Skip and Loafer

Episode 10

My middle school made all eighth graders put on a musical. My year was The Pirates of Penzance. I wanted to be a lady pirate, but I was made to be a giggling maiden. That's not nearly the level of baggage that Shima's approaching the musical his class is performing for the inevitable school festival, but at least I could (and can) voice my issues around it. That's something he has a lot of trouble admitting, much less coping with, and as his pal Chris points out: it'll take a real toll sooner or later. Much of the problem is that Shima can't separate his past trauma from his present behavior.

We've known for a few episodes now that Shima felt that his acting was more for his mother and as a way of gaining her approval, and this week's flashbacks seem to back that up. We can see from our position outside his life that his family had many issues unrelated to his acting. His mother may have thrown herself into his acting career less because it made her love him more (his perception), but as a way to escape from her problems with her husband. In Shima's little-boy brain, he was in charge of her happiness, and so he threw himself into his career. We don't know exactly what led to his decision to stop acting (was it the Ririka party? I have my doubts), but he feels that he let his mother down. Maybe she didn't move away from him so much as he thinks he drove her away. In that mindset, his little brother becomes his replacement—his mother's attempt to get a son who won't let her down.

What scares him now is that he believes Mitsumi is heading down the same self-destructive path. When he sees her running ragged and then hears classmates badmouthing her, he begins to think that she ought to just give up on her political dreams and go back to the countryside. He doesn't realize that he's talking about himself: rather than keep getting hurt, leaving is the safer bet. He doesn't want to recognize that he's enjoying his foray into theatre because that means opening himself back to emotional danger. But when Mitsumi tells him that she knows she falls a lot, and how it makes her better at picking herself back up and dusting herself off, Shima is struck dumb. It never occurred to him that she was self-aware and making her own choices with her agency. And if she can do that… does that mean he can, too?

Although Mitsumi and Shima didn't spend much time together this week, it feels like they made a lot of progress. I'm not necessarily talking about romance (although you could interpret it that way), but rather about Chris asking Shima over ice cream whether she has any real friends at school. At the time, Mitsumi isn't the one he thinks of, but she's the one who's always there for him. I think he'd like to be there for her too, and that's what his thought that she ought to go home is really about. He just hasn't made the connection yet between helping her and simply being a friend.

But first, he has to figure out how to be a friend to himself.

Rating:

Skip and Loafer is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.