Hello Old Friend
For a pilot episode of this arc, it’s actually rather on par with the first one. It doesn’t have the punch and the appeal that Haruka did given her wilder and more eccentric personality, but as a representative of the girl you’ve known for much of your life, Kaoru’s pilot relates to me more than Haruka’s does. It feels more homely and down to earth, probably because it relies on the basic ideas of old friendships transforming into deeper ones rather than on something that’s more hyper and novel for the lead character.
Whether or not this arc can separate itself from the multitudes of other childhood romances remains to be seen, but at least from the first episode, it’s doing a pretty good job.
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