3 Episode Taste Test: Kimi ni Todoke (Reaching You)

Under­stat­ing Kimi ni Todoke would be to say that it is sac­char­ine: one can­not help but grin mor­on­ic­ally at the con­tinu­ing quest of Sawako Kur­onuma to ingra­ti­ate her­self with her school mates. Afflic­ted with the curse of rumour, she starts the series alone and sub­ject to spuri­ous tales of bring­ing curses upon those that slight her and it is only through the atten­tion of the affable Shota Kazehaya that she is able to pro­pel her­self from quiet and alone to quiet with friends. It’s deftly done, espe­cially in three epis­odes, and with at least two thirds of the series remain­ing the story is sure to evolve well.

“The greatest prob­lem that the series could face is becom­ing mired in petty backbiting”

Begin­ning at the start of the sum­mer hol­i­day, the set up is per­fect for a “Grease” style tale of warm-weather romance and inev­it­able school ali­en­a­tion. But the story defies expect­a­tions and skips ahead to the fol­low­ing term, awk­ward greet­ings and new teach­ers in tow. From there Sawako suc­ceeds in mak­ing friends and, if the fourth epis­ode pre­view is any­thing to go by, at least one enemy: gain­ing the affec­tions of a pop­u­lar fig­ure was always going to raise someone’s ire. It is a simple story well told and it is the pace and legit­im­acy of the char­ac­ters, espe­cially the pain­fully ador­able Sawako, that shoot this oth­er­wise slow burner well-above it’s more sed­ate contemporaries.

If there is a flaw to Kimi ni Todoke, it’s that it goes to too great a length to cast Sawako as a flaw­less vic­tim of cir­cum­stance. Her motives always impec­cable and never does a ges­ture back­fire or her words not reach the right people: it is a rosy and grace­ful pic­ture of human­ity, espe­cially tur­bu­lent adoles­cents who are any­thing but. Nit­pick­ing at the lack of real­ism how­ever is miss­ing the point of the show, too often pas­sion of this vera­city gets watered down or con­tor­ted into melo­drama so it’s wholly refresh­ing to have such a genu­ine and misanthropy-melting story. Of course this float­ing world is set to be des­troyed by the mach­in­a­tions of a Kazehaya fan who is seen skulk­ing con­spir­at­ori­ally in epis­odes prior. It’s not an unex­pec­ted way for the plot to travel but it feels at odds with the “kids are basic­ally okay” man­tra paraded through the first three episodes.

The greatest prob­lem that the series could face is becom­ing mired in petty back­bit­ing that tends to dog young female inter­ac­tions. While not appeal­ing across the board, the first three epis­odes intro­duce enough char­ac­ters one can relate to and strike a good rhythm that doesn’t ali­en­ate either gender; claws-out squab­bling would cer­tainly poison what has gone before. Des­pite the rel­at­ively fresh dir­ector, the series does little wrong in the open­ing epis­odes and it seems odd to doubt that it won’t con­tinue that trend, espe­cially with a seasoned script writer on board and backed by the Pro­duc­tion I.G. power­house. Whether Sawako’s dis­tinct­ive voice and con­tinu­ally deformed poses will stand the test of time is another matter.

The first three epis­odes of Kimi ni Todoke are expertly presen­ted: over seem­ingly far too quickly and at times breath­lessly beau­ti­ful. It takes the staid school romance premise and presents an altern­at­ive approach, one where the male is bash­fully obtuse rather than a hormone-fuelled, sex-starved crime in wait­ing and the female is charm­ingly obli­vi­ous and con­tinu­ously grow­ing rather than an obnox­ious, high-maintenance stick fig­ure. A joy­ful, emo­tion­ally edi­fy­ing watch. ¶