Anne Happy – 09

Hi Five for Friendship!

It’s time for the combined class. And that brings in a whole new problem for Class 7.

Strict Saginomiya-Sensei

Half the class is worried

I’m kind of surprised that this is the first joint class that Class 1-7 has had, even though they’re at the end of the first term. But I guess they start the cooking and swimming classes after the final exams, so that they don’t interfere with studying. A joint class also presents a bit of a problem for a special class like 1-7: how are a bunch of unluckies going to deal with being in a class with not just normal girls but exceptional girls. Remember that all the people at Tennomifune are highly ranked in academics or sports… or unluckiness. But the show really doesn’t spend much time on that, instead just showing us the tribulations of the five girls with faces in the show. I did like how after Saginomiya’s initial exhortation about being perfect at cooking how the girls of Class 1-7 react, in contrast to the girls from the other class.

It’s a flamethrower!

There’s not much that’s surprising about how the cooking class goes, if you’ve been following along with the misfortunes of Hanako, Botan, and Hibari, as well as Hibiki and Ren. We’ve known that Hibari is actually a good cook, having to take care of herself since her parents aren’t at home, and it’s not surprising that she takes charge of their group after Hanako dulls a knife with one cut. But it’s not just Hibari that directs what they do, since Hanako is the one who suggests making baked curry rather than stewed. I wonder if her mom does that because she has the same issues with stoves? What was kinda surprising was that Hibari messed up and splashed the vegetable juice all over the food in her nervousness about being graded. Before she did that, it was looking good, and even gets praise from Miss Kodaira after Miss Saginomiya chews them out for carelessness. They certainly did better than Ren and Hibiki, whose food was about as lame as you could come up with. But even Miss Kodaira’s praise doesn’t pick up Hibari’s spirits.

Making a mistake

An Imposition of Happiness

Botan no ecchi

Nice job changing the lighting here to match Hibari’s mood,
dark and then lighter when Hanako comes in.

It is pretty wonderful, then, that Hanako and Botan decide to pick up Hibari’s mood by inviting themselves over for the night. I’m not sure why Hibari is so embarrassed about liking pink and cute things, but I like that Hanako and Botan both work on her self-consciousness about it, and not in a way that is making fun of her, just like they do with the person she likes. Their incessant cheer about everything is able to break Hibari out of her funk, which was caused by a bit of imposter syndrome, in that she feels she pretends to be responsible and grown up, but ends up being a bother in a crisis. But it’s not surprising that Hanako and Botan both offer to be someone to talk to and even be a bother to. You’d have to figure it’s the least they can do, as much as they impose on Hibari, but even just knowing that they want to be there help her is a good step for Hibari.

Maybe it was a bad idea after all

Hibari trusts her friend

And the next day, we’re back to the usual dynamic when the class is having a pool class. But we do see some different things, like when Hibari tries to stop Hanako and Botan from having an underwater breath-holding contest. I mean, it’s obvious to see where that could go wrong, but Miss Kodaira also has a really good point that just avoiding danger isn’t necessarily the best way to make yourself happy. Of course it still goes wrong, but at least they gave it a try. The other thing that’s tried is a race between the athletics class and the happiness class, which ends up exactly as suspected, until the thunderstorm comes. When Hanako gets stuck in the pool on a lane line, Botan and Hibari don’t hesitate to jump in to help free her, but when they don’t get it done in time, Botan implores everyone to get under the water, including Miss Saginomiya, saving them from the lightning strike on the pool. And that action helps earn a little bit of respect for all of them from Miss Saginomiya, who’s realized that maybe there’s more to the Happiness Class than just goofing off and inattentiveness.

Maybe it’s not such a useless class after all

I liked that this episode gets back to one of those questions that the show has kind of danced around throughout the series: How much of class 7’s ‘bad luck’ is just carelessness and inattention? It’s obvious that at the beginning and throughout the episode, Miss Saginomiya is firmly of the opinion that class 7 is all slackers, girls using ‘bad luck’ as the excuse for their failures, and has no place at a prestigious school like Tennomifune. And their performances in the cooking and swimming classes don’t really do anything to change her opinion, although comparing them to an athletic class is a little unfair in the case of the swimming races. It’s certainly the case that Class 7 can’t really compete against the other classes in their specialties, but as Miss Saginomiya experiences later, there is perhaps a benefit to bringing girls who have an affinity for mishappenstance together to maybe cancel out their quirks through friendship.

Someone’s Red String of Fate?

About Highway

Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!