Glasslip – 06

This is not the sight you want to see

From the very early morning, being in love can unbalance you. Especially when you’re a girl of a certain age.

 

Out of Sorts

Mom’s bringing the advice

Touko’s mom hasn’t really gotten any mentions, even though she’s been in every episode so far. Usually she’s riposting one of dad’s bad stories (and Dad seems kind of unreliable anyway), but she finally gets a chance to act motherly with Touko, even if it’s in that “Mom who’s trying to be your best friend” kind of way. I love her bringing up a line about “If a girl of age is sleeping on her stomach, that means she’s in love” but also saying that she has figured out that Touko’s in love with someone anyway. That’s something that Touko hasn’t even figured out, or at least admitted. So it’s pretty certain that she’s in love with Kakeru, and even sees herself kissing him. As an aside, I’ve noticed in this show and in others that when people see their future in TV shows, they never see it from their own perspective. That’s just something that bugs me. I know it’s the show’s representation of what’s going to happen, but if we’re seeing Touko’s vision of the future, we should see what Touko sees / is going to see.

Touko’s much better at dealing with Hiro

Anyway, Touko’s in love, and mom’s supportive of her being in love, and even comes up with a good thought on knowing the future: If it’s good you get to enjoy it twice, if it’s bad you can prepare for it so it’s not that bad. But thinking about that, Touko can’t really wrap her head around the idea of enjoying her first kiss twice. Plus, Touko’s not the best at thinking about herself. Usually she’s meddling in other people’s business, so she’s pretty uncomfortable thinking about her own love life. You can see how much more comfortable she is when she ambushes Hiro about seeing Sachi, and that gives us a chance to compare Hiro’s blush to Touko’s blush. There certainly are a lot of blooming faces in this show. But back to Hiro, I think he’s going to be in for a rough time if he announces to Yana and Yuki that he and Sachi are going out, because I really do think that she might shoot him down or directly contradict him if he announces that, like she corrected Touko.

Showdown!

Yeah, whatever, dude…

Also known as “boys get stupid.” First of all, I really chafed at Kakeru and Yuki in this episode. Don’t go deciding things on your own! And starting from Hiro’s “trying to be nice” idea of inviting Kakeru to the get-together for fireworks, it all starts to be macho bullcrap. Yuki volunteers to ‘invite’ Kakeru, but what he’s really going for is to try to win Touko from him. Because the fact that she doesn’t love him is apparently completely meaningless. Not that Kakeru is much better about it, being obstinate about Touko’s feelings, not caring that he’s cock-blocking Yuki, and finally baiting Yuki about Yana’s confession to him, enough to garner getting punched out by Yuki. But at least he’s not leaving Touko hanging the way Yana is. She’s perfectly within her rights to call Yuki on the carpet for fighting over Touko after she’s confessed to him and he hasn’t even answered her anything about it.

Yana’s had enough of second fiddle

Not that that stops these two boys from continuing their feud. And that gives Yana the chance to step in and add a little more pain to Kakeru’s face. But Yana was just doing what Kakeru hoped that Touko would do for him, even though that’s not a Touko thing to do. I don’t quite get what his plan was after losing to Yuki, although I don’t think Kakeru knows either, because what comes after is as close to a confession as you can get, so the idea that he would lose to Yuki and go away is laughable. But maybe that was the point: he really did want Touko to stop them, the way Yana did for Yuki, to stop him from embarrassing himself against an opponent who doesn’t try.

Do these two understand how they feel now?

I can’t say “another great episode” for the whole series, but it certainly was. This show really puts you in the middle of this young adult drama, in a way that few shows do, letting you feel the uncertainty, the thrills, the worries that the characters are feeling. And on top of that, it’s done so well, with an airiness that really draws you in, and extra character moments that fill out the world, like the appearance of Kakeru’s mom in this episode. It’s kind of a throwaway moment, but it’s another example in this show of people who are actually in love. We don’t really know what the circumstances behind Kakeru’s mom and dad living separately are, whether they’re still married or they’re divorced, whether dad has also spent time moving around like mom has, or anything. But the conversation of these two people, almost like strangers, but obviously people who care for each other (“Of course I have all your albums, I’m your biggest fan”), is a fun addition to the idea that love is fun, which I think was part of Touko’s mom’s point at the beginning of the show, and something we’ve seen in her interactions with Touko’s dad.

Mom’s rather pretty, as well