Recap
Everyone is at Hira’s, excited to see Kiyoi in the contest finals tomorrow. Shirota teases Kurata about Hira being her type and Kiyoi interrupts to stop it. Hira sees Kurata’s look in Kiyoi’s direction and knows she’s in love with Kiyoi.
Kiyoi didn’t place in the contest. Kurata is crying. Kiyoi acts cool in front of everyone, but when he leaves Hira follows in a “We ❤️ Kiyoi” shirt and sees he’s upset.
Later at dinner, Shirota compliments the other contestants in front of Kiyoi. Hira fantasizes about killing them with a machine gun. Hira follows Kiyoi when he goes outside. Kiyoi calls him a stalker but then explains how he’s always wanted to be inside the TV.
Hira tries to say something nice but Kiyoi mistakes it for pity. Hira doubles down on how much he likes him and Kiyoi calls him creepy, says he hates him and knocks him to the ground.
At school, it’s revealed Kiyoi wanted to be an idol since grade school and gossip about him gets nasty. Shirota is in a bad mood because he got dumped and yells at Hira and hits him in the head with a sandwich. Kiyoi stops him.
Then, Shirota and his group dump tomato sauce on Kiyoi’s head. Kiyoi acts cool, even when Shirota tries to provoke him into a fight. Hira slowly walks up the stairs toward the two of them with his shadow pulling a rifle and shooting.
We cut to an administrator asking a tomato sauce-smeared Hira if he wanted to help Kiyoi. But Hira feels Kiyoi helped him. He comes across a sleeping Kiyoi in a classroom and goes to touch his hair. Kiyoi wakes and calls him a creep, but then lets him do it. Kiyoi accidentally learns that Hira masturbated to a picture of him once. Kiyoi wants to know if Hira likes guys, but Hira just thinks Kiyoi is special.
They start hanging out and Hira takes pictures of Kiyoi but doesn’t see it as a relationship, more like he’s a nun devoted to god. Time goes on. Kiyoi gets into a magazine, and Hira knows things will end.
On the last day of school, Kiyoi decides to be friends again with Shirota. Yuck. Kiyoi leaves early and Hira predictably follows. Kiyoi seems to want Hira to say something, but then kisses him and shoves him onto the ground. He says he’ll see him later.
Hira understands this to be goodbye. Several years pass, and we see him meeting up for lunch with Koyama at college.
Thoughts
The story falters with this episode for me. I don’t like that they have Kiyoi shove Hira to the ground not once, but twice in this episode. And also have Kiyoi forgive Shirota without Shirota even apologizing. None of these things happen in the book.
Well, he might have shoved Hira to the ground the first time. The word used could mean shove or send flying and my Japanese isn’t confident enough to be certain what they meant. So. Maybe.
But Kiyoi does not kiss Hira and shove him to the ground on the last day of school, nor does he forgive Shirota. My problem with this, along with Hira constantly tripping as comedy, is that Hira’s suffering at the hands of these bullies gets downplayed. Suddenly Shirota isn’t that bad and hey the guy he likes also knocks him down so everything is cool. I understood removing the suicidal undertones (though they kept in Hira’s fantasies of shooting people), but making Hira so comedic bothers me.
Plus, it makes Kiyoi more of a jerk and Shirota less of one, why?
In the book, there’s a real downward trajectory for Hira throughout this whole section. I’m watching the kdrama Heirs, and the menace and tone of that school are what they should have here. Shirota and his gang are using Hira terribly and eventually try to use Kiyoi the same way, but he won’t let them. It’s awful.
Hira is aware that he’s slipping lower and lower on the pyramid and in danger of losing all self-respect, but Kiyoi gives him inspiration to fight back. They’ve got that here, somewhat, in the voiceover of Hira’s gratitude to Kiyoi, but I don’t think they showed it enough. By taking out the darkness we lose the light that Kiyoi brought that wasn’t all about his good looks.
Besides those choices, the painfully short run time hurts this episode. This section of the book has some great intimate moments between Kiyoi and Hira. Moments where they actually talk and learn about each other. I have trouble seeing where they could fit in.
If I hadn’t read the book, I think I’d feel that this episode was okay if short on meaningful moments between Hira and Kiyoi.