Kotoura-san Episode 4 Discussion

InfiniteRyvius said:
With regards to Moritani's redemption, there seem to be two major problems:

1) She is forgiven in the blink of an eye.
2) She is essentially a different character now.

On point 1) I've seen a couple of reasonable reasons given, basically this:
That's good and all, however that's not satisfactory. For one, Manabe (who doesn't have Kotoura's convenient mind reading) forgave her too after his brief 4 seconds of anger. We know what Manabe is like, and although he is light hearted etc. forgiving her just because he was told to is unreasonable.

As for Kotoura-san, I'm sure that her reading Moritani's mind would help show how sincere Moritani was, however forgiving her for treating her horrendously and having Manabe beaten up are not things that you can just go "well, she's genuinely sorry, so let's just let it slide" to. Even if she was sorry, most people would be angry at the fact she was stupid enough to do it in the first place, and so rather than thinking "Aww, she's actually sorry", they would usually think "Well I'd expect you to be sorry!". I don't think I've made my point too clearly, but I hope you get the general jist.

On point 2) there's not much that you can say about this. She just changes character. The best defence I can think of is "She was confronted with what her actions led to, which caused her to confront how she was acting, making her rethink how she did things, and on second thoughts, she realized she had been a bit of a bitch".

However! In refute to this defence that someone may or may not have come up with, I'd point out that earlier in the series she was blaming Kotoura for everything that was going wrong (for example, when Manabe shouted at her she didn't confront herself then, but instead blamed it on Kotoura, when it was obviously was her fault). What would be different about this incident then? Only the scale, but it's something that she could just have easily blamed on Kotoura like before.

Also, all that aside, she clearly acts in a way completely different to before, even aside from blame shifting and her malicious attitude towards Kotoura. Her character traits have all changed. She is essentially a different person.

That I hope explains why the scene of forgiveness was so poor.

DenjaX said:


Uhmmm. It is not a blink of an eye. There was a timeskip. Kotoura disappeared more than 7 days. I think that is enough time for Moritani to change. It is also enough to make others to think it's all in the past. In addition, Kotoura's character is very forgiving as well and Manabe's too light hearted for his sake as you described.

Mormegil said:
Disappointing episode. I was uncomfortable watching all the scenes with the grandpa. They obviously intended his pervertedness to be funny, but instead it came off as creepy; and considering all the abuse Kotoura has been through in her life and how seriously the subject matter was treated in the first half of episode one, it's a shame the grandpa is being revealed in this light. He's family and the only one who treats her like a human being. Using his pervertedness so lightly, as to invoke humor, was a terrible decision. Anime needs to grow up.

And, yeah, I have to echo everyone else's sentiment here. The stuff with Moritani was horrible rushed. Plus, they're really going to forgive her just like that? Reminds me of Bimbougamiga when the main character almost gets raped, and 2 seconds later all is forgiven and they're back to comedic antics. Different circumstances, for sure, but something that has been plaguing anime for a very long time now: serious subject matter dealt with too lightly.

I think that's Kotoura-san's biggest flaw. Balancing the comedic moments with the drama. To be fair to Kotoura-san, though, not many can get it right.

Kyube said:
Maybe I was not exactly precise about what I think overshadowing means and why I don't like that word in this context.
I think Kotouras grandfather is presented as two different personalities. First he cares for Kotoura, secondly he is a pervert and both personalities have nothing to do with each other, they can exist soley, there is no interaction with each other.

The same can happen with messages. Message A gives a group a good feeling, but this might be overshadowed by a really sad message and therefore the whole group is in a bad mood.

InfiniteRyvius said:
On point 2) there's not much that you can say about this. She just changes character. The best defence I can think of is "She was confronted with what her actions led to, which caused her to confront how she was acting, making her rethink how she did things, and on second thoughts, she realized she had been a bit of a bitch".

However! In refute to this defence that someone may or may not have come up with, I'd point out that earlier in the series she was blaming Kotoura for everything that was going wrong (for example, when Manabe shouted at her she didn't confront herself then, but instead blamed it on Kotoura, when it was obviously was her fault). What would be different about this incident then? Only the scale, but it's something that she could just have easily blamed on Kotoura like before.

Cratex said:
Again, my impression from the remaining few minutes of the episode after that was that Manabe had not yet forgiven Moritani and didn't trust her. I'll wait to see what happens in the episode to come regarding how that shakes out.

symbv said:
The difference is at that time it was Manabe speaking about Kotoura. In fact even though Moritani was holding grudges against Kotoura after Manabe confronting her, she went to punish Manabe not Kotoura, despite deep in her heart she knew she still loves Manabe. So the consequences are different. She made a messed-up choice leading to the beat-up incident, and that consequence led her to seriously question her line of thinking and behavior. She felt extremely guilty even though nobody around her, even her friends in the class, knew about the true reason of Manabe's absence. She expected so full that she would be exposed by Kotoura, or at least treated coldly or harshly by her, since she knew Kotoura's ESP is real, but she saw in person (not something spoken by Manabe) that Kotoura not only did not do that, but spoke kindly and confidently about Manabe's recovery without any explicit or implicit reference to Moritani. This may be one moment that 'turning the other cheek' actually works -- and as much as it sounds so unusual, I also believe such display of the good side of humanity does exist.

AnimeHAwk616 said:
That was a good episode. Glad to see her back at the school. I really loved that grandpa before, but turning him into a pedo didn't cut it for me. But I loved the whole chase scene. A good conclusion, and I would be satisfied it this was just a 4 episode OVA, but it's even better that we get a full series. Hoping this doesn't go downhill after this.

Kyube said:


I think you could also add, that Moritani understood the meaning of "she kept everything for herself" and thus became aware of Kotouras peaceable/irenic nature.
I think there are many strong and valid arguments to defend Moritani change in character, probably a lot more than, we have put together so far.

InfiniteRyvius said:
I think the fact she sent the people after Manabe rather than Kotoura was strange, she obviously blamed Kotoura for Manabe shouting at her, and it's clear that she thought that Manabe was being taken advantage of by her, so sending goons after him just makes no sense. It was stupid.

InfiniteRyvius said:
As for the reason you gave, I'm sure she would have felt guilt, however I'm pretty sure that she could easily have shifted the blame onto Kotoura like she did before.

InfiniteRyvius said:
I don't believe there are a tremendous amount of arguments that you could use to defend her, frankly it would just be people trying to convince themselves that actually the scene wasn't poorly written.

InfiniteRyvius said:

@symby
I think the fact she sent the people after Manabe rather than Kotoura was strange, she obviously blamed Kotoura for Manabe shouting at her, and it's clear that she thought that Manabe was being taken advantage of by her, so sending goons after him just makes no sense. It was stupid.

5camp said:
Yo Japan, old men perving out on their granddaughters is not cool. Didn't think that was a thing that needed to be explained.

It was fun while it lasted Kotoura-san, but your appeal has worn off and your massive melodrama is now just dumb.

-MgZ_ said:
Is it just me or this show is a bit overrated? I'm not saying it's bad but... 8.22?

Considering most of us knows things will go this way. I mean, from the opening you can clearly see the red-haired girl is going to be a good character after almost killing Manabe.

The series has a pretty normal development. Why does this series have a high score? Is it because of the Comedy? Drama? Romance? or just the Plot?

And the guys discussing the cliche character development... seriously?

Tenchio said:
drama -> omg, the grandfather wants to fuck his granddaughter

InfiniteRyvius said:

It's got such a high score because the sort of people who will give it 10s because they love it so much are also the sort of people who rate it having seen the first 2 episodes. Once the series ends you'll find that the series rating will drop. I seem to remember someone had a nifty graph showing average rating over time, I'd quite like to see that for here.

Also, yes I discuss it, because I don't get why people can just watch it and go "Yep, seems legit".

symbv said:
Where was that mentioned in the anime? Perhaps your mind is even dirtier than the grandfather to come up with this interpretation from this episode?