Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m thinking we’re due for a return to the charming drama of Skip and Loafer, wherein Mitsumi has most recently adopted her most prickly companion so far. In spite of initially distrusting Mitsumi’s sunny disposition, Mika eventually found it impossible to resist sheltering our guileless little duckling, and even training her for the big field day volleyball tournament. And for her own part, Mika also added some welcome friction into this altogether cheerful narrative, emphasizing how many people simply lack the natural disposition to succeed in the ways Mitsumi has. Mitsumi navigates the invisible social minefield of high school by largely ignoring it; to someone like Mika, who had to change her look, her interests, and even her personality to fit in, it’s understandable that Mitsumi’s success would feel “unearned” in some way. 

Of course, the truth is that sincerity simply works. Some people will scorn you for being simplistic, some people will doubt your intentions, but if you stick to your own truth, you’ve a good chance of finding people who actually like you for who you are, and appreciate your earnest embracing of life’s pleasures. Most of us don’t have such instantly winning personalities as Mitsumi, but we’re not monsters; all we can do is speak as honestly as we can, share what compassion we can offer, and accept that we can’t please everyone. And fortunately for people like Mika, the Mitsumis of the world will always be there to lend a hand, if only we can keep ourselves from resenting them for being so dang upbeat and likable all the time. Let’s get to it!

Episode 6

We again open on a return to Mitsumi’s seaside home, this time presented courtesy of a video chat with her friend Fumino. Mitsumi’s connection with her hometown is not an abstract thing, a simple spoken motivation – it is a persistent, active part of her life, informing her evolving feelings on her Tokyo life as well. In this way, the story maintains Mitsumi’s presence as someone always a step removed from the hustle and bustle of city life, while also ensuring her dream of revitalizing this town feels tangible and relevant to her everyday emotions

Oh boy, Fumino’s got a boy she likes! And considering their village only has like a dozen children, I imagine it’s someone Mitsumi knows as well

Mitsumi was certainly uniquely well-suited to the small town life. Someone like Mika would undoubtedly feel stifled and resentful of such a limited social experience, but Mitsumi enjoys knowing and being known by everyone in her community

Mitsumi feels somewhat left behind by Fumi’s crush

“But we are at that age now…” Mitsumi’s lack of peer experience is often apparent in her reactions to situations like this – her knowledge is all hypothetical, and mostly reflective of an older generation looking back some distance towards Mitsumi’s immediate life experience. You can hear her parents’ lessons when she speaks

I appreciate Mitsumi’s creepy hand gestures as she plugs Fumi for more information on love

“You want to see someone, but you run away. You want to talk to them, but you trip over your words. Sounds complicated…” Fumi’s lovestruck behavior is of course uniquely foreign to Mitsumi, who has pretty much always said and done exactly what she wants to. Infatuation serves as an extension of adolescence’s general painful self-awareness for most, so it’ll be interesting to see if Mitsumi is similarly afflicted, or if she can embrace romantic feelings with the confidence she otherwise embodies

“Assuming I fall in love someday, will I be able to recognize it? I should ask the girls when I get to class.” Well at least so far she’s going about this in a profoundly Mitsumi-esque way

But no time for that, it’s final exam season!

“Given I’m aiming for Tokyo U, I need to stay comfortably in the single digits.” A plan that is immediately contrasted against Shima’s conspicuous absence. Shima’s lackadaisical attitude has mostly been an intriguing novelty to Mitsumi, but I imagine his total indifference to the future might actually spur her into mother hen concern eventually

Yeah, the friction begins immediately. Mitsumi texts Shima the exam syllabus, and is shocked to then learn that he wasn’t sick, he just didn’t feel like attending school. “But that’s skipping!”

Mitsumi is briefly caught up in her classmates’ rumors of Shima being some kind of middle school street thug, but reminds herself not to take such rumors at face value. The color design aids the impact of the transition here, with the aggressive purple jacket and black background of her Shima fantasy cutting to the show’s usual pastels, signaling a dramatic return to normalcy

Unfortunately, her dreams are not so accommodating, and she soon finds herself envisioning a street biker Shima dropping out of school. I like how even in her fantasies of delinquency, Shima is still polite enough to officially inform the school that he’s dropping out

Absolutely fantastic face as she reflects on her dream while walking to school

And Shima is absent once again. A fine way to provoke Mitsumi into action

In addition to illustrating the differences in their life perspectives, this crisis is also forcing Mitsumi to consider how much Shima now means to her, and what a crucial aspect of this new life he has become

Fortunately, he arrives in school by lunchtime

Mitsumi feels oddly betrayed by Shima’s indifference to school, and doesn’t return his greeting

A long shot encompassing the entire empty classroom emphasizes the uncomfortable intimacy of the two stapling handouts after class

“You should care more about yourself and your reputation!” Here it is. Mitsumi cares more about Shima’s future than he does, a presumption he never asked for

“Exams are important even to first-years.” “Maybe they are to you.” For the first time, he actually pushes back

And though it was only a light snap, and he didn’t even really mean it, his words erect a swift wall between them. Mitsumi rushes out before he can apologize, both of them embarrassed in their own ways – Shima for letting his ugly underlying feelings show in a conversation with his precious friend, Mitsumi for assuming too much, and believing she knew Shima better than this

“He must hate people prying into his life, like with the child actor thing.” Fortunately, Mitsumi’s actually got perfectly reasonable emotional intelligence, and immediately recognizes her mistake

Tragically, she’s at the same time certain his works were actually a retort to her dismissive framing of his perspective back before the entrance exams. Our own personal preoccupations create frequent misalignments of perspective like this, wherein we assume others are speaking in terms of our own most inescapable memories and regrets. Only earnest communication can resolve this, but at this point Mitsumi and Shima are suffering from being a little too earnest, from challenging each other on one of the topics where their perspectives are least aligned. Frustratingly, even learning what topics to not raise with certain friends is indeed a crucial aspect of developing bonds; you’re not going to agree with people about everything, so you gotta learn where your productive conversations lie

“Yeah, that’s probably what he meant. He probably wasn’t mad at all. Anyway, I’ll find out tomorrow.” A very healthy mindset

Meanwhile, Shima isn’t entirely sure he wasn’t holding a grudge. Oh boy

“You, a class officer?” “Maybe I should leave.” Shima’s desperate for advice, but his old friends likely won’t be able to offer it. Mitsumi embodies an approach to life he’s becoming increasingly enamored with, but doesn’t yet embody – in contrast, his friends all expect the old shiftless Shima, and are quick to chide him for genuinely engaging with his scholastic life

“You oughta cut that out. It makes you seem like behind that smile, you’re mad as hell. It’s scary!” Nonetheless, some ruthlessly pinpoint advice from his old friend

“She’s the best friend I have among the girls. So I guess I just didn’t want to hear it from her.” Shima is accustomed to tuning out demands he change his ways, but Mitsumi is important to him, and so he always listens to her. Having her specifically turn into another vector for shame was what made him snap

“I don’t really see the point in ‘clearing the air’ sort of talks. If things are fine, they’ll be fine. If not, no talking will fix them.” God, what a self-satisfied, self-defeating approach to personal relations! A perspective that reflects his prior total indifference to having genuine close bonds; he’s perfectly happy just drifting apart from anyone who gets close enough to actually hurt him

“The fact that you’re talking about any kind of relationship is headline news.” As his friend mentally notes, his preoccupation with this Mitsumi situation means Mitsumi is something new, something that means more to him than his previous philosophy of indifference can handle

And of course, Mitsumi isn’t actually able to push this disagreement from her mind at all, and thus greets Shima the next day with a crazed half-smile and bloodshot eyes

With neither of them able to bridge the gap, the two discuss the weather and That Is All

Mitsumi’s new plan: stare daggers at him around corners and over worksheets until something randomly changes

She’s even desperate enough to try the old “my friend has a problem” gambit with Mika

“It was coming from a place of concern!” Mitsumi’s confidence in her approach to life makes it that much harder for her to accept blame for the current situation

Mika gives her one crucial hint, asking her if she really said what she intended to say. Was it scorn for Shima’s attitude that she wanted to express, or something more precise?

I like the increased use of perspective shots as we move closer to the resolution, drawing the audience that much further into the uncomfortable headspace of our leads

“I want you to come to school because it’s boring without you around. That’s what I really wanted to say.” There we go. Don’t undercut your feelings by framing them as some arbitrary secondary effect of your life philosophy – tell Shima that he’s important to you

In response to this confession, Shima responds by equally respecting her anxieties, assuring her that he’s not actually in any danger of dropping out of school. He previously saw making himself clear to others as simply too much of a bother to handle, but he wants Mitsumi to worry about him, wants her to understand him, wants her to know he’ll be okay

“I’m used to people making up wild stories about me. But Mitsumi… I don’t want you to believe them.” He was able to handle the rumors because he didn’t care about others, and thus didn’t care what they thought of him. But for once, he deeply cares about the approval of another

“I haven’t made up with someone so dramatically since grade school!” Shima can’t help but see the humor in being such a cliché

And at last, Mitsumi feels those sparks!

And Done

Ah, what a delightful episode! Our adorable leads had their first fight, and as these things often do, it ended up leading the pair of them to a greater level of intimacy and mutual trust. Shima’s conflict here was as much with himself as with Mitsumi – he’d essentially walled himself off from the painful prospect of intimacy altogether, meaning forgiving Mitsumi required opening himself up to all the pain and confusion of once again putting your self-image in the hands of another. But fortunately, though Mitsumi might not know anything about romance, she’s still as trustworthy a confidant as you could hope to find. Buoyed on by Mitsumi recognizing what she truly wanted to say, each was able to acknowledge how much the other meant to them, offering one of the most charming reconciliations I’ve seen. These two are just too friggin’ adorable!

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