Hatsukoi Limited - Life Goes On
I still feel like the crowning radness of this show was the relationship between these three. Hatsukoi is over in 12 episodes and despite being slow at times (anything involving Yamamoto), stupid at others (Koyoi and her oniisan) and fanservicey all the time, I liked it! I’ve made no secret on this blog that my favourite pairing was Kusuda and Kei, and I appreciated that the anime kept a lot of focus on their story throughout. But although Hatsukoi’s climax over the last two episodes was deeply entangled with the Kusuda/Kei relationship, I felt like it was the boys’ relationship with each other that made the story arc. Maybe I’m just a sucker for bike-trip arcs about young men finding themselves (TAKEMOTO!!!!) but I found the scene with the boys yelling their feelings while riding as fast as they could pretty damn touching. That, combined with the comedic dynamics between the worry-wart Zaitsu, prissy Sogabe and courageous but lazy/greedy/worthless Kusuda was the greatest part of the show. They were far more interesting - read funny, engaging and believable - on screen than the girls were for the most part. The girls’ whole “anata wa ima, koi o shite imasu ka?” thing was just kind of vacuous and annoying. I didn’t hate it but I wish the boys had set more of the tone from the early episodes. Overall though, I’m a big fan of the message that not all first loves work out, and the “life goes on” note that both the manga and anime closed with. Nice bittersweet ending, more on the sweet side than the bitter.
