~con tenerezza~

~with tenderness~

The opening shows Miu in two different school uniforms. First year then second year middle school uniforms? Or winter and summer of the same year? I’d assume the latter if they looked more alike. I get the impression the opening follows Miu and her family over a short span of time leading up to the start of the series.

With such an easygoing second episode, I’m curious as to which direction this series plans on taking. Where is it going? What’s the planned destination? How will it get there?

On top of that, what role will Miu’s family have? Akiko is out of the country half of the year, so it’s possible her appearance will take place later on in the series (probably close to the end, due to the low number of episodes), if at all. Miu’s parents have been explored significantly, especially considering that low episode count. An episode focused on a mother still waiting for her wonderful anniversary and a father too preoccupied with work to keep his promises does not make for a bad episode, but it does make for 1/10th of this series.

The mystery is repeatedly placed with Mr. Shirakawa and Mew. Why did Mr. Shirakawa pick up Mew? Why did Mew allow Mr. Shirakawa to pick him up? Where did Miu get Mew in the first place?

For the most part, I was able to ignore the backgrounds, but when Miu went out into the yard to look for Mew, the 2D artwork on a borderless, gradient background made for a fake-looking contrast. There was no feel of realism for Miu to be interacting with that environment. Instead, she looked more like a flat cell held in place before a very separate background.

If this series spanned 26 episodes, there’d be more than enough room to squeeze in an episode about how the introverted Miu and extroverted Yuuki became friends. Did they meet in middle school? Elementary? Childhood friends? With only eight episodes remaining out of ten, I’d expect there to be no time for such an episode. There’s no problem in accepting, “These two are friends,” but after an episode about Miu’s parents, I wonder how else episodes will be spent.

When Miu’s mother sends Miu off to buy a few items, she’s rather vague on what to buy, leaving the specifics open to Miu to decide upon. Is this to give Miu more decisions in life, or simply to not have to worry over it herself by passing the task on to her daughter?

I still think Rebecca Soler’s voice for Miu sounds too old. I can’t imagine how she may has sounded as ten-year-old Hazuki in the dub of Ojamajo Doremi.

It’s difficult putting together screenshots representing the events of an episode when almost nothing really happens.