Cinnamon Ass - Reborn Like a Zombie

Honey and Clover Chapter 6

The gang takes a trip to the zoo, and while Hagu has a close encounter with a giraffe Hanamoto-sensei fills Mayama in on his relationship with Rika - he shared an apartment with Harada, who later became Rika's boyfriend and eventually husband, until their taxi collided with a truck and Harada was killed, leaving Rika horribly scared and disabled for life. Cue sniffles from me.

The second half of the episode centres mostly around Morita, who is in danger of getting failed by one of his professors - however, he manages to finish his artwork (even if it is somewhat unconventional) in time. After the gang celebrates with a LOT of alcohol, Mayama carries Yamada home, who makes a touchingly tearful confession along the way...

Honey and Clover continues to tug on the heartstrings, although the comedy is definitely less spastic than it was to begin with - I don't think this is a bad thing as such, just a difference to be noted. The writing is quite successfully drawing out the love polygon aspects of the series without annoying me, which is a pleasant surprise - note that by this point in AishiBaby I was screaming for Kippei and Kokoro to just GET TOGETHER ALREADY, and only the Fruits Basket anime has really successfully pulled off the non-commitment angle in shoujo romance recently. As it is, while I like Takemoto a lot as the "everyman" figure of the series, Morita and Hagu would be an insanely entertaining couple, and while Yamada is a wonderful character it's plainly obvious that Mayama cares so much more for Rika that I can't imagine any real kind of relationship working between them.

Oh, what am I saying, I'm talking crap. We've got twenty more episodes to thrash all this out with, although I suspect it'll just end with them all graduating and saying goodbye to each other or something like that, ho hum.