What They Say:
“Laughing and Remembering”
Wakana and her father finally have an open talk about what happened to her mother, and what she left behind for her.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
So, we’re going to continue with the sad Sakai story. Wakana’s father rushes home to find her on the floor. She seems to have caught a cold after being out in the storm last episode. His concern is clear, and it’s understandable. After losing his wife, you can imagine he could not stand to lose his daughter.
And it’s school again, with summer break over. Thus, the second term begins, though Wakana is out. Konatsu decides to go and pay a visit to her. Of course, being the bumbling girl she is, she manages to fall into a pool near the seaside. While visiting, Konatsu talks about the promise her grandfather made to take her to a Condor Queens concert, a promise he never kept. Broken promises are weighing heavily on Wakana’s mind as well, but Konatsu tells Wakana she’s happy the promise was never kept, since it means that it is still out there, and thus she continues to remember her grandfather.
Later, Wakana comes by Sawa’s place, to get the photo of her mother from Shiho. Sawa, seeing Wakana being down, decides to give her a horse ride on her horse Sabure. Wakana appears to enjoy the ride, and it may just have been the thing she needed. She goes to school the next morning, hoping to listen to a tape that Shiho gave her, though instead she finds Tanaka and Wien having a super secret special practice session. It’s so ridiculous, she can’t help but laugh, but she does give them some advice on how to improve their singing, something she learned from her mother. After school, she stops by Ms. Takahashi’s place to see the new baby (the pregnant home room teacher gave birth, obviously).
We get to the climax. That night, Wakana’s father prepares a feast. Wakana realizes why: it’s her parents’ wedding anniversary. Talk naturally turns to her mother, who apparently was the one to propose to her father. They share some memories, and Wakana asks why her mother did not want her to know about the illness. The reply hits her hard, and she realizes the great mistake she made in throwing away the piano and all of the other things her mother gave her. It does all appear to be gone. But her father had been holding onto a little piece of the past: the notes her mother made before her death for the song she had intended to write with Wakana. And, of course, he did not throw away the piano (he claims Mahiru used it to propose to him) as well as the small fish trinket that Wakana always used to carry around. Cue the tears.
The next day at school, Wakana listens to the tape, and it’s the choir of her mother’s day singing that same song that Konatsu used at the recital. The other members of the club now appear and they all sing together. Cue special ending set to the song.
That was a touching ending to Wakana’s sad story. She is finally able to have some closure concerning her mother’s death and the guilt she has felt for treating her mother so badly during her last days. We also see her beginning to open up to Sawa and Konatsu, so we now have our completed group. In the regular ending animation to the show, we’ve always seen Wakana sitting apart. I suspect we’ll see a new version of the ending animation next episode.
In Summary:
We get the emotional climax to Wakana’s story as she learns the truth about why her mother Mahiru decided to keep her in the dark about the seriousness of her illness. This helps Wakana to move on, finally. It also appears that Wakana’s aversion to music, tied to her unresolved feelings about her mother’s death and her behavior during those last days, is also going away. With the group now fully formed, I expect more music next time, and perhaps a return to the lighter tone of the Bumbling Konatsu Show.
Grade: B
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: Apple iMac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
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