Honey Lemon Soda

Episode 11

I started to get the uncomfortable feeling that, if it would adapt to the point in the manga I expected, Honey Lemon Soda would have to play with its pacing. I'm not complaining about the painstakingly perfect adaptation choices made before this week, but more lamenting that the honeymoon had to end.

That makes it sound like this was a terrible episode, which it certainly is not. It does a decent job of reminding us what Uka's day-to-day life was like before she met Ayumi and her other friends in class – Marin is the last holdout who can't shake her rage that Kai is paying attention to “the plain girl,” and she decides to do something unpleasant about it. She's thwarted, of course, because the plot hasn't been building Uka up for ten episodes only to destroy her in the eleventh, but we can still sense how inevitable Marin's treatment feels to her. The repeated use of road imagery, while not a great fit for everything, does work very well to show how Uka once again feels swept along with someone else. She's not going down this familiar road of her own volition, but because it takes her a while to figure out how to get off it.

The real triumph isn't the kiss or that Uka gets her chance to protect Kai. It's that she's able to stand up for herself in that karaoke room when no one has her back. Yes, it's the karaoke facility Kai works at, but he's not in the room, and Uka doesn't know he's right outside the door. Marin is the only person she knows, and she's the problem. So for Uka to muster her courage, stand up, and speak in the face of Marin's bullying and the leering, obnoxious boys is beyond impressive. Before when she's stood up for herself, Kai's been there, or at least Ayumi or Serina. But this time it's all Uka. She's found her voice, and as we see in the rest of the episode, she's not going to let it be fully silenced again.

Kai's doodle on her T-shirt suggests that he both knows that and is proud of it. His drawing is far simpler than the ones Uka did for everyone else in class, just a tiny pair of wings. But they represent how far she's come, as well as his tacit acknowledgement that she doesn't need him anymore. Sure, she may want to continue being around him and he won't be able to stop himself from protecting her, but she can find her voice now. She can stand on her own two feet. She can fly – away from the nest he built for her. It's an interesting contrast to how her father tries everything to keep her in the family nest, although I don't love that I just compared the actions of a father to a potential boyfriend. But both of them were, for different reasons, trying to do the same thing: make sure Uka was safe and happy.

Unfortunately, while some of the symbolizing was exactly right this week, the rest felt…weird. The continued emphasis on juice boxes (matching juice boxes) that pulsed with the strength of how everyone was sucking on the straws is baffling, and the road metaphor far outlived its usefulness. It's also hard to miss the many animation shortcuts taken in this episode, although I applaud the attempt to make them look avant-garde rather than cheap with the color choices. This hasn't been a great-looking show, but it's generally looked better, or at least more consistent, than this.

I'm hoping that, even if (or maybe especially if) it does bring things to where I've been guessing the anime will stop, it's done well enough to give us a clear sense of how far Uka has come and that she has the strength to keep moving forward.

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