Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora ep.3-4

February 10, 2006 | 6 Comments

These two episodes are a lot better than the one that preceeds them. I think this has mostly to do with the dialogues and references that come from Night of the Galactic Railroad. It's also nice to see Rika's true character being brought forward a bit more in both episode. It makes it easier for viewers to sympathise with her plight. Animation-wise, these episodes maintain the quality from the first two episodes. Although that also means that it's not out of the ordinary and the character design is still not as good as the light novel version. Anyway, with only 2 more episodes 2 go, I only hope that the writers can wrap the storyline in an interesting manner. As a side note, I've re-uploaded the opening theme. So if you want to download it, this is your chance.

Opening theme: 「青い幸福」 - Aoi Koufuku by Nobuko (Widescreen, 9.16MB, for PSP/Quicktime)

Episode 3 opens with a shot of a street corner. Upon seeing the street corner, Yuuichi remembers the time when he saw his friend, Tsukasa, protecting a little cat with umbrella during a rain. Yuuichi then makes his way to Tsukasa's house and after playing a bit of video games, he asks Tsukasa if he remembers the time when they first became friends. Tsukasa smiles and tells Yuuichi that when they first met they weren't exactly friends. Before the two can continue their conversation, however, Yuuichi hears the sound of thunder outside the house and remembers how Rika's book is still stuck in the ledge. Because of this, he asks Tsukasa to lower him down the ledge using a rope. During the process of retrieving the book, however, the rain starts to fall and as a result, Yuuichi becomes sick the next day. During his feverish dream, Yuuichi sees his younger self competing in a sprint and is being congratulated by Tada-san and Tsukasa, as well as Rika.

Yuuichi also dreams of inviting Rika to the beach once she gets well and being thanked and forgiven by her in return. He, however, feels like the entire thing is similar to a dream and eventually realises that this is just a dream. Despite this, in reality Rika really does thank him. The next day Yuuichi finds out that Rika has forgiven him and invites him to her room. Inside the room, the camera pans into the shot of the book and reveals that the book is none other than Ginga Tetsudou no Yoru aka Night of the Galactic Railroad. During her conversation with Rika, Yuuichi realises that Rika came to visit his room the night before. He feels grateful about this and decides to burn his porn collection. While doing this, Dr.Natsume appears and asks him why he's burning his collection. Yuuichi tells him that Rika will forgive him if he burns them and besides, they really are not his collection.

Dr.Natsume is surprised to hear this because he knows from his experience that Rika is rather unforgiving. He recalls the Gohan Bukkake Jiken aka The Breakfast Bukkake Incident whereby his colleague receives Miso soup on his head when she became angry at him. Later on, while Yuiichi is in the middle of reading Night of the Galactic Railroad, Akiko tells him that Rika wants to see him so Yuuichi off to see Rika. However, he arrives in her room just as Dr.Natsume finishes examining Rika. Natsume is clearly annoyed about this recent development. Yuuichi and Rika then go to the rooftop and begin to recite lines from Night of the Galactic Railroad where Yuuichi gets to play Giovanni and Rika gets to play Campanella. While this is happened, Dr.Natsume is in the middle of talking to Rika's mother, who ends up in tears after she hears what Natsume said.

That night, Yuuichi finds himself unable to sleep so he decides to sneak out. He, however, is spotted by a drunk Natsume who takes him to the rooftop and tells him that his happy days with Rika won't last forever. Yuuichi becomes angry and accuses Natsume of being jealous of his and Rika's relationship. Natsume punches Yuuichi in return and tells him that he doesn't understand anything before beating the kid up. Natsume then starts crying and tells Yuuichi that happiness won't cure Rika and that there is no hope. After Natsume left, Yuuichi begins to read Night of the Galactic Railroad again. The wind suddenly blows the book open to a page that reveals that Rika's character, Campanella, dies after saving a drowning boy. Meanwhile, Natsume is seen drunk in his room, recalling the conversation he had with Rika's mother about the need for surgery to keep her alive and the low success rate of such surgery. In the rooftop, Yuuichi is crying as he realises the parallel between the book and Rika's life.

Episode 4 begins with Dr.Natsume visiting Yuuichi in the rooftop to apologise for whatever he did last night because apparently he doesn't remember. Well, it's either that or he suffers from MPD because one minute he tells Yuuichi to take care of Rika and in another, he starts growling like a madman. Later on, Yuuichi upsets Rika a bit when he throws an orange into her head but her anger quickly dissipates when she notices his bruises. Yuuichi has no choice but to tell her that the thugs were the one who hit him. Rika then asks Yuuichi for a favour: she wants him to take a picture of her. Because of this, Yuuichi decides to sneak off the hospital to get his camera. He, however, gets caught by Akiko, who decides to drive him back to his house to get the camera. During the trip, Yuuichi finds out from Akiko that Natsume transferred to Wakaba hospital around 3 months ago after quitting from a hospital in Shizuoka.

Akiko finds it strange that someone as expert as Natsume actually moves to a small hospital but she heard rumours how, at one point, he hit the Dean of the former hospital where he used to work. After the two obtain the camera that Yuuichi needs, Akiko stops in Ise to pick up her friend who's just arrived from Tokyo, Yosano Misako. Later on, as Yuuichi tries to take Rika's picture, Rika asks him about the location of his school. She thinks it must be nice to be able to go to school but Yuuichi disagrees. Rika, however, is interested in school because she has never been to one. Moreoever, she'd like to try wearing the uniform. Because of this, Yuuichi asks her classmate, Miki, if she can give him a schoolgirl's uniform. Miki, who seems to like Yuuichi, looks obviously jealous of Yuuichi and Rika's relationship but nevertheless she gives him a uniform for Rika. The next day, Yuuichi decides to take Rika to his schoool.

While trying to take Rika inside the school, however, they are caught red-handed by the school's teacher so Yuuichi asks the other to run away first. At first, Rika is ignorant of the situation. However, when she finds out that Yuuichi could be in trouble because of her, she decides to have a talk to the teacher. As the two try to find the teacher, Rika and Miki have a talk about her condition. Rika realises that Miki is Yuuichi's childhood friend, so she asks her what Yuuichi is like when he was a kid. Miki tells Rika that Yuuichi is just an average kid that is dependent on his father. She, however, is surprised when Rika tells her that she knew about this fact. The two then go into a classroom and talk about comparison between going to school and living in a hospital. Miki then decides to ask Rika if she's afraid of dying. Rika claims that she's not afraid because she knows it's a possibility. Besides, no one wants to live with a poor health.

Having said that, lately she's a little bit afraid when she thinks about how it is going to end. She, however, asks Miki to keep this talk a secret from Yuuichi. Yuuichi and Rika eventually return to the hospital where Yuuichi receives some good scolding from Akiko for fleeing like that with Rika. She actually thought that the two had eloped. This, unfortunately, gives Yuuichi an idea that maybe he should elope with Rika. While being punished together with Rika, he gets an idea of asking an old man to take their picture together. The two then go to the rooftop and Rika seems to be happy when she finds out that Yuuichi has read Night of the Galactic Railroad. She then gives Yuuichi his second book, Roger Martin du Gard's Les Thibault. She, however, doesn't want him to read it until she asks him to do so. The two then talk about Spring and Yuuichi invites Rika to go flower-watching with him. As the two about to return inside the building, however, Rika falls unconscious.

Impression:

It seems both episodes are interested in contrasting Rika's condition to the book mentioned in each episode. Night of the Galactic Railroad is a story about a boy who realises that his friends has died and gone to heaven whereas Les Thibault focuses on the story of two French bourgeoisie brothers, Jacques and Antoine. It's interesting how some of the story device used in each episode mirror the story device in the book. Episode 3 uses dream to blur the reality that Yuuichi wishes for with the actual world itself. Similarly, Night of the Galactic Railroad uses dream as a premonition of things that are about to happen. The thing is, I think the use of Night of the Galactic Railroad, in this story is rather misleading. It feels as if the writers want the viewers to think that Rika is going to die only to pull a surprise towards the end. Having said that, I'm not sure if I'd like the series to go towards that direction.

I think after everything that has been said in these two episodes, ending the series with a happy ending will water down the meaning of some of the conversation within this series. I also think there are several scenes from episode 3, which look so out of place at the moment. For example, Yuuichi's friendship with Tsukasa seems to be slightly emphasised in that episode. However, nothing came out of this at the moment. What was the point of bringing up the friendship between the two if it's just a throw away scene? Before these two episodes, I always just see Yuuichi's friends as peripheral characters but all of a sudden they are featured more prominently here. Is there a purpose for this? I also wonder if something is going to develop in regards to the friend that Akiko picks up from Ise. Again, this scene seems unimportant but I am hesitant to call it a throw away scene because they could have shown other, more random scenes if they want to do this.

© memento 2003