Episode 5 – A Star Brighter Than the Sun

When I was a teenager, we had a cat named Calliope who absolutely hated car rides. To help her overcome this, my sisters and I would tell her, “Calliope, you love driving!” Needless to say, this constant bombardment of her with positive thoughts didn’t work and she hated the car until the end. I feel like this is what Sae was doing to herself for most of the episode: flooding her head with information about how she and Koki were “just friends” and “totally fine,” while doing absolutely nothing to convince anyone – least of all herself.

But I can understand why she would try. As far as she’s concerned, she’s spent years trying to get over him but hasn’t been able to because she’s always allowed herself a little hope that maybe he’ll like her. Even though we all can see him doing this, Sae is too close to the situation to see clearly (and also doesn’t realize she’s the protagonist of a story) girl romantic). He said he liked someone, but she couldn’t imagine it would be her. After years of being belittled—or at least feeling belittled—because of her height, her self-esteem was completely thrown into the garbage. He had no reason to reciprocate her feelings.

It certainly didn’t help that there were tone-deaf fools like Izawa around. No matter how many times Koki hits or kicks him, Izawa can’t seem to stop picking on Sae or giving her backhanded compliments. According to outdated “wisdom” this probably means he likes her but either hasn’t figured it out yet or is too immature to do anything but be mean to her. This is possible; girl Romance isn’t always good at consigning tired tropes to the dustbin of history. But it really doesn’t matter because Sae is unlikely to have romantic feelings for Izawa. His character’s existence shows more of what she’s been dealing with for much of her life: people who speak without thinking, causing harm to her at will without knowing or caring. He’s annoying, but he plays a very real role in the story, giving voice to social issues in Sae’s past.

That’s why her girlfriend is so awesome. Sui may push Sae to keep trying to get Koki as her boyfriend, but she’s only doing it because she cares. She wanted Sae to be happy, and if Kagawa had to keep reminding her, it was Say’s It was her decision, not hers, and it wasn’t because she wanted to force anything on Sae. The fact that Kagawa and Sui ask Sae if she wants to talk to girls after school shows that they’ve been paying attention to their friend and want to help in any way they can. They do have her best interest at heart, and I think Koki does too. In fact, when it comes to Sae’s happiness, the only person who may always be out of touch is Sae herself.

All this great emotional work makes this week’s lackluster visuals feel particularly sad. The jump rope scene was clearly cutting corners, showing mostly action from the ankles down, and it just felt a little lame (not that group jump rope would produce flashy action, but still) If I saw There is another I won’t answer what I would do in a photo of Koki and Sae’s faces brushing against a pastel foam background. The show’s animation has never been great, but this week it was especially shocking. However, it wasn’t enough to turn me off from the story – it more than made up for its visual issues, and one kid in the class at least said what I was thinking: This school doesn’t too much Random event?

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stars brighter than the sun Currently live broadcast
Amazon Prime.