WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Glasslip episode 6. If you don’t want to be spoiled, please stop reading. You have been warned.
Well, first things first. It took six whole episodes to get Glasslip some steam. Things are finally starting to deliver some payback and I’m no longer regretting my decision to watch this show.
Though the idea of looking into the future has stayed in the background of Glasslip, and I’m not complaining about it, issues arising from it are finally coming to the forefront. In this episode, Touko has a vision of her first kiss and promptly freaks out.
Because, ya know, she’s a giddy teenager. Pretty legit.
Part of her dealing with it actually seemed to let us know something: she’s not just having visions, but is actively living through them. Or at least she thinks she is.
This causes a bit of a problem for her as she’s now “experienced” her first kiss… without actually kissing anyone. It’s a bit of a bummer and almost like a kind of violation. Sure, Touko was able to sense the romantic mood of the moment, but it is still without context.
When Touko finally gets around to (sort of) talking about it with her mother, her mother gives her a good piece of advice: enjoy reliving the events twice. It’s not a bad piece of advice, but it seems to put Touko at ease. It certainly shows Glasslip‘s positive spin on predetermined fate. For now anyway.
Where this whole “being able to tell the future” thing starts to not matter, however, is still in the present. We get a few scenes of Kakeru and Yukinari getting all alpha-male on each other. There’s a lot of brooding, anger, and chest pounding that made me roll my eyes. These actions then lead to the title of the episode and Yukinari socks his rival in the face.
(By-the-way, a bit of dating advice: If you get rejected, let it go and move on. Seriously. Don’t go punching your “rival” in the face. Also, people are not objects to “win.”)
Anyway, there’s more tough guy bro-bashing going down as the two meet later at the school. Yet here is where my eye rolling stopped.
Touko stands there, probably wondering why she didn’t see this coming, and does absolutely nothing. Sure, she called Yanagi and said that the two boys should be stopped, but then proceed to put up zero resistance. You can argue that it happens off screen, but her efforts still amount to nothing.
Who doesn’t put up with this nonsense is Yanagi. She refused to be considered a trophy for anyone, especially a loser’s trophy. She smacks Kakeru in the face and storms off while pulling Yukinari along. Which, really, is what she’s been doing for the entire show and (if flashbacks shown in the opening prove anything) more or less sums up her relationship with the guy. Yukinari is living with her. Yukinari is cheered on and assisted by her. Even Yukinari’s confession to Touko had Yanagi present. There is a moment that freezes on Yukinari’s face as she pulls him away. I’m not certain if the expression was one of surprise, some epiphany, or both. We don’t see the two for the rest of the episode so we don’t get any wrap up from their angle. I’m rather excited to see how this arc plays out.
What’s really interesting about this whole episode is that it shows how immature these guys are. It reminded me of my own time as a hormonal oh-god-please-love-and-accept-me-romantically teenager. You do things that you think seems like a good idea and you think it makes you look cool, but it does the opposite. Kakeru and Yukinari seem to do nothing but throw around insults and act tough. Kakeru himself even admits that he only acted that way so that Touko would say she was “on his side.” Which, of course, she doesn’t.
In other words, that tough-guy act was a lousy front. He’s got the hots for Touko but also wants to be seen as a man. He fails at the latter and soon finds out (or will) that it doesn’t even matter what he does to get Touko’s attention, but who he is.
If anything, it is their innate abilities to see the future that are bringing them together. It is their “something special” that you hear about, like chemistry. As a nice reference Kakeru even repeats what Touko saw in a vision an episode or two ago,
“I’ve finally found it.”
Way back in my first commentary, about two weeks ago, I predicted something involving Kakeru and the potentiality that his mother was dead. It turns out that was quite wrong. She is very much alive. Though Kakeru doesn’t want to see her. Clearly, this kid has reasons for his emotional issues, but Touko will probably help him open up and…
Oh wait, that’d make Touko a manic pixie dream girl… god damnit.
While all of this crazyness is going on, there are a few scenes about Sachi and Hiro’s little arc. They both seem to have different expectations, or possibly different ideas of what’s going on. Sachi claims that she’s not going out with Hiro, while Hiro is trying really hard to get her to like him by taking her out on dates. Or at least what he thinks a date is. What interesting is that because all that terribleness that happens with their friends, the two would-be couple spend the end of the episode together playing with tiny fireworks.
With the way the episode ends, with the final shot of the the reflection of the small fireworks in the glasses on Sachi’s face, we are brought back to the feelings of the first episode. There is almost a kinda of happier, calmer joy in this scene that we didn’t get from the group of friends in the first. Hiro’s intentions of being with Sachi feels a bit more pure and innocent than Kakeru’s and Yukinari. Kakeru wants to feel whole. Yukinari is driven by lust as we saw in the fourth episode. He even says that he can’t be alone with Touko. Hiro, however, doesn’t seem to have this problem.
Certainly, the fact that this episode of Glasslip ends with the reflection is no accident. It makes us feel like this tiny sparkler is huge. And it probably is for the sickly Sachi. Not only is it a reflection of the first episode, but it’s another example of the motifs being used in the show. This time, however, it feels far more organic than most of the filters have been. We should probably be getting some Sachi-centric episodes soon enough.
What did you think about this week’s episode? Getting tired of it? Find it more fascinating than I do? Let me know in the comments, because clearly I can’t decide.
Glasslip is simulcast on Crunchyroll Thursdays at 11:00 AM EDT for premium users. Free users get access one week after each episode’s premiere.
