Recap

Kousei still finds his feelings unrequited, and avoids Kaori as long as Watari is with her. Tsubaki finally summons the urge to reveal her feelings, only to wuss out at the worst time. Finally building up the courage to go see her, Kousei happens upon an unpleasant sight.

This show has been spinning its wheels about Kousei’s apprehension towards the Watari/Kaori angle for far too long. It seems so inconsequential compared to the greater themes of loss that this show could be doing proper justice that it feels weird. It’s also quite a pain to watch this show be so insufferably floral with its wording. Even the most inconsequential scenes seems to need a whole poem written about it “Oh Kaori, you’re like a cat, always sneaking up on me and stuff.” “Oh man, we both saw a plane, and usually that would be totally boring but because it’s you it’s magical.” give it a break, dude. April just brings out the grouch in me I guess.

Tsubaki is equally frustrating when it comes to her feelings. It seemed like this episode that she finally understood what she wanted. She readily admits that Kousei has always treated her nicely, but he’s a liar if he thinks he actually knows what she’s thinking as a girl. It felt like this would have been as good a time as any to finally have a real heart to heart. What is wrong with  characters in this show and just normally expressing their feelings? It seemed like everything was fine as Tsubaki got off her wonky confession, but then she just kicks him and runs away? It’s hard to feel sorry for this girl acting all “Why don’t you understand my feeeeliiiiiiings bluh bluh” when she sends these kinds of mixed signals. What’s worse is that with the time left in this show I know there isn’t going to be a satisfactory conclusion to any of the secondary plot arcs as everything seems to be sacrificed for the message of loss and acceptance.

Man, it’s super unnerving to see this show use physical violence as comedy when Kousei lost focus considering his backstory. It is just so insensitive to the very idea of emotional trauma that we go from “haha Tsubaki is weird, I wonder what her deal is.” to “GET BACK TO THE PIANO OR I WILL DESTROY YOU.” I know I’m sounding really off the cuff here, but it’s the only way to deal with a show that’s so immature about its presentation. To pile on top of an already ridiculously melodramatic episode, we get this finale. Kousei finally comes into his feelings and has the confidence he needs to reveal his feelings to Kaori, and then OH NO KAORI’S HAVING A MAGIC ANIME WASTING DISEASE ATTACK happens and we’re back to square one. It’s like this author didn’t know what they wanted to do with their finale so it decided to just cram in the most dramatic ideas possible, and I am super sick of it. The dead cat just seemed like an unnecessary metaphor, and left me feeling manipulated rather than legitimately touched.