3 February 2013: I started watching Kotoura-san
Good ol' rock. Nothin' beats that!
First of all, is it strange to find it unusual that the show is simply called Kotoura-san and not something Moll Flanders-ish like Kotoura-san Whose Life was Rotten until She Made a Friend and Now It's Better? I guess it is only an anime adaptation of a manga (a 4-koma, no less) and not an anime adaptation of a manga adaptation of a light novel. Anyway, yeah, that's what happens. At least that's what's happened so far.
Doughnut of shunning.
Kotoura Haruka's life does start out pretty rotten. She develops psychic powers as a small child, but instead of being viewed as a medical and scientific marvel, she is shunned and despised and alienated by people who somehow don't realize this little girl HAS PSYCHIC POWERS. It's established later on that at least one other person with similar powers existed at one time, so I keep waiting for Professor X or some other psychic mentor to show up and teach her how to use her powers for good instead of using them to unintentionally antagonize everyone around her.
This counts as a meet-cute, right?
I'm mostly okay with the melodrama about Haruka's suffering. Between Kotoura-san and Oreshura, it's a good season for wanton cruelty. I'm not sure what direction Kotoura-san plans to take, though, since the arc about Haruka's horrid life seems about over, and the preview for episode five suggests the show will be about wacky good times from now on. It makes the tone of the show a little uneven, and I am still waiting for more psychics to show up. Maybe since Male Protagonist is not a potato, Kotoura-san figures there are already enough freaks in the show.
It's because he's a teenage boy, Haruka.
Manabe is a decent fellow who sort of reminds me of Nenji from Nanaka 6/17 in how he watches over Haruka. It's a sad comment on the state of the contemporary anime male protagonist that someone as self-assured and direct as Manabe is so unusual. Hopefully, random-ass convenient cockblocking won't prevent Manabe and Haruka from initiating a romantic relationship until the final episode. I say "hopefully," but let's be realistic here: He likes her and she likes him, but it's only been four episodes. Of course there's going to be random-ass cockblocking.
