Futakoi Alternative 5
Monday
Rentarou thinks of taking Sara and Souju somewhere as he prepares their coffee, but once he turns around.. they've eaten his most favorite pastry. But it looked yummy, they say. And now Rentarou's motivation to work has gone way down ;) But there's no work to do..
Sara goes out, taking pictures of seemingly random things. Back at the office, Souju plays a Daisy Fitzgerald song on the guitar while Rentarou rests. And while he sleeps they disappear. From time to time they'll do that, going away for a couple of days without any way to get in touch with them. But this time, it ended up being longer than that...
Tuesday (one week later)
Rentarou goes to the Chigusa twins', Ui and Koi's, pet shop for a job. Some rather interesting animals in their shop to say the least... There's a lost dog they want him to find, so he takes the job since that's all there is. He gets all the necessary preparations done for looking for a lost dog, then tries to call Sara and Souju. No response... Rentarou goes around putting up the lost dog flyers he made at various places around the town. He goes home and crashes, listening to a Daisy Fitzgerald record (yes, a record) he bought..
Wednesday
It's been 8 days since Sara and Souju left. Rain falls as Rentarou heads out to continue looking for that dog. He remembers the first time they went off two years ago... Sara was pretty pissed (y'all remember what that's called? tsun-tsun) that he demands an explanation for it. He says if they suddenly go off he can't get any work to do. But there's no work, Sara says. And they're not his kids or anything... He goes back home and crashes again..
Thursday
The phone rings: somebody saw a cat. But he's looking for a dog.. Today's the third day of searching for that dog.. no clues.. and it's the 9th day since Sara and Souju went off. But while he's out putting up more lost dog flyers... Sara and Souju show up, taking the flyers and glue and putting up tons of them ;) And so they began looking for the dog together through the town, seemingly as if nothing had happened... That evening, as they eat some croquettes, Rentarou seems to want to ask if Sara and Souju want to go somewhere again, but he only mentions that the croquettes are good. He goes to Zenji's afterwards to ask for a bit of advice...
Friday
Evening comes, and they still haven't found that lost dog as they walk together. Rentarou finally asks if Sara and Souju'd like to go to the onsen or somewhere.. Nope, how things are right now is the best, just walking together: even if they turn 20, or 30, or 40, or 50, or 60, or 80 ;)
Lulu and Lala make their appearance, running by the Chigusa's pet shop and looking at the hyperactive dog... and that lost dog comes back.
Saturday
Sara explains the picture of the clouds she took. A commemorative photograph. The sky of the time when they were truly happy. The clouds flow, the sun goes down, and the same sky won't exist again. But it'll always exist in that picture. Therefore, it's a commemorative picture.
Sara goes out taking pictures again and Souju plays guitar again. "Next time, when we leave again, will you come search for us?", Sara asks Rentarou as he rests. The camera pans over to a piece of paper with a map written on it, with Sara and Souju's location marked ココ and also a phone number...
So, the idea this time seems to be that life without Sara and Souju isn't that fun for Rentarou. There wasn't an explanation for exactly why Sara and Souju just leave like that... but perhaps that's not all that important and we don't need to know about it, or perhaps it is. We'll just have to see since I have no idea where ufotable is going to be taking us with this ;) These episodes that show how important the relationship between Rentarou, Sara, and Souju have been done really well. Excellent direction all over.. though yes, I know we'd like to see some more of the insanity of the first episode again, this pace now is one I definitely like. With a bit of SD crazyness every now and then thrown in, of course.
As for Ui and Koi.. they got the same treatment they got in Futakoi: which is, they got nothing, basically. Eh, they're not really a set I like so I don't really mind it.
Next time, the Ichijou twins, Kaoruko and Sumireko.. as mikos? We'll see how the heroines of the fall Futakoi get treated here.
Sara and Souju are simply too amazing. This was some great storytelling this time, and I found the development Rentaro went through without them both credible and touching at the same time.
Who would have thought that FA would turn into... well, this was a love story, of the pure kind.
I definitely like the crazy hyperactive episodes, but the "slow" ones have some great charm aswell. FA went so much beyond what the trivial Futakoi was - amazing.
Nice Review
=D GJ