© 阿賀沢紅茶／集英社・TVアニメ「氷の城壁」製作委員会
I realized something today: I only marginally care about the love polygon shenanigans of the central quartet. Sorry, Koyuki and Minato. Gomen, Miki and Yota. You are all sweet kids, and I wish you the best. However, your present-day love lives are much less interesting to me than when we’re slowly peeling back the layers on what happened to Koyuki during middle school.
Well, rather, I should say that I’m interested in the current happenings so far as they inspire further introspection and revelations. However, it does seem like we’ve solved many of the mysteries by now: why Miki blames herself for Koyuki’s trauma, why Koyuki dated Igarashi, why she was targeted for bullying by the other girls in her class. Everything makes sense now, right?
*starts to walk out the door*
*pauses and turns around*
Just… one more thing. If everything is resolved, why did Koyuki tell Igarashi that she never really liked him when she broke up with him?
It’s a hell of a bombshell, and certainly not one that I was expecting. I’m still not ready to let Igarashi completely off the hook, since I would be hard-pressed to find an excuse for him making Koyuki feel so bad about her interests that she doesn’t want to tell anyone about them. “I never felt anything for you” is a pretty harsh way to dump someone, but if Igarashi was out here making her feel small and cheap despite ostensibly being super into her, I’m willing to give Koyuki some grace. But hey, the series has served us several twists already, so maybe there’ll be some kind of bombshell in the last couple of episodes.
Meanwhile, in the present day, the kids celebrate their freedom from exams by spending a day at the amusement park. It’s cute, and Asagawa definitely has a gift for writing how teens goof off and play during their downtime. They beef with the mascot, buy merch, go on rides, and bond. Yota spends time with Miki, and Minato’s crush on Koyuki deepens. I had fun watching it! But right now, I really don’t have anything interesting to say about it.
The new term begins, and, well, I wasn’t entirely telling the truth. There is one more mystery that needs to be solved: who the heck that guy with the silver undercut is in the opening. And now I know he’s Miki’s little brother, Yuki! Yuki, like all the other characters, is a sweet kid, if a little rowdy. So far, his main role has been to make Minato jealous with his obvious familiarity with Koyuki, throwing him into a tizzy of blushes and crushes. Minato must finally reckon with his feelings for Koyuki, since his obvious discomfort with Koyuki acting casual with another guy…
Wait, hold up. Does his shirt have a bong on it? Incredible.
Anyway!
The other good news is that all the kids are in the same class now, along with Tsukiko, Koyuki’s committee friend. I haven’t talked much about Tsukiko in these reviews, mostly because her scenes have done little to add to the overall plot. However, as the mood shifts more toward a hangout romantic comedy, and now that she’s here with the other characters, I suppose it’s time to discuss her a bit.
Thus far, Tsukiko has largely functioned within the narrative to bring in discussions of social dynamics not represented within the main ensemble. She was nervous around Koyuki at first, but once they started talking, she realized that Koyuki wasn’t nearly as scary or cold as her reputation made her out to be; if anything, she’s extremely empathetic toward Tsukiko’s own social struggles. Her social group was so large that she ended up quietly quitting it, preferring to hang out with each one individually rather than follow the unspoken rules of maintaining harmony among so many people at once. Although big-hearted Miki adopts her immediately, her not being involved in the love polygon means she can see right away that Minato is desperately in love with Koyuki, instead of being blinded by Koyuki and Yota’s easy chemistry.
At the end of the episode, one more new character enters the fray: Akine Atagawa, an acquaintance of Minato and the younger sister of one of Koyuki’s bullies. And she… wants to be friends? Whatever could this mean!
Rating:
Ramparts of Ice is currently streaming on
Netflix.
