10 Second Anime - Amanchu! - Episode 8

Ai receives a love letter. Hikari and Futaba go through their physical fitness tests.

Episode 8 - "The Story of the Feelings Yet Hidden"

"The Story of Things Yet Unknown"

Heh.

Aw, no actual diving from the Diving Club this week, but lots of Healing Anime material.

We had two mini episodes again, but they were both thematically related by one pair of a duo discovering something new about the other.

In the case of the Ninomiya twins, the younger brother discovered his sister actually has a patient side, even an empathetic side to her. She just doesn't express it to him, naturally.

The bookend to the siblings' story was how Ai discovered Makoto's sentimental side because he kept many mementos in his locker. She appreciated that, but still wanted Makoto to be a better man because he can't support his future bride on his collection of nice memories. I suppose her physical kicks in his pants aren't just metaphors to get his butt in gear.

Makoto's friend got him to acknowledge that his sister is objectively cute. But then...

The cute Ai turns into the violent Ane-chan!

"This is AMANCHU!" /300 reference.

Confirmed: even extras have muppet faces.

This is pretty realistic as far as sibling relationships are concerned. Big sister doesn't need to have a reason to kick her little brother. But it's definitely not cute.

Makoto's Ane-chan danger sense has been honed over many years.

I had to laugh at how Ai treated finding that letter in her shoe locker. She was a pure maiden after all!

Yup. Ane-chan runs fast. She did that on purpose though. She knew Makoto would follow her and get to her before the first-years did so that she could point out the boy who left the letter.

Yeah, these girls weren't going to catch up to the Ninomiya's.

Katori and Cha the cat didn't have much to do except savor the Spirit of Youth. That's alright. They had a big episode last week.

The Diving Club's physical training is harsh! One-handed planks are tough! Now, if they were being made to do one-handed pushups, woof!

The whole scene where Ai acted like a self-conscious girl in front of her brother was well done. And the cynical look she put on her face when she glanced at the letter struck pure terror into Makoto. I can imagine he was worried she was going to bust that guy up.

But no, she just saw that the letter was addressed to the girl whose locker was below hers. Her empathy and understanding of what the guy must have gone through surprised Makoto, although it was a nice surprise.

The other nice surprise is that Makoto actually has eyes. The same green color as his sister's.

Then she kicked him and took off running. He saw a new side to her, but she still had all the other sides he knew.

The second part of the episode was a contrast to the first. Instead of people who have known each other a long time discovering something new about the other, we had a new friendship where the people are still discovering things about each other. It's still a new thing, but it's like the next level of new things signaling a deeper bond.

The focus was on Futaba. The camera focus was on her swaying backside...

Similar to last week and to the first part, we had a first person narrator in Hikari.

Ha! She thinks Futaba runs like an excited shiba inu when she's happy to see her friends.

Through the narrative device of the annual physical fitness tests, Hikari did a quick review of Futaba's shy and timid nature.

This mainly meant we had some comedy bits with attractive girls in gym shorts.

Pikari is strong like bull. Teko is the squeezee not the squeezer.

The yuri was pretty strong during this whole half, with the hugging, the hand holding and the ab stretch spotting...

I loved the scene where Futaba gave up on her sprint only after she was passed by someone else. They conveyed that pretty well and I was slightly surprised that it was a plot point for Hikari to notice. The superficial reading on it was to recall how Futaba had given up on many things before she really started them, so this small scene reinforced that.

However, it gave Hikari a chance to dig a little deeper on that quirk in Futaba's personality.

Ms. Katori didn't have much to do this half either, but she still looked good doing it.

Hikari picked up on how Futaba gave up after getting passed, so she came up with a motivation plan for the 1 km run.

The plan was simple: take it easy until the last lap and then sprint through the pack! If Futaba was doing all the passing, she wouldn't give up on her effort until the finish line.

Hikari discovered the new side to Futaba when Katori informed them of their placings. Because Futaba had done so well, she said she wanted to try it again with starting her sprint earlier so that she could pass the people she didn't catch. Wha... Competitive streak in timid Futaba?

That's when it clicked into place for Hikari. Futaba hates to lose! She hates it so much that she won't even start something new unless she knows she'll do well at it. Whether that caused her lack of confidence after repeatedly avoiding new experiences or her competitiveness not matching her talents caused failures which gave her that complex, who knows. What matters is that Hikari found out Futaba wants to be a winner.

Unfortunately, there was no bookend where Futaba discovers some small thing about Hikari to match the Ninomiya's first half. That's alright. Since they're the main characters, these little epiphanies should be savored with lots of buildup.