Unnoticed Happiness

Synopsis

The next power user is in the dorms next to the school, the ability is ‘collapse’. Since they’re in the dorms, it has to be a student that’s on leave from school due to sickness, which of course leads to Yu’s sister as she’s still ill. The four decide to go visit but first Tomori kicks Takajo out of the window so as to not bring him along.

After a quick purchase of dinner, the three head to Yu’s place. Three of Ayumi’s classmates are visiting as well though, Nomura the class president, Oikawa the guy who was rejected by Ayumi, and a quiet girl who never introduces herself but seems to have a resentment towards Ayumi.

After they leave, Tomori and Yusa step in to say hi and have dinner. They don’t discover anything directly but Tomori is still suspicious especially after hearing Ayumi’s recent nightmares where everything around her was breaking. So for now they’ll tell her teachers to look out for anything and also to use surveillance cameras to be notified if something does happen.

Tomori asks Yu to keep Ayumi at home one more day. But being a rebellious youth, Ayumi sneaks out. Tomori finds out from the surveillance cameras and they move out to Ayumi’s school.

Konishi is the girl with the resentment towards Ayumi, because she ‘took away’ Oikawa. So, she wants to kill her and brandishes a cutter knife. She backs Ayumi into a corner which forces her into a position that unleashes her ability causing the building around her to collapse in on her.

Yu and group arrive late and he tries to dig her out. As he does, a large piece of rubble falls onto him.

Thoughts

The potential death of Ayumi and Yu isn’t that much of a surprise if I’m honest. This is Jun Maeda we’re talking about and if anything, I’d be more surprised if there wasn’t a death. I saw the death flag when her fever started and that flag was ever more prominent when all the pieces came together. That premonition with a dangerous ability, Ayumi’s illness, her nightmares and where the ability was located. It was all a little too obvious. Like I predicted two episodes ago, it’s not Jun Maeda if it’s not some melodramatic plot to ‘raise the roof’ on this anime.

I will say that what isn’t so obvious is that either Ayumi or Yu is dead. From the post credit scene I think we all agree that if neither are dead they are going to be severely injured to a point that they may as well be dead. So, it’s more likely that one of them is dead. And if that’s the case, for more effect, I would assume they killed off Ayumi with Yu heavily injured. Yu’s also the protagonist so maybe plot armor may come into effect here.

I thought it’d hit me much worse going by previous experiences, but I feel okay so far. Maybe it’s because I was prepared for this from episode 1, or maybe it’s because I never felt that attached to Ayumi in the first place. Sure she was cheery and all that and she was the reason Yu lived on like this, but overall, I don’t feel that I was attached enough to her. Though personally I think it’s because I knew this was coming that I detached myself away… as my course has started again and I’m back on the road to exam preparation. I can’t have anime affecting my mood.

There are a couple of points I want to mention, some not so important, some intriguing. The main one is that girl who appeared before Konishi. At first I thought I must’ve forgotten who she was as I didn’t recognise her, but then after rewinding back I realise I definitely don’t know her. No anime introduces someone like that without going back to them, so I’m expecting her to be ‘someone’.

Another point is of water guy’s appearance after the ending credits. Yes it’s premonition for whatever bad thing is about to happen next episode, but could it also be much more than that as we don’t really need the premonition do we?

Also a very small point is when Tomori kicked Takajo out of the building so that Yu didn’t use his ability on him. This obviously has something to do with what happened when Yu used his ability on the baseball guy, but again we don’t know what the problem is.

The criticism I have is Konishi’s murder issues. To be so young and have so much anger like that to want to kill someone, I found it somewhat hard to believe and I think you will understand where I’m coming from. I felt it was a cheap way to force Ayumi to use her power. Though of course not knowing Konishi’s backstory and her feelings it’s hard to tell, but in normal circumstances that just wouldn’t happen. Because surely for one thing she sees that Oikawa is just being a nuisance, though love is blind… Still, whatever the case the believability of this entire sequence of events is just ridiculous. I won’t go into it more, but I’ll just make the quick point that this is a school, why are there only those kids out of class, and why are they out of class in the first place to be able to conveniently set up this melodrama?

To me, everything felt too convenient. But I am also a little glad that things managed to move on from the very slice of life episodic styled story telling. Now we come to some ‘harder’ stuff and hopefully, some more explanations.