Episode 5 – With You, Our Love Will Make it Through

Oh my gosh, it’s time for classic teen angst! The characters feel complex, with conflicting feelings, and they’re always unable to act. Conveying information in a story is always tricky, because it’s easy to dismiss conflicting behavior as bad writing when the whole point of being a teenager is that you haven’t figured everything out yet. For example, at the end of the last episode, Tsuna made it very clear that they shouldn’t pursue a relationship together because it would be hard for society to see them that way, but in this episode, he makes it clear that he wants to be closer and wants to take on Mari’s full affection. There’s also a moment where Yukihiro explains that he has feelings for Mari but doesn’t want to act on it because he doesn’t want to ruin the fun high school time the trio is having. But now he’s being goaded by Tsuna to at least try to pursue those feelings, even though it’s obvious to me that it’s probably not going to work out.

It’s a shame because I do like Yukihiro as a character. He’s a lovable goofball with a strong sense of self (let’s ignore the fact that he locked our two hormonal lovebirds in a room in episode two). He’s not an idiot and I totally believed him when he said he would give up on his feelings when he already sensed something was going on between his two friends. I also felt bad for him because it felt like he was that unfortunate third wheel who was destined to fail. The other two have been pursuing things physically and privately and openly talking about their feelings for each other. This is not a case of complicated relationships; Society just complicates the relationship, so there’s not a lot of romantic tension there. It does make the scene between Yukihiro and Mari at the end of the episode pointless, though. It’s interesting that Mary misinterprets Yukihiro’s confidence as strictly a competition, but I also don’t know what she would have done, or if she would have had any mood swings if she was fully engaged in serious thoughts about him.

The conflicting feelings surrounding Tsuna were much better. Even though he’s a very passive person, you can feel the frustration surrounding him. I love the flashbacks to his infancy, when he was already dealing with biracial prejudice. I love that he doesn’t want anyone to suppress his feelings for him, even if it might make his life more difficult. I also do believe him when he says he’s going to work hard to make things work for him and Mary…even though he doesn’t seem to have any plans other than setting a good example.

I feel like the show subtly hints at all the pressures he has to deal with, but we haven’t discussed the details yet. When he comes home, we hear his mother’s voice, but we can’t see her. We don’t know why he was specifically chosen to represent the Orcs at school, and I’m surprised being a mixed-race kid didn’t make it more of a priority. If the show is trying to break down the walls of prejudice and trying to frame the story as pursuing love despite social resistance, then we might need to know more about this society, or better understand how things work. The school environment was a great escape for our trio, but I wanted to know more about the obstacles they would face as these complicated feelings grew.

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