Written by: Karlo Cervantes | Published on: April 25, 2021
Date night, a peculiar eclipse, and a poor guy with no libido!
We’ve had quite an eventful third episode and it’s honestly a lot to take in when you start to think about it. The anime continues to touch on heavy, sensitive subjects but it also helps the audience appreciate the perspectives through creative character exchanges.
“Living Together” covered Chapters 6-9 of the manga adaptation based from Shimesaba’s Japanese light novel: Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway. (Hige wo Soru. Soshite Joshikousei wo Hirou.)
Quick Recap
Here’s what you’ve missed in Episode 2:
Yoshida gets Sayu some new things as she continues to stay over at his place
A new character in Mishima Yuzuha gets introduced into the narrative as she and Yoshida stay late in the office to finish work on a project
Gotou Airi notices how close her two subordinates are and decided to invite Yoshida out for some Yakiniku
Hashimoto helps Yoshida to pick-out which Cell Phone to get Sayu and reminds him about his actions toward his runaway highschooler
Yoshida gifts Sayu a Cell Phone and calls her out about her fake smiles
You can check out the full review of the previous episode here.
Beyond the Fan Service
The episode started off heavy right off the bat as it gave the audience a quick glimpse of Sayu’s past. Coming off of what was made known in recent episodes, it’s quite impossible to enjoy the fan service elements given the rationale behind them. That being said, viewers are able to dig deeper into Sayu’s character and begins to understand her perspective towards her arrangement with Yoshida.
It’s quite a tragic thought knowing that a high school girl would go the lengths that she has in order to survive. But in all honesty, reality is not that far off. We are all too familiar about people who have done far worse things than Sayu has just to survive but the difference in her narrative is that she’s a really nice person who does not want to do anything bad. Despite her unfortunate situation, she has a good grasp of knowing how to differentiate right from wrong. Otherwise, she would’ve committed a lot of different crimes by now.
Sayu also demonstrated a great deal of maturity as she is able to view situations from a third person perspective as they happen at present. Her human nature gives her confusion as she tries to wrap her head around Yoshida’s actions towards her as they are very different from what she’s experienced in the past – making those actions and situations unchartered territory.
As the show gives more detail about Sayu’s past, there is still this unanswered question about the origin of why she ran away from home. With the events in this episode, the anime draws its audience closer by planting more seeds of curiosity and making everyone think about what really happened – more things to look forward to in the next episodes.
Sun and Moon
Jumping off of Hashimoto’s Black and White analogy from episode two, Higehiro showed yet another great and creative one in this episode. We’ll take a page off of the manga adaptation (literally) as it perfectly described a great exchange between Sayu and Mishima.
With what has been made known about these two characters, the sun and moon analogy is a fitting description. The moon is often associated with the words mysterious, quiet, and beautiful pretty much like Sayu. On the other hand, words associated with the sun are warm, bright, and radiant much like Mishima. But the common denominator is that both the Sun and Moon give light. This is also true about these female characters as Sayu’s existence gave light to Yoshida when he took her in; and Mishima gave light to Sayu about her situation when they had that honest exchange at the park.
But let’s also not forget that Yoshida is a part of all of this. As Mishima conveys her feelings towards Yoshida as a possible love interest, we also saw Sayu nearing that point of having feelings for Yoshida. That encounter can be described as a mysterious eclipse where everything lined up at the perfect time in such a completely out of the blue moment.
“Living Together” has given more information about Sayu’s dark past but it also gave good strides in terms of character and storyline development with the inclusion of Mishima into Yoshida’s arrangement with Sayu. Shimesaba also continues to impress with such great representations as it tries to help alleviate the heavy mood. The contrast in its delivery makes for such a refreshing creative output worthy of praises.
Episode 4 of Hige wo Soru. Soshite Joshikousei wo Hirou entitled “Part-time Job” airs on April 26, 2021 at 10:30PM (JST).
TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)
Given the rationale behind Sayu’s actions, it’s hard to enjoy the fan service elements of the anime
Receiving kind gestures from Yoshida is unchartered territory for Sayu since all the men that came before him always wanted something in return
The origin of why Sayu ran away from home is still an unknown
Another great analogy by Shimesaba was used to describe Sayu and Mishima’s characters as the Sun and Moon; Creating a mysterious eclipse with Yoshida’s inclusion.
Official Anime Website: Higehiro
Official Anime Twitter: @higehiro_anime
What do you think about this episode? Let us know in the comments below!
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