Glasslip - Episode 5 - I'm Pretending it's the Yanagi Show

WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Glasslip episode 5. If you don’t want to be spoiled, please stop reading. You have been warned.

Glasslip is becoming a bit too blah to enjoy. There’s nothing bad about it, but there’s nothing all that great about it either.

Except Yanagi, of course, but I’ll get to that later.

I was starting to wonder if the glass motifs I mentioned last time were a bit “deeper” than I thought. I put deeper in quotes because I’m not sure if it works. Glass isn’t something that happens in nature; it’s something humans make. Considering the filters and the sudden use of chibi characters in the ending (and quite a bit in this episode), none of it feels organic. It’s as if the flow and pace of the show is messed up intentionally.

This could be the creators giving us a rather dark view of the falsity of human relationships, maybe, that they aren’t actually natural and are all in our minds, and perhaps we create these things to deal with the unknowable future. Oh, sure, Touko and Kakeru can see the future . . . but only glimpses without context. Hardly helpful.

Consider, if you will, how none of these relationships are easy. Does Sachi like Hiro? If so, why did she hide that they were hanging out when Touko showed up? Or rather, why did she feel she had to? Why did Touko let her emotions get the best of her when hanging out with Kakeru and completely forget why she called him in the first place?

Going back to episode four, the scene (below) where Kakeru talks to his dad about his guilt, the moment when his dad says, “That makes me feel better,” we switch to a shot outside where the “camera” is on the other side of the glass. Yet, we hear their voices as if we were inside.

Then, there’s Yanagi. She actually musters up the courage and confesses to Yukinari, knowing full well he likes Touko. And she even says if he were to simply give up on chasing after Touko with only those words, she’d lose respect for him.

Nothing appears to be working for anyone. Nothing is happening “as it should.” Could this glass motif be reflecting this, or, rather, not reflecting this intentionally? Thinking about it that way gives me flashbacks of my French New Wave film class, where a professor tried to convince me that a director who intentionally made uncomfortable movies was a genius.

Anyway, Yanagi is my main source of enjoyment in the show, and I can’t see that changing. That confession of hers was great. Packed full of emotion but without expectation, I felt her relief as she got it all off her chest. I wonder how long that relief will last, though. Not to mention her wisecrack at Yukinari’s track friends, which was pretty solid and did its job.

Touko, on the other hand, is starting to unnerve me, although to be honest, it’s mainly that “eh . . . EHH” thing that happens in practically every other anime ever. I’m just getting sick of it. Isn’t there any other way we can get an anime character to show surprise? Maybe it’s just a cultural thing, and it’d be the equivalent of Japanese people getting annoyed at us Americans shrugging our shoulders all the time. I dunno, call me out on it in the comments. Beyond that, she’s rather endearing, but I’m not certain if it’s organically endearing or some slapped-together moe endearing.

One thing I have to continually give the show credit for is both the soundtrack and the beauty of it. The forest scene (above) and that still of Yukinari pulling off his tie in a sign of frustration (at top of page) were all wonderful to look at, desktop-wallpaper-worthy, even. Yet, in spite of all this, the slow pace battling against the realness of the characters just frustrates me. I’m really hoping for a good payoff here.

Considering the title of the next episode is “Punch,” maybe something exciting will happen, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up.

What did you think of this episode? Or Touko and her family’s continued lack of proper safety equipment? Let us know in the comments.