Episode Focus: Tsuki ga Kirei 2, A Handful of Sand

Our weekly dose of pure slice of life romance is back this week with episode two of Tsuki ga Kirei. Nothing that happened in this episode was particularly surprising and because of that nothing was disappointing.

Not disappointing for me, but this may have been disappointing for Kotarou.

It’s time for the school sports festival and as we saw last week our two lead characters feel very differently about sport. Akane, one of the starts of the track team, is excited, if nervous, for the event and everyone has high expectations on what she can do in her events. Contrastingly, Kotarou doesn’t care one bit about the festival and is more focussed on his novel submission for the best newcomer award.

Some sleepless nights closer to a finished novel.

We saw both characters having some problems this week ranging from not wanting to run through to getting stressed and suffering in the run because of it. This isn’t the kind of show that warrants a great deal of breakdown, but I will say that I really enjoyed this episode, particularly how the small problem of Akane losing her ‘potato’ became the key issue to bring the two characters that bit closer together.

Stuffed toys are important you know, no matter how old you are.

I’m also enjoying how the show hasn’t forced each character actively engaged in the others activity, positively or negatively. For example, this episode Kotarou was in the same equipment group as Akane, but it never felt like he was in any way important to the group (even when he came running with the obstacle course slips that Akane had forgot). Everything that has happened so far has just been expositions for the brief, sweet moments when the two protagonists interact.

Someone’s excited.

She has good reason to laugh…

… wouldn’t you?

I have to say that the realism in this is so far making me feel quite sentimental. Everything is so mundane in the build up to the inevitable relationship that we’ll get at the end, I can’t help but feel some kind of weird connection between the me of five or six years ago and the bookish, nervous Kotarou of Tsuki ga Kirei. For that alone, I have no doubt I’ll be happily continuing with this show for the rest of the season.

Did you enjoy Tsuki ga Kirei episode two as much as I did? Is it just me drawing parallels between reality and this show or does anyone else agree?

Thanks for reading! 😀

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