An unusually powerful aura for a supporting imouto character.

Episode 03 was a good turn-around from episode 02 and feels much more on route. I was not too impressed with the first bit of the episode where the two going out since it seemed a dry carry-through of the previous episode, but it really did illustrate Youhei’s awkward social manners and overall immaturity and depression. The story finally starting to kick itself back in in the playground scene through parallel events where Youhei and Mei’s histories start revealing themselves. We are reminded of the certain issue that prevents Youhei from playing in the soccer team, this was only mentioned once in a brief scene in the first season. The tensions further In Mei’s rant in the dorm at 11:11, I believe that it is none other than her brother that she is referring to, or at least the version of her brother that now exists only in her memories. Like I complained before, this arc is focusing on the minor characters, but even as minor characters I am finding Youhei as a character with a reason of existence for purposes other than comic relief, and Mei as a more and more powerful individual and no longer just “Youhei’s random sister” like she was in the first season.

I noticed both Mei’s voice actor and KyoAni’s use of camera angles to be superior this episode. I’m not an experienced seiyuu critic, so I’ll just point out a few lines I found particularly effective. At 14:14, Mei’s line “Gosh, he’s so hopeless…” is one of the most emotional lines, perfectly expressing the feeling of laughing one’s problems off. Compare to the same line at 10:19 which is said much more neutrally. Another particularly good script sequence is at 11:11 in Youhei’s dorm: “That’s right. But that’s not all” and the crepe/photo-booth lines are full of imouto goodness. I think the breathing has a lot to do with effective voice acting, I’m noticing a lot of little gasps and puffs and hiccups that make Yukari Tamura’s voice acting (for Mei amongst many other roles) much more effective and realistic.

On towards the camera angles, I find the choices excellent for isolating characters to show the feeling of being left-out. This is mainly Youhei in this episode, and going through these snapshots it really provokes one to think about how much he is hiding when he is his usual perverted smug self. I disabled the subtitles since I want to focus on the animation only; these are presented in chronological order.

Ending remark: What’s Ryou doing in the next episode preview? Everything so far seems unrelated to her…