10.17.2005 - Suzuka - Episode 15

Posted in Anime, Suzuka by Epi at 2:47 pm

The real Hiroshima Station looks just a bit different, although I wish I were there during the night to see the multicoloured fountain.	Yamato’s dysfunctional family… well not really dysfunctional they just all blame Yamato for everything!
Suzuka scored a few brownie points here, but I get the feeling she was being insincere	Best scene in the entire anime so far

Episode 15 of Suzuka was an extremely important scene in terms of the plot of the anime. As we left the last episode, Yamato and Honoka had just declared to eachother that they were officially going out, but as luck would have it Yamato gets trapped in Hiroshima with Suzuka as they miss the train. Honoka is obviously worried about what may happen as the episode opens with our heros searching for a place to stay for the night.

As Yamato is from around the area, he decides to stay home and lend Asahina some money to stay by a nearby hotel in order to keep temptations away, but of course Yamato’s family would have none of that, and before they know it, both of them are staying at Yamato’s house for the night. There we get to meet Yamato’s family a group which is perpetually blaming the ‘uselessness’ of Yamato for everything that goes wrong in the world. We quickly get a sense of why he left the house to go to school in Tokyo, and why he is the way he is as well.

The next day, Yamato offers to take Suzuka around town as they wait for the evening train, but Suzuka adopts her famous ‘ice queen’ stance and openly rebuffs him. She asks Yamato whether there is someone else that he should be thinking of instead, clearly hinting that she does not want to interfere with Honoka. But it is then that as Yamato calls Honoka that Suzuka has a change of heart, and takes up an earlier offer by Yamato to stay the night and watch the fireflies near his house. Yamato, clearly still under the influence of his love for Suzuka accepts even though he knows that he promised Honoka he’d be back that night. That night under the stars and the clear summer breeze, Yamato shows Suzuka the fireflies, and he tells her how he’d planned a long time ago to confess to a girl he liked back in middle school at that place. Suzuka makes Yamato replay that event, and what follows is my favorite scene in the entire show so far as we see Suzuka struggling between her feelings for Yamato and her sense of responsibility to Honoka for not interferring.

There have been many people that have railed on Yamato for so quickly accepting Suzuka’s advances, and so quickly to forget Honoka. I’d like to point out in defense of our spiky haired hero that his relationship with Honoka is his first, and had just started. Honoka had clearly taken him on the rebound, and while he does feel something for Honoka, his older feelings for Suzuka can not so easily be discarded. It is his reflex to try and please her as he has tried to do for the entire show, but it is a testament to him that he does nothing more than entertain her as a good friend might which does show that he is not willing to take things too far. Of course it helps that Suzuka was acting strange all day to him as well.

As far as Suzuka goes, while we very rarely get to see what’s going on inside her head we can clearly see an internal conflict brewing inside her. On the one hand she wants to remain cool, collected and responsible to Honoka and thus plays her ice queen role even if she does has feelings for Yamato that she does not want anyone to know about. On the other hand, the feelings are there, and the addition of Honoka to the equation really messed up her world. Before she was content to string Yamato along knowing that he’d always be there if she wanted. Now she knows that if she doesn’t act soon, he may drift away forever. How Suzuka will deal with this conflict and how much she will acknowledge her feelings for Yamato will be important in the episodes to come.