Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Paradise Kiss – episode 3

November 6, 2005 on 12:10 pm | In Paradise Kiss | 1 Comment

“Kiss”

Right here is where Paradise Kiss starts to get complicated. This is because everybody is interested in each other, which is always a recipe for danger. Kobayashi’s cinematography tells an intriguing story, though, and the SD actually works in this episode.

After George tells Yukari “I think I might be falling in love with you”, Yukari does not know what to think: does she still want Tokumori (known to Miwako as “Hiro”), or does she want the blue haired designer? Things get complicated when Yukari does a nice thing by reuniting Hiro with Miwako after so many years. Problem is that Hiro and Miwako did not part on good terms, and they’ve still got “feelings”.

What a problem! When I was watching the second episode I was kind of relieved that Miwako was in a steady relationship; now I find it was an either/or situation for her, to choose between Hiro and Arashi, things are significantly altered. To add to this confusion, Arashi was actually shown to smile in this episode and to be generally nice – unlike the snarling fellow we have seen over the previous two episodes. Hiro is, in this trio, definitely the odd one out: he’s the traditional “school prince”, to an audience of pink haired goth loli and blonde punk.
No idea how that’s going to work out.

George is a very forceful fellow when it comes to the other aspect of this episode. For two people who are interested in each other, George and Yukari have terrible communication skills. What the argument boils down to is “Either kiss me, or leave Paradise Kiss so I don’t ruin myself”, which is not exactly fair. The strange thing about it all is that, when the episode is resolved and George proves himself to be quite a selfish person, Yukari’s voice over sounds happy about the way everything has turned out.
It is quite likely that Yukari just wants anything to feel about, and does not care about the fashion in which it is delivered. She’s got a lot to gain, but she can lose it all.

The episode is made more interesting by Kobayashi’s direction (although admittedly he could be going frame by frame from the manga), with lots of close ups that give the impression of “character camera view”, and an entirely different focus for the café scene that emphasises the distance between Miwako and Hiro. This sort of encoding adds more spark to already interesting ideas.

It looks like Paradise Kiss might be falling out of favour with the world at large. Bring it back, damnit.