11.9.2005 - Suzuka - Episode 18

Posted in Anime, Suzuka by Epi at 1:03 am

What’s her face rocks, she’s my new temporary favorite!	Yuuka and Miho face off
“I’ll meet you at Shinjuku”… right. In real life there’s so many people here every day I’d have no idea how they would find eachother!	Poor Honoka-chan!

I can’t believe it’s been a week since I’ve updated my blog. My how time flies when you say to yourself every day ‘I’ll update tomorrow’. Either way the fansub was a bit delayed in being released, but here’s my review of Suzuka episode 18.

Although not very much at all happened in this episode in terms of overall content, this was a pivotal episode within the entire series. The plot was pretty simple. After realizing that Honoka’s birthday was just two days away, Yamato sets out to find her the perfect gift. Being the idiot that he is, he brings Suzuka with him to shop for a present. Eventually they find one, but not before being secretly spotted by the ever insecure Honoka. As he gives her the gift, Yamato is yet again a moron and blurts out the whole story about how he had such a long day with Suzuka. Obviously Honoka is hurt by this and tells Yamato to leave, giving back the present to him.

It appears that this has finally set up the ‘end-game’ for the series. Because the manga is still ongoing, and because this is Suzuka after all (which has been almost as unpredictable as the last 12 episodes of Mai-HiME), what exactly the endgame will be is uncertain. If this were a standard anime series, I’d be happy to just say that this is where Honoka and Yamato break up and where the Suzuka and Yamato romance finally blossoms. But then of course for all I know, Yamato and Honoka could get back together, or maybe Suzuka, Honoka and Yamato may just end up hating eachother by the end with Miki and Hattori hooking up for good measure!

Either way this was yet another excellent episode even if it was quite simple. I really felt bad for Honoka, and as always I’m super amazed at how an anime with such obviously low production quality can so completely immerse and entrace me with its story. Word of advice though, don’t watch the next episode preview if you don’t want to be spoiled. Actually on that note, I think I’ll stop watching them altogether because they ALWAYS seem to be spoilerific… to the extreme!