Josh’s Anime Blog

Welcome to a new series that I’ll be blogging: Kima ga Nozomu Eien: Next Season. This OVA is an alternate retelling of the end of the original KimiNozo (aka Rumbling Hearts) series. If you haven’t seen the first series, you may be a little lost watching this, so I would recommend picking up Rumblings Hearts from Amazon or RightStuf or Netflixing it before looking at this if you haven’t seen it. Anime News Network lists this as being a 3 episode OVA series.

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The highlights of this episode:

• Haruka is finally released from the hospital after her accident in Rumbling Hearts and rides off with her parents, Takayuki, and Shinji. However, when she looks back at the hospital, she sees Mitsuki on the roof. When she gets her parents to stop the car and runs back to the hospital, Mitsuki is already gone from the roof. Haruka relates that Mitsuki told her that she would be leaving town for a while. Takayuki checks his voice mail, and has a message from Mitsuki saying that she’ll keep her promise one day (I’m trying to remember what promise this was…)
• Haruka starts to have nightmares about the accident from 3 years ago. Haruka also starts to worry that her catching up on her studying with Akane is hurting Akane’s swimming times, but Takayuki tries to comfort Haruka that it’s Akane’s choice to help her.
• Haruka and Takayuki go out on a date, but Haruka is still startled by cars, and is hesitant to even cross a crosswalk, and Takayuki makes sure that he is always walking closer to the road. The two go to a bookstore to pick up a study guide for Haruka, and Takayuki notes that they’ve done this before, before they started going on when Takayuki tried giving Haruka the picture book.
• The two then go to the aquarium to continue their date, where Takayuki recalls that this is where Mitsuki started dragging him out of his depression after Haruka’s accident. Haruka asks Takayuki if he loves Mitsuki, and after a little hesitation, he says he does, but Haruka remarks that she does too.
• Back at Takayuki’s apartment, he and Haruka are about to get it on when Takayuki gets a call from Sky Temple asking if he can come in early, but Takayuki declines. However, Haruka still worries that she’s in the way of Takayuki’s work. That night, Akane and Haruka work on homework, and Haruka laments how Takayuki feels obligated to spend time with her all the time and still has to work.
• A few days (and several dates) later, Takayuki and Haruka go on another date. This time Takayuki takes Haruka to the place of their first date. This time it is Takayuki who brings the meat pie, and the two chow it down. Haruka asks Takayuki what his dream is, and he tells her that it’s finding a better job so that he can support her better.
• When the two start to head back, Haruka stops just before getting on the train, and tells Takayuki that they should say goodbye just as the train doors close…

Well, Takayuki can’t seem to win. The creators hit the reset button him getting Mitsuki and sets him up with Haruka, but then she dumps him. Maybe he can get with Akane?

It seems that since the accident, Takayuki has become a bit overprotective of Haruka, and Haruka is afraid that she’s interfering with other aspects of Takayuki’s life (of course, she thinks she’s interfering with Akane’s life as well, so it’s not just because Takayuki is being pretty protective of her).

My guess is that all of this is from Haruka’s insecurity about being in a coma for 3 years and everyone having lived their lives in the meantime. Basically the same reason why Haruka decided to finally end things with Takayuki at the end of Rumbling Hearts. Obviously we have 2 episodes to turn this around.

I was kind of sad that Mitsuki, Ayu Ayu, and Mayu Mayu only got cameos in this episode. I assume Mitsuki will have a bigger role later. However, with only 3 total episodes, I’m not sure if there is much time to mess with the AyuMayu pair.

The animation kind of caught me off guard here. While the animation quality of Rumbling Hearts wasn’t all that great, the animation for this seemed more different than better. It just kind of seemed a bit washed out and not-as-detailed as it could have been, especially for an OVA.

I’m also wondering how much of Rumbling Hearts gets axed. Is it only that Haruka decides to be with Takayuki instead of he and Haruka breaking up at the end and nothing more? I’m kind of going on that assumption right now.

I liked the original series, and so I have pretty high expectations of this. I still think it has potential, but the first episode was a little, shall we say non-eventful, until the end to me.