I remember having a hospital stay for a couple of weeks or so once when I was little, but my sister was also there (and suffering from the same thing I was, I think), my parents were pretty much constantly at our sides, and the most I had to worry about was boredom. Well, and being sick, but that’s a given. If I were there for longer and more isolated (and possibly old enough to realize this), I don’t think I would have been as blase about it.

A Koyori and Aono-centric episode this time, a third of the way into the series. I’m beginning to guess that sola is going to go with a majority of slow drama episodes, focusing more on the various characters and their unique circumstances, before going into the meat of the supernatural portion of the story.

It’s a bit like Kanon: here we have some very strange events that do not seem to be explainable by science, and each one alone could be a story all unto itself if one would analyze all the little details and inner workings… but no, we get a large amount of handwaving and far more focus on the emotions of the characters. This is good in its own way (as may be seen from the immense Kanon fandom), but in a relative unknown like sola, what a lot of the viewpoints I’ve seen so far may be the result of false expectations. We see the Night Demon plot point, and we expect that the anime will revolve around that, when it may well all be some sort of MacGuffin, at least for the first half of the series or something.

Anyway. Aono gets some character development, while Koyori is all sweet and polite and very loli cute. It’s almost Pavlovian by now: every time I see Koyori, I go all hanyaa~n and moe~ in a way that would probably be extremely creepy and disturbing to any unfortunate onlookers.

This is all the Matsuri we’ll be seeing this episode. Well, not all of it, but close enough. She pretty much gets what amounts to a couple of cameo appearances, doing nothing but lazing around in Yorito’s home while all the action (such as it were) happened outside. Still, we get further confirmation that she has very odd tastes, calling the bizarre doll Yorito bought for Aono “cute”. Of such things are deep friendships made of.

Matsuri is, I presume, laying low. Similarly, the hunter Takeshi and his goth-loli charge Mayuko are also keeping a relatively low profile, possibly single-handedly subsidizing Mana’s late-night tips at the Azur famires. In this episode, they are NPCs.

Meanwhile, Koyori is angsting over her impending discharge from the hospital, seeing it as abandoning Aono. Mana senses something is wrong, but is unable to get a straight answer out of her, so she just advises Koyori to tell Aono about it herself.

I find myself wondering about Mana’s and Koyori’s exact relationship to each other. I’m leaning quite far towards step-sisters, not least because Koyori always accidentally calls Mana “Mana-san”, and Mana has to correct her (with the Onee-chan Chop). Also, here, Koyori is reluctant to reveal whatever is on her mind to Mana, while Mana tries to convince Koyori to see her as a kind and understanding older sister.

The two seem more like friends than sisters, to be honest. Then again, I could be wrong, and it might all be due to Koyori’s politeness.

CHECK!Point: Every time Mana does that karate-chop and Koyori winces, I giggle. Yes, it’s just as you would imagine.

Koyori reminisces about the first time she met Aono. Aono was just as unsocial as she is now (or perhaps more so), and barely responds to Koyori’s painfully polite inquiries and attempts to start a conversation. Just as Koyori was about to give up and leave, she comments that being alone in a hospital and unable to sleep is very lonely, and this strikes a chord with Aono. Presumably, from then on, the two were close friends.

Random speculation: Aono’s feelings of loneliness may be brought up again later in the series to compare with Matsuri’s, since the latter has supposedly been around for several hundred years, which brings to mind all the stories about the loneliness of immortality.

Further angsting and introspection is had. Koyori is wondering whether she should tell Aono, and Aono is wondering why Koyori hadn’t visited her in a while. While worrying, Aono makes an origami… thing (I have no clue what it’s supposed to be), and then crumples it up.

CHECK!Point: Koyori starts to go “Mana-san”, realizes that she’s supposed to go “Onee-chan”, and pre-emptively braces for Mana’s karate-chop impact. Hee.

Yorito has, today, forgotten to bring along one of his very bizarre-looking dolls for Aono. Aono is annoyed at this (even though Mana admits that she can’t tell the difference), and demands that Yorito bring five dolls tomorrow as compensation. Evidently she does, in fact, like Yorito bringing her the dolls, even though she may not like the dolls themselves.

CHECK!Point: And Aono smiles. The Silent Moe theory of infrequently-showing emotions causing greater impact gains some ground.

Aono’s favourite doll (relatively speaking) is the first one Yorito gave to her. Since then, Yorito has given her a total of thirty-six dolls, and all of them are weird-looking in one way or another. Assuming Yorito had been going on one doll per day, that means that Aono has been in the hospital for about a month or so. Still, perhaps sometimes he doesn’t visit (as happens in episode 2), and perhaps he gives multiple dolls in a day, as will happen the next day.

Koyori attempts to tell Aono about her discharge, but loses her nerve at the sight of the crumpled origami paper Aono had thrown away, and runs off.

That night, Koyori is nursing a cup of coffee, and Aono visits her. This time, Aono does introduce herself properly to Koyori, symbolically completing the sequence from the time they first met. Here, Koyori finally manages to tell Aono that she’ll be leaving the hospital.

The next day, Koyori prepares to go to school, and says goodbye to Aono. I assume Koyori is still going to continue visiting Aono, along with Yorito and Mana.

And for the hook for the next episode, Takeshi notices Yorito walking Koyori home from Azur, and seems to recognize him for being the boy who was at the scene when Takeshi confronted Matsuri. Cue ominous chord.

Overall, this episode doesn’t have any action per se, but does have a fair bit of character development, especially for Aono. To me at least, she’s gone from something like that unpleasantly paranoid relative you have to take care of who’s convinced that everyone including you is out to kill her, to someone who’s a bit more understandable. I have to admit that I’m eating some crow right now, albeit in my own private thoughts; I didn’t much like her at first and thought her portrayal was over the top, but upon thinking about it, I realize that she’s probably just not very good at expressing herself, and is also affected by the crushing weight of the idea that having been in the hospital for such a long time and only her younger brother to visit her, one day, she might be left alone, helpless, abandoned.

I don’t think I would have been as calm as I thought I would be, in that situation.

Which makes Koyori even more awesome. For her age, she’s handling being in the hospital a lot better than either I would or Aono is. She doesn’t really lose her good cheer under normal circumstances, and even when she does, it’s because she’s afraid of hurting other people. Add in her unfailing (and perhaps excessive) politeness and self-sacrificing nature, and we get a recipe for pure awesome.

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