What happens when your wish comes true? What do you do, even if you do not expect it to happen?

Wishing upon a stone….

Asatte no Houkou is one out of the three highly anticipated series that Impzie is interested in. Gift ~Eternal rainbow~ was decent but not great. Kanon wowed me with the kyoto animation, even though the story did not really have any oomph for the first episode. The details in the show is always something that Kanon is good at, and it did not disappoint me in that aspect.

Just a note, I watched from .rmvb file and the fact that I used the Save thumbnails function from MPC meant that there is a timer. Unless I cannot find any .avi files, this usually will not happen. So yea, just a point of note.

Read on for more.

I do not know. To me, a straight forward funny harem/romance story might be good for some. However, to me, a romance series has to have depth, and show the weakness of the person (realistic) of course. The artwork is pretty simple but it fits the mood of this anime. There is this rather mood in the anime that brings me parallels with AIR. It is not the wispy sadness but the fact that everyone seems to have troubles with something. I do not know, i just have this feeling within.

The OP/ED is also very good, fitting the anime like a book.

The characters are fleshed out in blood and soul, with a lot of details about them in just the first episode. This clearly has many implications…Let me go through slightly with the characters.

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Characters

Shoukou: A young woman that suddenly came to the small town. It seems that she knows Hiro in the United states and they seperated four years ago, without any news from Hiro. They have broken up since then, but it is clear that she likes Hiro a lot. I am not sure on this next detail, but i do not know whether she wanted to escape from Hiro (which is why she came to this town) or she knows that Hiro is here, which is why she came. She seems to be angry with Karada for stealing Hiro away from her in USA.

Hiro: He seems to be rather silent in most of the show, but it is clear that he cares about Karada a lot. He used to be in the USA, but left Shoukou without a word 4 years ago as Karada is the only sister. He gave up everything and took care of her. I wonder if he is really taking care of her or Karada taking care of him though *smiles*. He is also very protective of Karada. It seems to me that they do not have parents at the very least, which is why he has to stay behind and take care of her.

Karada: A middle school girl who looks younger than her age. She is in fact a very capable girl that hates to rely on her brother for anything. She is very independent and knows how to cook well. She does not like to be treated as a child due to some things that have happened in the past. It seemed that she feels that she is a burden to Hiro, which is why she does not like to be treated as a child. She is insecure about her own abilities still and Shoukou preyed on it to hurt her badly.

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Episode summary

Note: For a comprehensive summary, go to Memento’s blog.

We see a small girl (Karada) praying and a woman (Shoukou) came over to tell her that it is a wishing stone. They started to make a wish together and it was then that Hiro arrived to the scene. The scene then changed to them getting ready to go to the beach. It was then that we see that other than Karada’s classmate (Tetsuya) and the sister, Shoukou was asked to tag along by Karada, since it seems that she knows Hiro. They moved along to the beach, where they invite Shoukou to play beach volleyball to engage everyone to play. After playing, they ate the meal prepared by Karada and it seemed that she made the egg roll salty because Hiro liked it.

As Tetsuya’s sister noticed that Shoukou had been eyeing Hiro, she assumed that Shoukou liked Hiro and was his ex girlfriend or something. However, Shoukou took offence at it, as Karada came over. Tetsuya’s sister assured Karada nothing was wrong and Shoukou told her that she was a child and would not understand. It was clear that Karada did not like it at all. Hiro explained later that after they lost their parents 4 years ago, Karada hated to be treated as a child as Hiro did everything to help her. Eventually, she made a comment on the board in their house not to treat her as a child.

Later on, they went to a shop and Hiro bought Karada a white ribbon accessory for her hair. It fits her well and Shoukou was jealous. She tried to move away but was seen by Karada. Karada, in total spite, said that it fitted her because it was for children. Tetsuya then tried to console Karada and did it well. As they returned to the train station, Hiro asked Karada to go on her own as he had something to talk to Shoukou.

We then realized that Hiro left Shoukou four years ago without a word because of Karada and never explained to Shoukou why he left. She had believed that he would be back but he did not fulfil it. He then asked her if she still loved him. Shoukou gave him a slap and said that he’s the worst of the worst.

Darkness permeated as the sign of something happening was soon. Shoukou was running and tripped because she could not see clearly. There, she met Karada who was at the same spot where they met. As the moon started to lit up the wishing stone, something happened and the two changed. Karada became an adult while Shoukou became a young kid. The spectacles fell and broke, symbolising the change.

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Thoughts

The first episode of Asatte no Houkou met every single expectation that I had of this series and much more as well. There is very strong character development in the first episode and we realize that there is much more with each character, with their own flaws. J.C Staff has its hands a possible GREAT winner of the Fall season by the rate it is going. Let us pray that we unfold this possibly good drama/romance series.

I am already falling in love with this, and as long as they do not add stupid cheesy moments to this series (Dont look like it with the mood it is building), I will be proud to say that 2 out of 3 noted series that I pick will be super hits. Kanon is an obvious one but this is something special. I am sure more people will pick this up soon. So if you have not, PLEASE DO. Shoukou, Hiro and Karada all seemed to be very complex characters, not unlike normal humans like us. That is why this story can touch people, because you can feel for them, even if they are sometimes bitchy, like how vindictive Shoukou became with Karada. Human hearts are frail.

The next episode seems to be Hiro realizing the change in the two gals.

Asatte no Houkou. Highly recommended.

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