Horimiya: The Missing Pieces

Episode 7

This week's episode of The Missing Pieces might be a bit more challenging to talk about than the others because, while I think this episode had the most skits and stories, many of them have very little to say outside of very obvious implications. However, I need to earn my paycheck, so what can we break down about this episode of Horimiya? I think it's amusing that I mentioned last week how Sakura almost seems like a great girlfriend for both Kakeru and Remi as the three rely on each other so much. However, this episode seems to almost ship her with Akane, who had a lot more presence in this episode than the rest of the season so far. I don't think he had that much focus in the first season, so it's nice to be reminded of how gentle and sweet he can be. Honestly, my favorite part about this episode might be the ending song where the “not Naruto” manga that these two were geeking out over ended up being the theme for the ending song. It's super random, but I always like when shows give us a little treat like that.

I'm mostly kidding because, honestly, my favorite stories from this episode were the ones that revolved around Honoka. Considering how much she liked Kyouko in the first season, I am surprised that there were hardly any interactions between her and Honoka in this episode. If anything, it almost felt like the show was going out of its way to pair Honoka with the rest of the cast. I like how it highlighted the growing anxiety she seems to be dealing with. Honoka doesn't get along with anybody in her class, and there are a lot of heavy hints that imply she's an easy target for bullying. It's nice that she does have friends, but they're all upperclassmen who are studying for entrance exams, and when they graduate, she might be left alone again. Seeing her deal with that insecurity was cute, and I like the relationship she has with everybody in the show.

The other story bits were harder to remember, and it might be because of how quick and sporadic they were. That is something else I can complain about regarding this season: it's not always apparent when the show cuts between skits, so I don't always know if a scene is following up on a previous one or if it's the start of a completely new skit. When you have situations like the skits that revolved around Yuki in this episode, being probably no more than two minutes long, you start to get the feeling that the producers are scraping as much material as they can for the sake of filling out an episode. It affects the pacing of the overall season, but I was already anticipating something like this was bound to happen. If anything, I guess it's impressive that this was the point where it felt the most obvious and egregious.

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Horimiya: The Missing Pieces is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.