Quote:
Originally Posted by ujiuji
To me the most revealing scene in this episode about Sumire was when she realises she has nothing much to say to her new first-year friends. She wonders if this is how it is when you are not in a club and resolves to put more effort into getting a boyfriend. It shows she is aware of a feeling of shallowness, emptiness, that needs filling. Now her train of thought seems like it should end with "find a club that interests me and provides the social / intellectual / emotional stimulation that I'm lacking". Instead it ends with "boyfriend". Well it would give her something to talk / boast about to her friends I suppose, but I suspect she needs more than that to fill the emptiness, even if she doesn't know it yet. It would explain something that I've found odd; that she seems quite serious about Taichi although she actually knows next to nothing about him. She's been accused of shallowness for this, but it might be fairer to say she's confused. She does have depth of feeling but the only outlet she is currently aware of for such feelings is "boyfriend". Maybe she read too many of those shoujo manga whose heroines she identifies with? So she's setting her sights on Taichi although, knowing this series, it will become increasingly obvious that the hole in her life is karuta-shaped.
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Yes! That curious fugue-like moment, where her friends begin to white out, and Sumire reaches a nadir--she is all alone, with people who themselves are all alone. Of course this brush with the void happens in a McDonalds... Then, out of nowhere, she recites the opening line to her poem. It has touched her heart: it is what is there when everything else is gone.
Not just the poetry: she also remembers Harada and Taichi's words to her. These remind her of a life of dedication and purpose, an essential seriousness, which she lacks, and knows she lacks, but does not fully understand.
I think the point of her telling herself she needs to give up seeking the hottest guy in the school, and just get a boyfriend, and then, of having her angrily reject the speciousness of the former boyfriend's proposal to get back together, is to let us viewers know that the boyfriend motive from the previous episode, in general and as applied to Taichi, has exploded. Only, she has not yet worked out it's replacement. That's why she does go back to the club, but participates there with indifference and nonchalance.
It's only after Sumire's conversation with Kana-chan that she finally gets it. And I don't think the getting is of karuta. She accepts karuta as a necessary discipline, following Kana's words about the formal character of the poems, but that is not her main focus. I think she is motivated by an ideal of love, as it is expressed in the poems. Quadratic's point that Sumire wishes to experience what the poems have been expressing is spot on. Sumire wishes to live the life of the poems, to become a lover as described in the poems. Or put it this way: she is cultivating her life, so she can make of her life a poem that can express the full depth of her love.
The irony of all this is, as you point out, that the object of her love is incidental. Taichi is a star, but who he is actually, does not seem to be a part of Sumire's aspiration.
Of course, this is true of Taichi's aspiration for Chihaya as well. He loves her, and truly, but who she is, within her heart, is beyond him.
I think your description of Sumire as a person of deep feeling who only has superficial outlets for her passion is exactly correct. Thanks for bringing this out.