Hatsukoi Limited 09: Epic. Need I say more? [Ironically, I do]

Posted: June 10, 2009 | Author: flomu | Filed under: Uncategorized |8 Comments »

Yesterday, I said on Twitter that this is the best episode of the season, and now I’m here to prove it.

Basically, my main point here is that Hatsukoi Limited managed to stay true to its roots as a romantic comedy about “limited” “first love,” yet still pull off a touching and pure love story.

This episode depicts a situation that practically every anime watcher has encountered at least once in one anime series or another:

Ugly guy likes cute girl who likes “perfect” guy.

One of the most generic reverse love triangles.

Long ago before the dawn of modern anime, there was a time when “happily ever after” was the theme to everything.  In retro anime, you often see the ugly one being creepy and detestable, and the other guy being very likable, etc.  This is also [sadly] seen in many American cartoons/animated works.  In the end, the girl and the “perfect guy” would get together, have babies, and live happy lives while the ugly, evil one would get killed or make a not-really-touching speech and then disappear.

Then came the more modern tradition (or perhaps retro parody tradition) of going against this cliche.  Instead of ugly = bad, it’s ugly = misjudged and actually very nice and kind and stuff on the inside.  Something along the lines of “don’t judge a book by its ugly face.”  In this situation, there’d be the initial cliche playing out for a while, and then the “true faces” of the two guys getting revealed, leading to a reversed ending with a happy pretty girl + ugly guy getting married, having babies, and living happy lives while the handsome, evil one would get killed or make a not-really-touching speech and then disappear.  Shrek has to be the best example of this, but it also puts a twist on it, since it turns out that Ugly + Pretty + Short ==> Ugly + Ugly – Ugly Short Prince (as in, the girl turns out to be ugly).

By now, you’re probably wondering “What the hell is your point already?”  In short, my point is that Hatsukoi Limited episode 9 avoids both badly constructed plotlines, opting instead for a third middle route (or perhaps even paving one).

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that [Hiroyuki] Sogabe (above) is a character tailored for us, the viewers.  He plays on cliches only an anime watcher would know – namely, the “line” that Sogabe says.  In a normal (or rather, “boring”) romance anime, the line that Sogabe refers to in this episode would be “Will you go out with me?” or a variant of that.

Instead, he opts for the stereotypical “wrong” line – the thing that the person usually says out of nervousness (aka if you’re too nervous, you might say something other than a confession of love)… and it turns out that that line was what Sogabe was actually trying to say, not just a line that he fell back on because he didn’t have the guts to confess his love to Chikura.  Don’t get the humor?  Stop hanging out with friends and go watch more anime.

So basically, Sogabe has a twisted, semiotaku-like view of girls.  And don’t we all?  Everybody who watches anime obviously feels the same as Sogabe does.  But seriously, he is one character that a person could sympathize with.  He is honestly pretty pathetic for taking this road, and that’s a reason for the audience to favor him over Mr. Perfection.  He is clumsy when it comes to love, he is unsociable, and he’s a loser… but his imperfection makes for the traditional “pretty girl picks ugly guy over Mr. Perfect” plotline to happen.  We root for Sogabe.  Perhaps it is because the cliches “don’t judge a book by its cover” and “to err is to be human” are ingrained in our brains, or perhaps it’s because we ourselves can either relate to or feel pity for Sogabe.  In any case, we root for him in this love triangle.

And then he all but disappears from the episode.

Sogabe is almost entirely replaced by [Yukito] Renjou.  Renjou fits “Mr. Perfect” down to the last strand of hair.  He is nice, smart, and is willing to devote his life to helping others.  He is Chikura’s knight in shining armor.

In most situations like this, one of three things happens:

1. Sogabe interferes, and wins the heart of Chikura via pity for his determination and/or appeal of his imperfection.
2. Sogabe reveals the evil nature of Renjou, and wins Chikura.
3. Renjou rapes Chikura (and/or does something else to reveal his evil nature), and Chikura runs to Sogabe for help, and they end up together.  Sogabe rapes her too.

But none of these happens because of one thing: REALITY.

This is exactly why I like Hatsukoi Limited.  Though it has its unrealistic moments (Beast-kun as a mount and Ayumi’s strength, for example), they are usually fully contained within certain comedy segments, and never barge into the characters’ personalities.  Sogabe doesn’t pull a sudden bipolar-like change because of his deep love for Chikura.  The “ultimate power of love” doesn’t justify Sogabe suddenly manning up and going against Renjou, so it simply doesn’t happen.  Instead of a dramatic love triangle, we get more of a love geometry axiom:

After the first five minutes or so, Sogabe practically disappears from the episode, making only a few split-second appearances without much dialog.

Is this a love triangle?  Certainly.  Does it look like one?  Not at all.

This un-canon love triangle allows what could have been one huge drama hellhole to become an innocent hatsukoi [first love] deal.  First love is not always the drama that things like School Days go to such lengths to portray.  It’s innocent, pure, and happy, even in a love triangle situation (though this applies here mainly because middle school students =/= prone to uber romantic drama), and Hatsukoi Limited episode 9 has shown this.

The plot of this episode may seem simplistic, and it really is.  But a simple romance doesn’t need any twists and turns to make it good.  I’ve also heard people comment that Chikura’s love of Renjou over a picture is stupid, and it really is.  But naiveness is a crucial trait of first love, as is spontaneity (Love at first sight, you know?), and this episode has done, in my opinion, an incredible job portraying the actuality of “hatsukoi.”

In previous episodes, we saw Kei Enomoto’s superficial “guys who look good only” policy, among other displays of naiveness.  But this episode just blew me away.  In the other couples’ cases, the naiveness of one or more of the characters has led to a confused/undesirable (for at least one of the characters) situation.  For example, Ayumi is afraid of Beast-kun, Takei doesn’t notice Meguru’s breasts, Haruto is too timid and Dobashi appears too unfeeling to have a heartfelt, direct relationship, et cetera.

But in this episode, we are shown stage two of hatsukoi: an actual relationship blossoming from naive characters.  Chikura loves Renjou because of his painting, and Renjou [probably] loves Chikura for her whole-hearted support of his choice in life.  That bit of drama at the end is no exception.  Although Renjou leaves, it doesn’t mean that “first love” doesn’t work.  In fact, it is the very fact that he leaves that shows that (third “that,” my God) “first love” does work.  Renjou leaves because Chikura’s love and support has helped him gain confidence.  Though this isn’t to say that Renjou is totally unfeeling and uses Chikura simply as a self-esteem booster – his drawing of her symbolizes his love and thanks to Chikura for helping him along his way.  Had Renjou stayed and the two lived “happily ever after,” it’d’ve defeated the point of Chikura and Renjou’s relationship, since Chikura helps Renjou escape from his past life.

And what’s even better is that Sogabe, though he has a collective 2.263 seconds of screentime after Renjou appears (yet in those few seconds, we really, really do side with him), now has a chance to get together with Chikura.  This leads us to a very predictable conclusion: either Chikura tries to cling to Renjou and Sogabe eventually gets together with her or Chikura starts building a friendship with Sogabe and a mutual affection takes form.  However, this isn’t half bad at all.  At no point is there any sense of “wow, this is totally retarded” or “oh shit, Renjou comes back and this is turning into a dramatic piece of shit!”

Since I lost my train of thought, I’ll just end it here.  Sorry about that, but this post has enough reading material for a lifetime anyway [word count: 1519].

P.S.: My only qualm with this epsiode would be its lack of comedy.  Though the beginning was funny, this episode was mainly centered around romantic elements – which wasn’t bad, per se, but it certainly felt a little “off” from previous episodes.  Still, a far-beyond-great episode filled with down-to-earth “hatsukoi.”

tl;dr: HATSUKOI LIMITED IS AWESOME LOLO

* Considering that most love triangles are female-female-male, this would be the most appropriate term to use here…?

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