Ep 14 – Footsteps

Kaori’s brushes off her hospitalization again but Kousei worries about her health. Kashiwagi meanwhile tries to get Tsubaki to admit her feelings for Kousei. As the semester draws to an end, Tsubaki deals with a number of changes.

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Episode Moments

Kaori’s back in the hospital, and of course she’s acting like she’s fine again. She had answers ready for her friends’ questions though, which makes Kousei feel like she’s delivered those lines plenty of times before.

Continuing its back and forth dance with our emotions, the episode relieves us by showing that Kaori isn’t in any serious condition but dashes the hope that her health is improving at all as she requests to resume the IV drip after her friends leave.

Kashiwagi tries to get Tsubaki to see her own contrary behavior but to no avail. Tsubaki seems intent on deluding herself to the end, but Kashiwagi sees things as they are, and feels Tsubaki will need to make a move before it’s too late.

Kouse’s line “that’s twice now” applies on many more levels than the one he pointed out (that she called him Kousei and not Friend A). Twice she’s been in the hospital, twice she’s told him she’s fine, and twice that a person he cares about has been hospitalized. This series pushes the parallelism hard.

Oh you adorable tomboy Tsubaki. This seems so much like something a little kid would do that I can’t help but smile as I think about how excited she is to show this thing off.

The silly moment is followed by a sad one. Tsubaki puts down her song sheet during choir and just covers her ears because she hates music. It’s the one thing that keeps her from her best friend time and again, after all.

The tense sounding argument is actually quite playful before Tsubaki’s reaction. Watari picks up on it, but I’m not sure if anyone else does. Tsubaki still doesn’t understand their world, and at this point she’s fed up with it.

Kashiwagi seems like she’s as much of friend to Tsubaki as Watari is to Kousei. She asks for his help, but Watari knows better than to approach the minefield that is Tsubaki’s feelings for Kousei. Funny thing is, I see both their points.

Poor Saito. He could be off having a real girlfriend instead of listening to Tsubaki blather on about Kousei all the time. At least tell her that it’s a problem when she calls herself out on it. You’re just too nice, Saito.

I was pretty touched by how Kousei just ran after Tsubaki when he heard she was in trouble. Didn’t even wait to hear what it was. It’s a nice reminder of how close they are in an episode that seems determined to show the distance between them.

Tsubaki and Kousei hum Clair de Lune together as another sign of how close they are. These little examples help delude Tsubaki into thinking that she doesn’t need to worry about Kousei slipping away from her. But moments after she notices how their footsteps have changed, he tells her the exact opposite.

Gotta hand it to Tsubaki though, that’s a pretty epic meltdown. I don’t know anyone that would wail through the streets like that, but her pain is understandable here. Every time she takes it for granted that Kousei will be there for her, he slips further away.

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Featured Music

This episode prominently used another insert song from ENA at the end called For You ~Tsuki no Hikari ga Furisosogu Terrace~. The track that I want to feature though, is the piano solo version of Uso to Honto (lie and truth) that played while Tsubaki was walking alone. The song is very similar to the insert song I shared for episode 11, but is missing the Rondo Capriciosso melody. It’s also cut in this episode right before the point where you would recognize the chorus.

The reason I picked this over For You is in its thematic tie to the series (and because I don’t recall if it plays again after this episode). Tsubaki is trying to figure out if she likes Saito or doesn’t dislike him, which one is a lie and which is a truth, just as Kousei runs up to her. All these main characters are struggling with a truth that they try to mask with a lie – either directed at others or themselves.

The bottom half of this song is a steady beat every measure while the top starts off the same but then begins going up and down the scale. It’s as if it’s trying to weave a more pleasant story, though both parts are in a somber E Minor, before converging again at the 62nd measure (the point at which Kousei finds Tsubaki in this ep).

The fact that they used the piano solo version here is telling as well since Uso to Honto normally features a prominent violin part. Is it any wonder why Tsubaki’s feelings would be devoid of the violin, and focused only on the piano?

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Noteworthy Motif

The book that Kaori chooses is called Ichigo Dōmei. While she may very well have chosen it after seeing that Kousei was the last one to check it out, the similarities between the story and this anime are quite uncanny. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Naoshi Arakawa based some of his story off of this. Those of you trying to avoid spoilers, maybe don’t look this book up.

Regardless, it’s a connection that comes up a few times in this series, so that’s a useful (read: not very useful) piece of trivia for you.

Just so you don’t feel like I cheated you out of a motif, here’s a double feature. Tsubaki looking genuinely cute in a yukata aside, her inner thoughts that Kousei would never call her cute is the crux of her character’s dilemma. She clings to Saito and makes excuses not to try to win over Kousei because she believes he’ll never see her as anything other than a big sister.

This was touched upon a little in the previous episode. She sees her relationship with Kousei as unchangeable situation, but isn’t sure if she ever wants it to change either. Exactly how Kousei views her will be a repeated theme in the next several episodes.

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That’s all I have for today, now let me know what you think! If you missed one of the episode posts, catch up on the re-watch party at this link.