Flower and Asura – Episode 06

Episode Synopsis:

Foley enthusiast Toga (Shudai) refuses to compete in either Announcement or Recitation, much to the chagrin of Hakoyama (Setaro), who has been much more susceptible to pressure from his fellow second-years. In addition to the individual readings, however, there are separate categories for group productions, in combinations of radio/video and fiction/non-fiction. With the second-years apparently producing a video documentary, the first-years are encouraged to create something different – Toga advocates for a video drama, and, at Mizuki’s prompting, the bespectacled Mastuyuki (Akiyama) volunteers to put together a script for it.

This is on top of his obligation to develop his own script for his Announcement reading, which involves conducting an interview. Ultimately, he decides to interview Hana, and the two bond over their insecurities – Hana for whether she can maintain the level of acknowledgement she’s gotten for her readings, and Matsuyuki’s for whether he can—or even wants to—meet his parent’s expectations to become a doctor. Pressure in the Akiyama household has risen in the wake of his older siblings failing or declining to keep up the family tradition, such as it is – his older sister in particular is all but stated to be Saionji Shura, the vocalist from episode 3.

Hana also helps Anne work through the script she’s developing based on an off-screen interview with someone involved with the school cafeteria, and we learn some of the considerations that are taken into account to craft a clear and concise message. Passage selection being just as important for the Recitation category, Hana and Setaro also meet with Kichijouji for advice on which spots in the books they’ve chosen may best accomplish whatever vibe they want to convey (while meeting the length requirements). The whole gang ends up joining Hana to observe (and record) her reading to the youngsters on Tonaki Island.

Episode Review:

This episode finally introduces Matsuyuki in earnest and appears to set up his future contributions to the plot by way of his script-writing (some of which will involve Hana directly) and his connection to Saionji Shura. I like the guy – he seems pretty chill, especially considering everything he’s had to deal with at home.

Hana’s two other interactions also feel significant, for different reasons. It was interesting to see Setaro, having had time to calm down, express a grudging respect for Shudai’s refusal to get side-tracked by the reading competition, and then go even further by outright telling Hana that she doesn’t have to get swept up in anything she doesn’t want to do. I appreciate that he seems to have identified a junior who has a weakness to peer pressure similar to his own (she does outright say that she’d probably be pressured into competing even if she didn’t intend to) and offers the benefit of his experience on the subject.

Anne’s trouble with script-writing includes issues that I’m sure all writers come up against – I myself have noticed that I am willing to craft long, unwieldy sentences to try to consolidate thoughts or, indeed, to avoid using the same word too many times in too short a span. The other thing that got me about her script is the subject matter: if I’m interpreting it right, the selection of the collaborative menu item wasn’t the January of the current year, but the January before that (else, why would she bother to preface ichi-gatsu [Januray] with kyonen [last year]?). Not only is that more than a year, it covers an entire school year from start to finish by including two instances of graduation/entrance, so the second-year who proposed the idea would have become a third-year shortly afterwards, and then graduated just before story start. Kind of a raw deal if you ask me. This would explain, since Tonakiyaki is supposedly a regional snack variant named for Hana’s home island, why we’ve never seen the mysterious Ueda Azuki (whose name I’m guessing is a pun based on the replacement of the azuki bean paste in traditional dorayaki with some form of sweet potato) on the boat that ferries the high-schoolers around. We even get to see a box of it at the end of the episode, though I unfortunately can’t parse the label myself:

Hana’s mom, who delivers the snacks, does so while drawing deeply from the same well as Hiro from Hidamari Sketch – unsurprisingly (to people who have watched Hidamari Sketch as many times as I have), they are indeed both voiced by Gotou Yuuko. It’s good to hear her still getting work, considering that she was already such an industry veteran in the forever-ago year of 2007 that she played herself as the intimidating enforcer at the end of Lucky Channel.

Summary:

The introduction of the group production caught me off-guard, and I hope we have the runtime remaining to do it justice considering everything else that seems to be going on, but otherwise a fine episode of plot-building and character interaction.