The second part of A Couple of Cuckoos has been quite a rollercoaster ride. As a matter of fact, there are more mediocre episodes with only a handful of good ones. However, recent episodes have shown us the fact that the showrunners seem to be finding a new formula for the series. They’re still not quite there yet, but the fact that they keep tweaking and improving in every episode is certainly a good sign.
To see the proof of that commitment, you can simply look at episode 15 of the anime. That was the best episode in this second part of the series thus far. So frankly speaking, we expect great things from episode 16 as well. But as they say, expectation leads to disappointment.
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Previously On A Couple of Cuckoos
In the previous episode, the story is split into two parts. The first one is all about Nagi and Erika having fun at the festival together. Erika’s never been to a Summer festival before, so Nagi has to teach her about all sorts of things that are common sense to other people, such as not paying the food stall with a credit card. There are so many hilarious things that happen in this part of the story.
The second part is a lot more serious than the first one. Here, Hiro cornered Nagi and Erika and asked them the truth about Sachi. After all, just a few hours earlier, they both said that Sachi is their sister. How could Sachi be the little sister of both Nagi and Erika? Although a bit reluctant at first, they both finally decided to tell Hiro the truth about their relationship.
I Want To Have This Conversation Now
Sachi meets Hiro and finds out the fact that she is Nagi’s crush for the first time in episode 15. She refuses to accept Hiro as Nagi’s love interest. So she decided to ask Erika to find out more about Hiro by following her after school. She said to Erika that it is just playing detective, but once Erika realized that they are actually more like stalkers rather than a pair of detectives, she asked Sachi to stop.
Not one to give up so easily, Sachi decided to visit Nagi’s school the following day. The official reason is that she intends to apply to that school, and asked to be given a tour by the star student, which happens to be Hiro. However, what Sachi wanted all along was a chance to talk alone with Hiro.
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The third part of the episode is about Sachi’s determination to apply to Nagi’s school. Nagi said that Sachi can always do anything that she sets her mind to. So he’s sure that Sachi can pass the rigorous exam if she really wanted to. However, the real problem is money. Since it is an elite school, the cost is quite high. So he decided to take Sachi to meet their parents and talk about it.
Back to The Serious Stuff
Although the format of episode 15 is already quite great, this episode proves that the showrunners are still experimenting with telling a story that has a nice balance between drama and comedy. So rather than the two-story-per-episode format that they’ve been doing for the past couple of episodes, they decided to go back to the usual format instead in this episode.
Unfortunately, the result is an episode that leans heavily towards drama. Once again, the comedy has to take a step back. Sure, there are some funny moments here, especially in the early parts of the episode. However, the overwhelming majority of the episode is spent on serious and dramatic stuff. This ends up making episode 16 not as enjoyable to watch as the previous episodes.
Good Character Development
As you can probably already tell from reading the summary above, this episode focuses heavily on Sachi. Erika and Hiro have been the stars of previous episodes, so it’s about time that Sachi shines. In other words, Sachi has good character growth and development in this episode.
It’ll be a lot better if they can inject more comedy into the story, but it’s clear that their main concern is with Sachi’s character development. And in that regard, they manage to achieve their objective. Not only do we get the chance to see Sachi being jealous, but we also see her accepting the fact that she is wrong about Hiro, and also setting a target for her future.
It’s unfortunate that this episode ended up not as enjoyable as the previous episode, but on the other hand, it proves that the showrunners are still willing to try different storytelling formats that suit the objective that they’re trying to convey. This episode, it’s all about character development for Sachi, and they are successful in that regard. But a little more comedy sprinkled throughout would certainly make it much more entertaining to see.
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