Honey and Clover ep.21

September 12, 2005 | 10 Comments

This is actually one of those episodes where you are better off not knowing the story in advance. On the other hand, you'll probably get additional perspective if you re-watch episode 1 or at least the last sequence from that episode prior to watching this. Anyway, I'm glad that this episode features a top-notch animation. I think I would have been disappointed if the beginning of a major arc like this one is marred by lousy animation or character design. Thankfully that doesn't seem to be the case here. This episode also made me glad that the series has a talented VA for Takemoto since his internal monologue is a key element that makes this episode a stand above the rest.

This episode itself begins in a similar manner to the prologue from episode 1. Takemoto remembers how when he was young, he always went everywhere with his blue bicycle. At one point, he considered riding all the way without turning back once just to see how far he can go. Takemoto admits that even now he still remembers the experience quite well. Cut to the present day where Takemoto suddenly appears in Shuuji's office to declare that as usual, he fails to pass another job interview. Much to Takemoto's surprise, however, he finds Shuuji in the middle of a conversation with a visitor. After a little introduction, Takemoto finds out that the guy is Usui, a graduate and ex-student of Shuuji. Usui now has his own company which specialises in made-to-order furniture. In fact, he's actually there to deliver some kind of a unique shelf that can holds a lot of spray cans.

When Usui sees Takemoto's curiosity towards his creation, he decides to offer Takemoto a job at his company. Shuuji is surprised about this and asks Usui to explain the kind of works that his company do prior to hiring Takemoto. Shuuji also advises Takemoto to think about it before accepting the job. Despite the warning, Takemoto accepts the job on the spot. Because of this, that night the gang gathers together in Shuuji's apartment to celebrate Takemoto's new employment. Everyone is happy with this new development and Shuuji, despite what he said beforehand, tells Takemoto that even though Usui's company is small, the company gets many interesting jobs. Unfortunately, their brief happiness quickly turns into horror when Shuuji receives a phone call from Usui, who reveals that one of their clients has run away without paying, costing the company 42,000,000 Yen in debt.

The disaster means that not only Usui can't afford to hire Takemoto, his company is most likely going to go bankrupt. Everyone is horrified to hear this, especially Shuuji who has to deliver the bad news to Takemoto. Takemoto, however, puts on a brave mask and tells Shuuji that he understands what's going on. Right now he just wants to have pleasant drinks with everyone since it's been a while since all of them gather together like this. Everyone then goes to show their support for Takemoto by getting drunk with the poor guy. Fast forward a few days later, Shuuji is concerned about Takemoto who seems to be heavily traumatised due to the incident. His concern for Takemoto, however, is momentarily put on hold when he sees Yamada creating another pottery. Yamada tells Shuuji that the item she's making is a sample plate that was ordered by Fujiwara Design.

Speaking of Fujiwara Design, the head of the company, whose name turns out to be 'Mario', is surprised when he sees his brother appears inside his room. If you still remember, the two had a feud that caused the younger brother to move to Tottori a few episodes ago. Well, that younger brother, whose name is 'Luigi', has now returned to Tokyo, begging his older brother to forgive his foolishness. After a few over-dramatic speech between the two, Mario decides to forgive Luigi and to merge the two companies into one. This merging, however, has the undesirable effect of creating additional workloads for Nomiya, Miwako, and Yamazaki, who now have to deal with some of the projects that come from Tottori. Eventually, Nomiya and Yamazaki agree that they can work on the Tottori projects a lot better if they move there.

A few days later, Nomiya asks Miwako to take care of his apartment while they're away in Tottori. Yamazaki, who seems to have a crush on Miwako, also asks her if she can take care his apartment as well. Yamazaki becomes happy when Miwako agrees to do this but his happiness turns into disappointment when he realises that Miwako is going to make his house a 'holiday house' for Leader the dog. Moreover, Leader has other crazy ideas as to what Miwako should do with Yamazaki's apartment while he's away. Such as renting it to someone else so they can use the money to buy Sirloin Steak. Meanwhile, Yamada arrives at Fujiwara Design to deliver her sample plate. Nomiya, who's about to leave to Tottori asks Yamada to give them to Miwako. Unaware of the situation at first, Yamada seems to be in shock when she finds out that Nomiya will stay in Tottori for at least half a year.

Meanwhile Takemoto is seen at his apartment starring at an empty fridge, and looking as if he's emotionally drained. A few minutes later he decides to hop on his bike once again while recalling his childhood experience. His bike ride, however, comes to a halt when he realises that his head has been filled with 'the sound of emptiness'. A few hours later Mayama is seen entering Takemoto's room offering some food from Miwako. Mayama, however, is surprised when he only find Takemoto's bag dripping wet from the rain that comes in from the window. 2 days later, Takemoto finds himself awake at a beach, unable to tell his whereabouts. At the same time, his friends become increasingly worried for him because it's been 2 days since he went missing. Mayama informs the others that both Takemoto's wallet and bicycle have also disappeared along with its owner.

Shuuji and Mayama believe that Takemoto has probably gone to travel on his own. Upon hearing this, Yamada realises that Takemoto has gone on a self-discovery journey. Morita, on the other hand, can't understand why someone will go on a journey to find 'oneself' and Hagu thinks they should go to look for Takemoto. Because of this, Shuuji tells Hagu that they can't do that because then the person in question won't be able to come back properly. His words, however, is interrupted by the arrival of Todaiji-Sensei who agrees with him and reveals that even Shuuji once did some self-discovery journeys. 7 times. It turns out that every time Shuuji went on such journey, Harada and Rika became so worried that they ended up looking for Shuuji and always managed to find him. Shuuji is of course embarrassed about this and immediately asks his Sensei to stop talking right away.

Todaiji-Sensei, however, tells Shuuji that self-discovery journey is not something to be ashamed of since he himself has gone to Mongolia, Tibet, etc, to do similar things. Shuuji, however, asks his Sensei not to confuse his money-making motivation for going on those trips with the real 'self-discovery journey'. Upon hearing Shuuji's passionate speech about 'the journey', everyone feels that Takemoto will probably be okay after all. Meanwhile Takemoto finally remembers that the reason he overslept on the beach is because he's been unable to get a decent sleep in the last 2 days due to bad weather and lack of comfortable space. At the same time, Shuuji, Mayama, and Morita have gone to a local bank to check on Takemoto's bank balance. Much to their relief, it seems there's a recent transaction on his account, suggesting that Takemoto is still alive.

Shuuji and Morita decide to donate some of their money to ensure that Takemoto does not suffer much during his journey. Mayama, however, tells them not to help too much because then Takemoto's intention to discover himself will be meaningless. Elsewhere, Takemoto is surprised to find his higher bank balance but his hunger prevents him from thinking much about it. As he contemplates what he wants to do, Takemoto sees a guy riding a bike and remembers how he liked to do the same thing when he was young. With this in mind, Takemoto decides to continue his journey and proceeds to go through a large tunnel. As he screams in fear every time a truck passes by him, Takemoto realises that he finally understands that he's always been afraid. Afraid of the future that he can't see and afraid of not being able to understand what he wants. However, he hopes that if he continues going on like he is now, maybe one day he'll be able to overcome that fear and see what he wants.

Impression:

Despite the animators' attempt to make the 'celebration party' scene a bit more light-hearted, I was rather horrified when I saw the scene in question. To me it feels as if I was watching a friend going through one of the most agonising and brutal emotional upheaval in his life. I can only imagine the embarrassment, sadness, and depression that Takemoto feels when he finds out that he has lost the job he just obtained. After this incident, I am not surprised that Takemoto wants to get away from it all and to think through all of the possibilities. Takemoto's realisation that he's been hearing 'the sound of emptiness' seems to be the trigger that he needs to start his journey on the bike. What is interesting about this is the fact that going on the journey involves taking a big risk to a certain degree, something that Takemoto has never done up till now.

I understand what Takemoto meant when he said that he's always been afraid. Afraid of the future that he can't see, afraid of the days that will come about. I also live everyday wondering what will happen if I make wrong decision in my life. To that end, just like Takemoto, I chose to live life in the 'safest' possible way, by not taking any risk or any chance whatsoever. By doing this, however, as a friend once pointed out, I only sabotaging my own chance at living the life that I want to live. And maybe I already made a wrong decision in my life at this point and that is why I am not happy about the life that I'm living. The fear that I have now is that I may end up making other wrong decisions. Anyway, it was nice to see Takemoto going through the same thing that I feel at the moment. It feels as if some of the burden that I carried has been lifted a little bit.

Moving on to other characters, it was nice to see Shuuji and Morita came through for Takemoto when he really needs their help. Morita was especially kind for donating a good chunk of his money despite the fact that he was clearly reluctant to part with them. Having said that, Mayama was also right when he said that if they give too much help, then Takemoto's journey will be pointless. If Takemoto wants to find out the extent of his own strength and survival ability, then giving too much money will only hinder his progress. Meanwhile, it looks like Yamada is getting used to Nomiya's presence to the point that she looks rather upset when she realises that he'll be away for half a year. Finally, it was amusing to see Morita unable to understand why someone has to go on a journey to find themselves. I guess people like Morita always do whatever they want to do that they're not constrained by their own fear or self-doubt.

Timeline:

If you have the time, I'll recommend that you see episode 1 again prior to watching this episode. If you still remember, there is a sequence at the end of episode 1 which looks as if it comes out of nowhere and doesn't flow naturally with other scenes from that episode. The sequence in question involves Takemoto riding a bike in the midst of heavy rain. One thing that was immediately apparent was that Takemoto's hair in that sequence is longer in comparison to his hair from other parts of episode 1. Back then I wondered if the scene in question is actually the present day while the rest of episode 1 are actually past events narrated by Takemoto. The problem was, the scene in question was never explained, nor placed in a context that will make it easier to understand. As a result, we're left to wonder as to why Takemoto was riding his bike in the middle of the rain.

Halfway through this episode, Takemoto finally comes to a realisation that he's been hearing 'the sound of emptiness'. The scene then cuts to the sound of rain as Mayama enters Takemoto's now unoccupied room. We then see a shot of Takemoto's bag getting wet because the heavy rain from outside manages to get into Takemoto's room. At this point, Takemoto is presumably already on the road, riding his bike in the middle of the rain, as shown at the end of the first episode. In this episode, Takemoto also says that he hasn't had a decent sleep in the last two days due to the bad weather and the lack of space to sleep comfortably. While these scenes do not directly confirm the correlation between this episode and the sequence from episode 1, it was not hard to make such association. It seems the last scene from episode 1 was a part of the story told in this episode.

Anyway, the timeline for this episode itself seems to be confined within the early summer period. It looks like only 1-2 weeks have passed between Takemoto getting hired to the point when he decides to do his self-discovery journey. The biggest clue about this is the major rainfalls, which usually happens around June in Japan. And if one assumes that the last sequence from episode one is also apart of the storyline featured in this episode, then that sequence probably happens almost at the same time as the scene where Mayama comes to check on Takemoto in this episode. If you're interested, the rough timeline has now been updated with these additional details.

© memento 2003