Ryu spend sometime together developing their relationship and maybe see what Sawako and Kazehaya would do to support them. But we won’t be able to, unless we pick up the manga or wait for another season of the anime. So that whole scene disappointed me and left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Poor Chizuru and Ryu.
Despite this episode being the finale, I’m still hungry for more Kimi ni Todoke. The date in the park at the end, where Sawako gave Kazehaya his Christmas and Valentine’s Day presents, was a heart-warming way to end the season. But I want to see more of that. I want to see Sawako and Kazehaya actually spend time together and not time spent blushing, being embarrassed, and apologizing but rather more time like that date. It’s been a rather difficult series, especially when the relationship was shifted in reverse for most of this season, so I was hoping we would be rewarded with some quality time spent between Sawako and Kazehaya. We definitely got it in the past few episodes and it was satisfying, but I still want more. You can call me selfish but I really want to see where the relationship goes from here. And I’m sure that if you watched all of the series thus far, then you and I are hoping for another season sometime soon, too.
Avvesione's Anime Blog 