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Now in Japan
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Written by maehara
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Tuesday, 30 January 2007 00:00 |
 Happy endings. They're a bit of a two-edged sword - popular, as you always want to see the characters happy, but they're predictable, as an unhappy ending tends to annoy large chunks of a show's fanbase. If ever there was a show that was set up for an unhappy ending, though, HanTsuki is it - and with Rika having just collapsed with a heart attack, her ending's not looking very far away...
5 - The One Minute Which Has Been Stopped
Rika survives her collapse, but with her not being allowed any visitors and Natsume-sensei refusing to tell him how she is, Yuuichi's left with no idea of what state she's in. Akika allows him to sneak into her room for one minute to at least put his mind at rest, and it's a visit that Rika seems to appreciate. Part of Natsume's reluctance to allow Yuuichi to get close to Rika comes from his own past - his late wife, who was herself ill with heart problems. He's well aware of the pain that Yuuichi will feel should he come to love Rika and her operation is unsuccessful, and part of him doesn't want to inflict that on him. Yuuichi, meanwhile, sneaks out for a walk to deal with his own feelings, and runs into Akiko's friend Misako, who has her own plans for Yuuichi in mind...
6 - Our Both Hands
Natsume fills Yuuichi in on the procedure - as far as he's concerned, it went as well as it could have, but t was still an extremely complex operation and her chance of surviving aren't good. With Rika confined to Intensive Care, he can't even check on her himself. To make matters worse, once she's released back to her ward, Yuuichi's placed under strict instructions not to go near her - after helping her sneak out of the hospital twice, he's been blacklisted at her mother's insistence. Or so Natsume-sensei tells him. Yuuichi's not about to just sit back and worry, though, a decides to try and visit her by a more unorthodox route...
- "Can I stay by your side for a long, long time?"
- "You might have to give up everything for me."
- "I know. [...] This is my decision - I'm not going to let you say no."
But before we get to that ending, there's the small matter of Yuuichi letting his hormones get the better of him, thanks to some rather predatory behaviour from Misako - fortunately, Akiko knows her friend, so when she hears Yuuichi has gone off with her she's banging at Misako's door before long (just as Misako's about to get Yuuichi in there) - and she's not happy. It's written off as an incident that Rika doesn't need to hear about, for a variety of reasons, but it does raise a few question marks over Yuuichi's character - although it could equally be put down to the stress of what he's been going through over Rika. Funnily enough, Natsume had a similar dalliance when his wife was ill, so there are ever more parallels between the two. My opinion of Natsume has changed as the series has progressed - not necessarily for the better, just that there's a better understanding of why he acts how he does towards Yuuichi.
But it's the ending that is the real highlight, in a turn-you-to-mush kind of way. Yuuichi knows that, even if her operation is as successful as it could possibly be, Rika's unlikely to live more than a few years - and he simply doesn't care. He goes to great lengths to make a suitably impressive visit to Rika's room, against her mother's wishes, and expresses his feelings in just the right way that the whole scene just seemed perfect. It's a happy ending for now - but Yuuichi's going into it with the full realisation that there'll be heartache and pain in store for him later, so overall it's a really bittersweet conclusion - and that's completely in tone with the show.
Two words about this series: loved it. At first I thought six episodes wouldn't be enough, but it's been paced perfectly to fit within that time - there's no filler or wasted scenes. Natsume's far from being a likeable character, but his presence has added a certain amount of tension at times, and helped to move Rika's and Yuuichi's relationship on at others, so he's been a necessary evil. There's nothing significant I can really criticise HanTsuki for - it's simply one of the best short romantic series I've seen. Highly recommended. |
