Moé Moé Rabu

• Nayuki returns home to find out that Yuuichi and Ayu have gone to the hospital to visit Mai and Sayuri.
• Sayuri says that she heard everything from Mai. Worried about the damages to the school, Yuuichi tells her that everyone thinks it’s a prank by some wicked-minded group of kids. With Sayuri talking about thinking of the future, Mai reveals that she’ll be out by spring, but probably won’t make it to graduation.
• Mai thanks Yuichi for what he did, but Yuuichi tells her that she accepted the entire burden without running away. However Mai tells him the person running away is beside him and that he needs to support them.
• Walking down the hallway, Yuuichi apologises for making Ayu tag along, but Ayu says its fine as she likes Mai, but admits that she doesn’t like hospitals. Yuuichi then spots Shiori by the reception desk and Ayu formally introduces herself. Shiori’s doctor interrupts them to take Shiori and seems to recognise Ayu, but dismisses it as nothing.
• The next morning, Kaori wakes up and heads down for breakfast, though her mother notices that she looks pale. Kaori excuses herself from the table, but her mother tries to ask her to talk to Shiori, however Kaori ignores her mother’s request.

• At the Minase house, Yuuichi wakes up to find Ayu the only one awake, as Nayuki has gone to morning practice Akiko who is still sleeping, which he finds rare. So Ayu decides to make him breakfast although Yuuichi tries to escape by saying he has club practice to attend. But of course Ayu burnt everything that she cooked.
• Heading to school without breakfast, Yuuichi is stopped by Ayu who is running up in a panic. She claims that Akiko is becoming like her mother, but when Yuuichi returns home, he is relieved to find that Akiko only has a fever. So Yuuichi leaves Akiko in Ayu’s care and notifies Nayuki later at school.
• With the two worried, they call up Ayu between classes. Ayu realises that there’s no medicine and wants to find a pharmacy, so Nayuki tells her where to go. Nayuki wonders if she should be with her mother, but Yuuichi reassures her that Ayu is over-reacting as Ayu doesn’t have a mother. Nayuki realises that when Ayu was talking about her parents away on holiday, she must have meant her father.
• At the next break, they call again and find out Ayu got the medicine, but it requires you to have something to eat first. With nothing small around the house, Yuuichi suggests going out and buying something, but Ayu is worried about leaving Akiko alone. So Nayuki instructs Ayu on how to make zosui.
• During the third call, Yuuichi is with Shiori telling her of the situation and feels that he isn’t much use. Changing the topic, Yuuichi asks if she has free time tomorrow since tomorrow is Sunday and he told her that they can hang out like he mentioned before.
• When Yuuichi returns home, he is greeted by Piro and finds the kitchen in a mess. He also finds Akiko sitting up awake, with Ayu sleeping on her lap, calling out to her mother in her sleep.
• The next day Yuuichi is with Shiori and informs her that Akiko is now fine. Wondering about Shiori’s health, she tells him that it’s like a seesaw, getting better and getting worse. Yuuichi notices Shiori is carrying a sketchbook and she tells him that drawing is her hobby.
• Shiori spots a game centre and says that she has never been in one. Yuuichi questions if she is a fox or racoon, but brushes it off and takes her inside to play a whack-a-mole game. However Shiori ends up getting a score of zero.
• The two then go to the place where Shiori first met Yuuichi and Ayu and explains that it’s a precious memory for her. Yuuichi thinks that it wasn’t that long ago to consider as a memory. Though Shiori says that time is irrelevant to memories and what matters is how precious that memory is to that person.
• Arriving at another of Shiori’s favourite places, which is a fountain, the two ended up having a snowball fight. Having fun together they even made a snowman. Shiori even s draws a portrait of Yuuichi, but upon seeing it comments that she isn’t suited for portrait sketching. Yuuichi asks if he could keep it and that makes Shiori happy.
• The last place they visit is the school, but more specifically Shiori’s classroom. Showing him her old seat, Shiori then tells Yuuichi that she collapsed on the first day of the semester, but Yuuichi tells her that he knew since her classmate told him. Shiori continues on saying that despite what the doctor said, she wanted to fulfil her dream of attending school with her older sister no matter what. Yuuichi confirms that it isn’t just a cold, so Shiori reveals that she has had a weak body ever since she was born, thus making it impossible to attend school everyday. With that Shiori apologises for lying to him.
• Retuning home, he is greeted by Nayuki who is cooking, but the phone suddenly rings. The voice on the phone happens to be Kaori who asks to meet Yuuichi as she has something she wants to talk about.
• With snow falling, Yuuichi meets Kaori at the school and finds her standing in the darkness of the school building. He realises that she wants to talk about Shiori, and Kaori eventually admits that Shiori is her younger sister who’s been weak ever since she was born. Kaori remembers that Shiori was looking forward to attending the same school with her, eating lunch with her and meeting up to go home together - it was her dream to do what everyone else does. She reveals to Yuuichi that it’s Shiori’s birthday in a week, and it’s that very birthday that doctors said she won’t live to see as she’s going to die soon. Kaori didn’t want to see her getting weaker because she knew that she was going to disappear in front of her. So she avoided Shiori and thought that she didn’t have a younger sister. If she knew that there was so much pain, she wishes she never had a younger sister. With that, Kaori broke down in tears, stepping out of the shadow into Yuuichi asking what Shiori was born for.

Preview:

Impressions

Well we sure have dived into the Shiori arc fairly deeply. The transition between the arcs has fairly quick and it appears that we won’t be seeing Sayuri and Mai any time soon. Though with the current pace of the storyline with the Shiori arc, it may seem that it will finish in 3 more episodes at most, but that questions how will they play out the Nayuki and Ayu arc.

This episode we find find out that Shiori is in fact dying and that explains her reasons for not attending school. But what the main thing here is the reason why Kaori denied the fact about Shiori as her sister and we’ll be seeing more of that in the next episode. One thing I liked as well was the play on lighting on the two sisters. Shiori in the light, with Yuuichi in the dark, and vice versa with Kaori and Yuuichi. It could symbolize a lot of things but it adds to the drama overall.

Also within this episode we get hints of Ayu, especially with the doctor noticing Ayu and the fact that Ayu dislikes hospitals. We also see hints towards the Nayuki arc with Nayuki looking worried at the start of the episode. Though I don’t think we’ll get any more until the near end of the Shiori arc.

Lastly the insert song played was Last regrets Xmas Floor Style Remix. I was somewhat surprised to hear that playing and it’s a really nice remix. And as an extra for the readers of my blog, I’ve added the mp3 for you to download. Click on the link below to download it.

Last regrets Xmas Floor Style

This is an old rip I’ve had ever since the Toei version of Kanon. So the bit rate is only 128kbps.

Kanon Merchandise of the Week

Well I was going to do this last week but I didn’t get around to taking photos. So here it is, the 2nd character book, Mai. Just like the Makoto book it covers the story of Mai with the various CG scenes, non-hentai and hentai, interview with Mai and Sayuri, profile of Mai and various fanworks.

Also included is a poster of Mai, which of course I will never hang on my wall, lol.