#kazuma looks so done too hes like im not even in to her but i still noticed babe

[seratlantisite]

[singingforthepromises]

fruits basket manga lb (chs 131 - 133)

CH 131

We’re learning about the origins of the curse now. Oh boy. 

The cat went to God first ;A; 

omg the cat died first.... 

God saved it!

Oh, the cat didn’t want to have eternal life... and the others and God took that as rejection.... seriously? So petty, honestly. I love learning about how it happened but I’m just like... wtf. It’s like all of this generational trauma could’ve all been avoided if God and the animals hadn’t misinterpreted shit LOl

YUKI’S CRYING ;A;

I totally understand Yuki’s feelings here. It must be hard. You’re free, but you’re also letting go of something that was a part of you for so long, something that helped shaped who you are, no matter how negative a situation. 

AH AJSFJSJF HE CAN HUG HER NOW OH MY GOD I TOTALLY FORGOT IM SOBBING

MACHI IS SO CUTE 

She’s calling him by his first name KSFJSJFJSF

AHHH THEY KISSED! ENDGAME YUCHI! <3

“When did that promise turn into a curse?” What I’ve been asking since since the very beginning rofl

AKDGDKG KYO’S SHOWING KAZUMA HIS BARE ARM IM ;A;

KAZUMA IS SO HAPPY SJJDG

Haru and Rin!! <3

omg look at Tohru pulling on Kyo’s shirt how cute

is Tohru gonna see Akito? <3

SHE’S HUGGING HER! I LOVE THIS! I love that Akito can see that even after the curse has been lifted, Tohru wasn’t lying about being there for her, about being her friend. Akito needed this, honestly. I’m very happy with the resolution of their rivalry. I’m happy with how the curse broke. 

“The Cat’s wish... wasn’t granted... until much, much later.” IM CRYINGGG

CH 132

Starting the last volume... this is so depressing, I don’t want this story to be over. 

Akigure time, lol. 

Oh is this the final banquet? 

IT’S SO NICE TO SEE RITSU AGAIN!! <333

“Things might be a bit tense.” Oh, I’m sure. I don’t think it’s all going to be sunshine and daisies. Akito may be behaving a hell of a lot better and changed her ways, but there’s still a lot of pain here, pain that she directly caused. I’m interested to see how this is going to go. 

LOL @ momiji calling Kyo a cheater we love to see familial teasing!

I love that they’re not all awkward around each other. It just goes to show that a lot of their genuine personalities poked through even among the curse. They all do have a bond, curse or no curse. And it’s very nice to see Kyo being actually included in that bond. 

lool fucking Ayame, man. I love him. 

Aww is Yuki kinda sorta looking out for Kyo around Ayame? I love this. 

HAHA 

“Akito’s ready to see you.” sfjsjfsj

OH WOW.

Look at her? She looks so pretty? 

RITSU LMFAO

Oh, Shigure got her that kimono. 

Yeaaah, this is what I’m worried about with Akigure as a ship. Akito’s better, but she still has a tendency to fly off the handle if she thinks she’s being slighted, and it makes me worried about how they would handle dispites and arguments without getting physical like that, you know? I’d hope that she’d do it less and less as time goes on. 

“All of you are free. And this may come too late, but for everything... I’m...” Oh my god. Is she trying to apologize? 

She can’t, though. It won’t come out. I bet she probably feels like sorry isn’t enough, in some ways. How do you apologize for a lifetime of suffering that you’ve caused, the trauma inflicted on other people? 

I guess Akigure are official, lol. I mean, I’m glad that Akito’s getting a somewhat happy ending. Shigure, I still don’t like him but he’s a fantastic character. 

Akito’s gonna stay at the estate and be the head without keeping anyone shackled to her. That’s as good of an ending as I could’ve anticipated for her. I’ll be honest: I still feel like she got off a little easy. She should’ve faced some legal consequences, at least. But I don’t dislike her like I used to. She’s definitely come around and I’ve partially forgiven her. 

I’ll talk more about my feelings about Akito and everything once I’ve finished, but that’s where I am right now. 

CH 133

AHHH KYORU. THEY’RE OFFICIAL! 

loool who is Mayu talking about? 

OH Yuki and the others know about Akito being a female now? Nice!

“I can’t believe I was so violent... to a girl.” KYO. MY BOY. Omg what a sweetheart? Honey, she was violent to you, too. 

“The last thing I wanted was another guy interested in you.” LMFAOOOO 

YUKI’S DYING

“The mood between the two of them has become somewhat gentler than before.” Somewhat? Girl, they’re friends now, and I’m loving it. It’s so cute. 

“He beat the crap outta me.” YES LOL

“Kyo-kun smiles more than he used to. I’ve come to realize that this is his true self.” ;A;

oh my gosh THEY’RE SO CUTE.

How are they even cuter now that they’re dating?!

“Walking together, hand in hand, isn’t something that I’ll ever take for granted.” I’m cryinggggg. ;a; My babies. 

NOT TALK OF A KYORU BABY MY HEART CAN ONLY HANDLE SO MUCH.

AND GRANDPA KAZUMA!! HE’D DOTE ON THAT KID!

What’s wrong with my bby girl Isuzu? :(

“Not everyone... is in the same situation.” Ah, yeah... 

“How can you act like nothing ever happened? She did all kinds of nasty stuff to Kyo. And she hurt you a lot too. Those wounds will never disappear, will they?” I 1000% understand Rin here. I was waiting for this to be brought up!

Oh, Isuzu, my poor girl. 

This might change later on, but as of right now, I don’t fully forgive Akito, either. There’s just too much that she did to too many people. Like Rin, like Yuki, like Kyo. Even Hatori. I’m generally a forgiving person, but I have a hard time with abusive characters. Maybe it’s from my own past, being a survivor of abuse. Being around it and knowing how they are just impacts you differently, I guess. I don’t know if it’s right to say that maybe people who haven’t experienced abuse are able to forgive easier. 

I haven’t forgiven my abuser, and I never will. Do I still understand why they did it, why they are who they are, and do I still empathize? YES. I feel a lot for people. I feel a lot for Akito on a positive note, and I’m so proud of her progression. She’s a hurt woman who deserved better and who hurt people because she was in so much pain herself. She hasn’t been able to break free of her abuser or heal yet. She needs a safe space to do that, and she’s beginning to learn to be better and be a sweeter person. Tohru showed her that. 

But like Rin, I can’t fully forgive her. If Tohru hadn’t done what she did, hadn’t reached out to Akito, Akito never would’ve changed. She would’ve continued to be horrible and not feel regret for the things she’s done. I appreciate that she was trying to apologize, though. And there are things that I’ve forgiven her for. It’s the worst indiscretions that I can’t. How she treated Rin and Yuki, specifically. I know that she was projecting with Rin. But Rin was a child and an abuse victim herself. Out of all of them, Akito could’ve related to her. Akito knew. She used that instead to hurt Rin, and that is the one thing that I’ll never be okay with. 

“They’ll need time. A whole lot.” Yes. And even then, it may not be enough. Some scars run so fucking deep that even time doesn’t help. I’ve healed from my trauma. It doesn’t impact me anymore. I’ve learned how to cope and move on and now utilize those skills to help others. I think time will help, though, and it may allow others to forgive Akito later. 

Distance is the key here, I think. If they’re not around her, maybe forgiveness will come easier. 

Wow, Akito taking what she learned from Tohru and reaching out to the maid? We love to see it. 

[palamig]

hi! i'm reading furuba and there's something i don't quite understand so can i ask you a little question? so after tooru fell and ended up in the hospital why does everyone acting so rude and accusatory towards kyo? saying it's his fault, he need to apologize etc. i suppose they are doing this to help (?) but it feels so hurtful... and overall i can't help but feel so sad for kyo during the progression of the story, people treat him so poorly and i barely see anyone actually being kind to him :(

Hello anon!! Thank you for this question!! The hospital arc is really the toughest one on kyo :( but it’s also the same arc that finally gave him a reality check. Kyo’s biggest flaw has always been that he’s too (unintentionally) self-absorbed with his issues. His struggle to deal and cope with his trauma has had a disastrous effect on his relationship with the people he interacts with like kyoko, kazuma (for that period in time he refused to let himself call kazuma as his dad), and to a really great extent yuki. It reached its peak at the hospital arc, when instead of accepting tohru’s feelings for him, kyo, blinded by a really awful mixture of guilt over kyoko’s death, his self loathing, and the sincere expectation that there was no other future for him except for being imprisoned for eternity, said some really terrible stuff to her

No one is truly, sincerely blaming kyo though. Cat boy really had too much stuff going in his head. The problem was, not only did kyo really really hurt tohru, because of his brooding, he ended up never going to the hospital to visit her at all. Whether or not for understandable reasons, it certainly pissed off a bunch of people. Yuki was the first one to confront him because at this point, he’s just fed up with kyo’s infinite problems.  Tohru fell from a cliff, sustained serious injuries, and is literally confined in a hospital!!!! Meanwhile kyo, the closest person to tohru, the person tohru’s so clearly in love with and vice versa “that it’s obvious even to a middle schooler”, is sulking around on the balcony like he was in some linkin park music video or something. Like what the fuck man!!!! What the fuk!

That’s how we got the oscar award winning Shut The Fuck Up scene on the balcony. Yuki got even more pissed when he found out that the reason why kyo didn’t go was because kyo blamed himself for tohru’s accident and he thought she’d be better off if he never came because all he ever did was hurt her. And honestly, if you’ve been watching your two housemates flirting and being gross like it’s no ones business for almost 2 years now, and you hear this kind of shit from one of them “im like..only hurting her dude…” you’d be super pissed too like im sorry kyo but its true

For the most part of the manga yuki’s been an unwilling spectator to most kyoru scenes, and a lot of people attribute this to him trying to understand the nature of his feelings for tohru—which is true! But when we finally get to the hospital scene, we also see that maybe a small part of that is also yuki’s slight frustration that he can’t make tohru happy the way kyo does. The Shut The Fuck Up Scene takes their mutual jealousy into its final form: because now it involves tohru.

At this point “jealous” isn’t the right term. More of, both of them sincerely believed that the other can treat tohru much better. But we see that this is an issue that affects yuki—their unwilling spectator—so much more, not only because of the way kyo hurt tohru, literally one of the most precious people to yuki, but also because of yuki’s awful history with kyo. A lot of people have already talked about this scene from the yuki and kyo perspective, so i’ll limit my discussion to what i believe is the kyoru aspect.

When Yuki kicks the wall and starts crying when he tells kyo “do you really think it would be the same if I were beside her?” — you know from the many panels we’ve seen of yuki watching kyoru flirting from afar or kyo noticing stuff about tohru yuki never noticed, he’d been thinking about this a lot. So kyo telling yuki that tohru would be much better off with him is, to yuki, a load of bull! fuckin! shit!. But poor cat baby is way too oblivious to notice just who exactly he was to tohru. To ignore tohru’s own feelings. How tohru sees him, and only him. There were some things only kyo can do. And the most effective way (possibly even the only way) to get stubborn kyo to finally understand it is thru some screaming and a nicely aimed punch on the face. Because this is no longer about kyo’s issues, this is also about tohru, her feelings, her loneliness,  her quiet struggle to fight for her favorite person and to save from his destiny as the cat. This scene was beautiful because yuki finally explodes, both for his own sake and for tohru’s.

And then there’s saki and arisa. I think saki and arisa were also rightfully pissed. Like, more than “rejecting” the girl u’ve been shamelessly flirting with for the last gazillion years, u just called tohru, the nicest purest kindest girl in the world “delusional” like boi???!? Let’s just say if kyo was just some other random guy he wouldn’t have come out of that confrontation at school alive. But because saki and arisa genuinely love kyo, they cut him some slack. While neither saki nor arisa knew about the curse and the imprisonment, both of them, especially saki (who has been reading kyo’s ~feelings~ since the first time they met) know that despite this one instance of him seriously hurting her feelings, kyo is a positive influence on tohru. There was really no other person for tohru than kyo. They wanted him to stop moping around and blaming himself. 

Saki told kyo that tohru wasn’t looking for an apology. What tohru really wanted was for him to return her feelings. Everyone and their mothers knows that kyoru is written in the stars; but kyo, way too absorbed with his issues, actively pushed her away, when he could have let her in. They wanted him to realize this for himself before they could let him see tohru again. And kyo knows deeply within himself that he needs to get his shit together. He didn’t need other people to figure that out for him, but what he does need is other people to drag his ass to finally get it done.

These three showed kyo some tough love during the hospital arc and i can understand why people might think kyo is getting too much bad treatment, especially in this arc. But personally i think these three did the right thing. Kyo needed to take a step back from the chaos in his mind and see the big picture; to see what he’s been desperately trying to avoid. Tohru’s out there ready to love him, and all he needed to do was to let her in. But cat boy is furiously stubborn there was really no other way to make him realize that than to be harsh on him

The hospital arc is one of my favorites because from there we see how kyo finds the courage to face the one person who was the root of all of his trauma—his biological dad—and come into terms with all of his complicated issues, even (and i really want to emphasize this) before akito told him that the cat room has been destroyed. He was willing to let go of his shackles to be with her, despite a future of being caged forever. All of it for tohru. So that when he finally saw her again, he’d be a man free from all the shit that had truly been imprisoning him all his life. So he could be with tohru, and she could be with him, with nothing holding them back.

Ahh there are so many more beautiful things about this arc but i hope this is a sufficient answer to your query!!

[shoushatohaisha]

review: hajimari no kyojin (osaka 6/1)

so. hello. i usually write up my butai thoughts as, um, 100+ tweet threads in the immediate wake of whatever i just saw, but this time around i thought i'd work them out into a proper report, of a sort. if you, too, have seen this show already and want to talk about it... please. any time. always.

about reviewing: this is my very favorite 2.5D franchise, ever. but this is also a review, not a cheerleading exercise, so not every single thing i have to say is unrelentingly positive. having said that, i respect kinoshita, wada, suga-zachou, and the staff at large more than just about any creative team in this corner of japanese theater fandom so like. i'm not here to drag, lol.

about spoilers: i talk about the plot elements covered but try to avoid spoiling any of the fun production surprises. :) happy to do a more spoilery play-by-play later if folks are curious.

about length: i just checked and it's 2400 words im so sorry.

without further ado...

first of all, i admit that based on the preview clips i doubted, and i was swiftly taken to task for doubting. IM SORRY WORRY-SAN i trust u implicitly and i should have known better. after the major changes in shinka no natsu, i was concerned that bringing back the revolving stage and the original opening theme would feel stale/regressive. it did not. while they did bring back the revolving element they also extended the stage backward and added a second level behind a full stage height projection screen – the second level was used to do some neat staging for flashbacks/parallels and the screen was used to, how shall we say this, up their projection game in a major way, which i frankly did not think was possible. i will not spoil the details but it was pretty great, on a purely technical level.

i also realized that a lot of the repetition – opening with the bike scene, bringing back the original opening credits music, the staging, etc – is the "look back" over the last couple years that i'd expected to come this fall. they are very obviously already preparing for the end – you could think of this as part one of their last show, with the fall as part two. the show opens with a restaging of sixth grader hinata seeing the little giant on tv for the first time – then the current karasuno team take the place of the tv and hinata joins them for a team jog. "karasuno, fight!" "oh!" "fight!" "oh!" only then each character calls out their signature line from the show so far. "uchi no renchuu wa chanto tsuyoi" / "mou tobenai karasu nante yobasenai" / "murabito b mo tatakaemasu!"

and haha. let me tell you. BOY, DID I FEEL THINGS. a lot of things. i think yachi got me the worst but they were all real bad. (i have so many feelings about yachi's story and what a beautiful job saitou ami did with her character on stage. god. ;_;)

the theme of this play was the role of captain – what makes a good captain, what a captain does for the team, and how to step into those shoes when the captain is gone. the johzenji match is fun, but here, in a sense, it exists more or less to set up the wakutani match – (re)establishing daichi's importance so that his absence feels like the gut punch it is. and fully settling the weight of that responsibility on ennoshita's shoulders, as both daichi's substitute on the court and the captain-in-waiting.

with that in mind, the rival schools: imo it wasn't strictly necessary to cast full teams for each school – each match got its own dedicated act, and unlike, for example, nekoma/datekou in karasuno fukkatsu (which had a similar story structure), there aren't really any individual characters on these rival schools who have a role as such other than terushima and takeru. (you know, the captains. see above. XD) so in theory one could get this done with, like, one actor for each captain and then an ensemble cast playing the rest of the team across both matches. HOWEVER, having all those bodies allows them to do super cool stuff visually, and why force yourself to create the illusion of a full team if you don't have to? i.e., /i/ sure am not complaining, isn't it nice to have $$$ to achieve the max vision of your choreographer. XD

i also have no doubt that the kids playing these other characters are doing whatever they can to create a character within the ensemble, and i suspect there's plenty for repeat viewers to pick up on, esp during say the johzenji match (see below). however for the first time viewer following the main flow of the story it's more or less a very large ensemble cast.

the johzenji chaos was well expressed, haha, there was so damn much going on all the time that i hardly knew where to look. (i've also seen opinions on j-twitter that that diluted the impact and i can see that too – it worked for me as a "funny" match that didn't cross the line into comic relief, but ymmv.) i thought the final scene with misaki would pack more of a punch, but i fully expect them to cry at daisenshuuraku so that might fill in the last 10% that's missing rn.

wakutani are another Good Dance Team. one did get a sense, stylistically, of fukurodani- and nekoma-lite with johzenji and wakunan, respectively – i assume that was intentional. mirroring the cats vs owls match, as it were. yanagihara rin's takeru was like… scary?? i had to rewatch those episodes this weekend to see if i'd just forgotten something, but no, stage takeru is not so much reliable middle brother as scowly quiet tough guy. he looked like a kyoutani tbh, and looking at the kid actually cast for kyoutani, one wonders if someone in casting mixed up some paperwork or something. having said that, yanagihara was great at being the character he was, i enjoyed what he did on stage. i'm just not sure that character was takeru. XD (edit: ok having just rewatched, i have to revise this somewhat, i think a big part of my impression was due to being too far back to properly see his expressions the first time around -- up close he was much smilier, and bc i was thinking about it i noticed some nice details like him going over for a family hug afterward.) otoh big post-match scene – all of wakutani, actually – was really good. v effective, i heard sniffles around me.

during this match, johzenji reappeared dressed as takeru's family: FUCKING HILARIOUS omg, everyone involved has clearly learned how to do this right wrt blocking, the very fine line between comic relief and intrusion, etc, after the, er, shaky shousha to haisha experiment of kuroken doubling as oikawa's fangirls. seichou shita na, errone.

also, some great wire work for hinata and takeru – you could tell kenta is really comfortable up there these days. the first time the wires came into play one of the women behind me went "UWO!" which, when a japanese theatergoer makes a noise out loud, that's a true sign something's impressive. XD

nekoma vs fukurodani: Yeah, That Happened. it is a testament to how well done karasuno vs wakunan was that i didn't just spend the entire time screeching BRING BACK CATS VS OWLS because fjkdajfkdlsfjd KYAA. another good staging moment – they used mirrors to create the effect of two full teams playing at a crowded gymnasium, it was brill. i won't spoil some of the fun details but vvjakdlfjdf. and tbh i think the best performance of the four was probably shouri's?? not that this is news but istg idk how someone so soft offstage does THAT on stage. is it this "acting" thing you speak of.

new bokuaka: i mean it was clear some of this material was meant for yoshimoto kouki and i did kinda miss him – i appreciate higashi-san's pinch hitting and he did a solid job. but. ah well. HAVING SAID THAT. fucking "michi wo tsukurimasu yo" i mean we should all be grateful it wasn't kouki and yuuki or it would have just been a fucking fanfic on stage. it was still bad and i don't even go here. XD

and last but not least, arita ushiwaka kenji: not exactly the world's most natural line delivery but that's fine because, i mean, he's ushiwaka. and his physical presence was perfect. which was about all he was called on to do in this particular show, ahaha.

now, for karasuno. and specifically, for my son, kawahara kazuma. remember what i said approximately a thousand words ago, about captains and captains in waiting and stepping up to the plate? (or onto the court, as it were.) ennoshita's story was the heart of the wakutani match and kazuma carried the second act. he was. so. good. he had good material to work with, of course, but he made it even better. i was saying to a friend that in retrospect i think this is one of the very very few parts of the series that actually played better and more emotionally affecting on stage than in the source material (as opposed to differently good/differently affecting). in the manga/anime, you can only see what the paneling or the frame shows you, and those initial paneling/framing choices are focused on the drama of CAPTAIN DOWN. but on the stage, daichi goes down… and off to the side you see ennoshita freeze. and from that moment on, for kazuma, it's go time. he doesn't let up until the end of post-match scene in (here) the locker room – which, jesus, that scene. it packs ten times the punch it does in the anime. because of kazuma.

sorry if i sound like a crazy person here ahaha. but like. like, imagine you have been acting since childhood, you've studied dance with famous choreographers and innovators, you had a main role in The Franchise That Changed 2.5D as a teenager, you've done a solo album, you have a serious history in performing arts... and you get cast in what was initially the smallest role of the entire karasuno team. and you take it! and pull your weight! kazuma was a team player for three years and he deserved this chance to let his actual skills shine so much. ;_; because i don't necessarily think he would have been better in any of the other roles than his actual teammates – but i do think he is a much better actor than several of his actual teammates. and he finally got the opportunity to show that.

anyway, when it came time for curtain calls, the applause swelled noticeably for kazuma – a louder ovation than anyone except kagechan and kenta. and one of those people clapping her hands off, say in row 20, just a random row choice, was definitely tearing up at the same time.

IN OTHER KARASANEWS. kt-san. LIVE IN PERSON KT-SAN BACK IN THE ROLE HE WAS MEANT FOR cries into my hands i love him daichi-saaaaaaaaaan. very occasionally his delivery reminded me he's a model not an actor, if you know what i mean, but like, for the vast part it didn't matter because he is naturally such a perfect fit. have i mentioned i love him.

new suga: mmmmm. he looked and moved fine but his line delivery did not convince me. tbf it's not like suga has a huge role to play in these matches so 1) it's not a huge deal 2) he didn't get much chance to get into the character. either he'll get better or he won't, and if he doesn't it's not going to sink the next play or anything. he seems like a nice enough kid, i wish him well!

kageyama tatsuya: still can't yell and enunciate at the same time. loved that they brought back the archer analogy from shinka no natsu though!! it was one of my favorite things about his kageyama, and it's nice that it's something he "owns" instead of imitating/inheriting from tatsunari.

tsukishima & yamaguchi: miura kairi continues to get even better, i'm so pleased. <3 also, i love love love that they still use the musical motif from shousha to haisha for yamaguchi's jump float serve. it was the same in shinka no natsu, it's the same here. THE TSUKKIYAMA WAS REAL CUTE, great detail work before and after the serve as well as after tsukki's block(s). as for tsukishima, much as they brought back kageyama's archer imagery, they brought back tsukki's fancy katana kill block. (they didn't waste kondou shouri, either, i'll leave it at that.)

last but not least, MY ACTUAL SON AND FEELINGS TWIN, SUGA KENTA: ok like. to set the scene here. i have mad respect for this kid and also love him to death as a human. i think he puts more thought into this production than anyone else in the cast – he is practically worry-san's AD. and he clearly has a lot of real deep thoughts and feelings about the source material. so deep in fact that it took a while for me to come around to his hinata because while, for example, tatsunari's kageyama could have walked straight off my television screen, kenta went down to the manga and built hinata up from there. he didn't have a choice – he's nothing like murase ayumu's voice. all too often we, and i include myself here, think of the two dimensions in 2.5D as anime, rather than manga... but just as there's a big gap between the two dimensions of animation and the three dimensions of live theater, there's as big a gap again between static black-and-white drawing, and movement and color and sound. and when i looked at kenta's hinata as something created solely from furudate's art style, it all slotted into place for me. (naturally, ymmv.)

it also took kenta longer than some of the others, i think, to portray all of what he wanted to. shoen hinata was pretty yelly, and pretty single-register yelly. hinata is a yelly character, of course, but the balance between that hinata and Serious Match Hinata was out of whack at first. this got better and better with every show. and then—

his encounter with ushiwaka here. was IT. it was what i was looking for all this time. his delivery of hinata's big line there was like – i think maybe i clapped my hands over my mouth, unclear, bc it was like the final missing piece and i was so happy. kentaaaaa. ;____;

part of me wonders if this is what kenta's always had in his head but maybe couldn't get his face/voice to express the way he wanted it? OR, IT'S KENTA, SO MAYBE IT WAS ON PURPOSE and his previous Serious Hinata was meant to be like, just a feral hunger child whereas this is the kid who experienced the heartbreak of losing to seijou. i would love to ask him tbh. XD

anyway, my son, after five plays continues to grow in his portrayal of this character. kenta is the heart of gekidan haikyuu in so many ways, and i will be at their graduation show if it kills me.

(breathes out) i think that's. everything. a best setter award to anyone who read this far, and feel free to ask if there's anything specific you want to know about? i will be seeing it again this weekend for daisenshuuraku and will be sure to report back on who cried, etc. all hail volleyball stage the end. 🏐

[palamig]

Do you think they’re gonna do some soup/true form combo? Or do you think they’ll do it after because it’ll be more explicitly romantic then? I just.... need soup

I feel you anon we’ve been thirsting for the soup for way too long…….. People have pointed out it’s highly likely they’ll give us a mix of it next week and honestly my body is SO HERE for kyoru leek soup PLUS kazuma like YES

Personally it also won’t feel right for me if they moved the soup ep until after the true form arc. The soup ep has always been the prelude to the true form arc because it lays out the ‘bond between tohru and kyo’ that the true form arc will ‘test’ and ultimately ‘reinforce.’ In the soup ep, we see just how much tohru was starting to mean to kyo as her own person. He cared about her so much he literally was willing to expose himself to his most hated vegetable in the world just because it’s what would help her feel better. Girl the EFFORT he put into that soup/porridge/etc!! So unrivaled it SHOOK shishou to the core when he heard of it (im exaggerating). Kyo never would have done that for anyone else. But more than that…is this part:

I think it’s that last part that really solidified not just what kyo wanted to become for tohru, but how tohru was starting to value kyo. It’s an intimate moment – they’re both in her bedroom (it’s kyo’s first time at le future gf’s room 👀!!), talking about sensitive things, things tohru can never share to anyone, not even to her closest friends, hana and arisa. Correct me if im wrong I also think it’s the first time kyo sees her crying as a result of her opening up about her own problems (and this literally makes him weak in the knees lmao like this karate/judo/etc black belter doesnt know how to deal with his girl crying!! but as we see in later chapters…he gets used to it HAHA), and the first time tohru lets herself have negative feelings about things she is going through. Kyo can’t look at her in the eyes, and with his ‘awkward kindness’ tells tohru it’s okay for her to complain to him, that he’s willing to cook all her meals if it means she gets better

This is an important beginning to the ‘together always’ narrative that the story will progressively build on. And it would help viewers understand why tohru was so driven to get him back when he ran off after his bracelet was forcibly removed. 

The soup ep gives an additional OOMMFFFFFHHHH to this particular panel because by this time the viewers have SEEN just how intimate kyoru is!! Viewers have seen how soup ep kyo reached out to tohru, how he told her ‘it’s okay to be selfish sometimes’, how he was the one who told her ESSENTIALLY he’ll be by her side ~in sickness and in health~. Soup ep kyo, who offered himself for for her to lean on during her bad days, was largely what tohru was seeing underneath his true form, and tohru wanted to be that person for kyo too. She was also practically in love with him at this point.

So putting the soup ep after the true form arc wouldn’t make sense to me personally!! I understand why some people believe it is a good scene to start the slow-burn kyoru romance post-true form arc because it’s very romantic but i feel like it has always been intended to be pre-true form. It feels more right this way hehe

Again its safer to assume that they’re giving us both soup and kazuma next week so theres no need to panic anon!!! 

Thanks for this question i feel you in a spiritual level anon!!