Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Paradise Kiss – episode 5

November 27, 2005 on 12:29 pm | In Paradise Kiss | Comments Off

“Mother”

So many shots of irrelevant objects set to dialogue make this episode a bit of a trial. Some fine points are made, but they could have been made so much better.

After fighting with her mother, Yukari decides that she should leave home, quit school and make it on her own.

To be honest I don’t remember this episode all that well, despite watching it in the last day. Because of all of the bizarre, pointless shots that Kobayashi inserted in this episode, there is very little to actually focus on and attention wanes all too easily as a result.

My other problem with this episode is that I can’t really bring myself to agree with anything that Yukari does in it; all of a sudden she is acting incredibly impulsive thanks to what George describes as her “bad friends”. I suppose that this is necessary for Yukari to realise what she needs to do with herself, but in the short term it could be quite destructive: this is, of course, natural bias on my part as I believe firmly in getting a high school education (particularly when Yukari is so close to its conclusion).

I would say that Yukari should try to make a go of it with Hiro, but he only just started showing interest in her after she became so much more “interesting”. When someone has new and exciting worlds exposed to them, they can become too enamoured of them and become addicted, dropping what they had been trying to seek a little change from entirely; this is exactly what has happened here. I call for balance, as that point is where Yukari reached her “best”.

All of that said, George actually has a point when he says that Yukari can never get anywhere if she keeps on undervaluing herself. It sucks that she’s bouncing around everywhere, but hey … that’s realism for you. Here’s to better direction next episode!