Cinnamon Ass - Reborn Like a Zombie

Honey and Clover Chapter 11

Life continues as usual for the gang - Morita and Takemoto have moved in with Mayama, who lives in a one-room apartment with an outdoor shower, which brings new trials and tribulations (such as Morita wearing Mayama's underwear, for instance), but everyone's pretty much as usual - but then Shuu-chan returns, alongside Professor Tokedaiji. He brings gifts (including clothes for the girls and a rock for Morita!) and photos of all the people he saw, but Tokedaiji embarasses him with tales of how he pined for Hagu. Meanwhile, Morita shows an unexpected attitude for the sitar, and the guys realise that, now they're out of college, they're adults too, much to their horror.

The following day, Hagu asks Shuu-chan to take her shopping for new paints, and she ends up going with Morita on a semi-date - however, it's a disaster, as he doesn't speak to her for the entire time and seems to have his mind elsewhere, greatly upsetting Hagu. As she returns crying to Shuu-chan, the others muse on winter's coming as Morita stands on a bridge alone...

Much more comedy than we've had in the past couple of episodes, but another killingly poignant ending from a Honey and Clover episode there. Morita certainly seems to be a man of hidden depths, but he's obviously not really capable of a functional relationship with Hagu - he hides any real feelings he might have behind his crazy antics, and when he's stripped of those he can't really relate to her.

It's interesting that there was perhaps some evidence to suggest that Hagu really isn't that small, it's just how she appears given the way she acts - perhaps it was only for humourous effect, but when she's trying desperately not to cry at Shuu-chan's return he imagines that she's grown up like an adult before she shrinks down into the piggish crybaby (there was some seriously odd SD stuff here - Morita with duck lips like something off 2chan?). It's interesting to compare how she looks when Takemoto first saw her in the first episode, as referenced here - she's almost always depicted in some kind of SD/cutesy manner now, but there we perhaps see the real Hagumi.

You also notice that Takemoto's grown his hair long again. I guess Morita stopped forcibly cutting it, then.