Kokoro Connect Discussion Thread

[Fencedude]

Man, this episode was just sorta...yeah, whatever.

[Damius]

Originally Posted by something

What the hell? Him leaving eufonius was known, but they completely nixed the OP because of the whole debacle?

Stupid. Do they really think that will make anyone who is boycotting it change their mind? What else could this be about? Maybe some stupid rights dispute after he left eufonius. Annoying - Paradigm is a great song.


Guess that explains getting a new OP so incredibly late. I doubt that's a cost they wanted to take on. Man this show is just screwed at every turn, isn't it?

Oh well... I don't know how I will feel about the new OP. Paradigm is indeed a great song and in my mind it is the Kokoro Connect song. It will feel weird to hear something else now. At least, I can listen to Paradigm on CR and on the CD.

[Damius]

- This time, they get younger! Oh, this could be really interesting. And yeah, Iori and Yui are already adorable.
- “It’s almost like Nagase-san reverted back to childhood.” You will never know, Fujishima but you are right.
- Finally, we meet Taichi’s Imouto again. She is so cute!
- Heartseed #2 now… he wants Taichi to be the Knight.
- It’s Inaban turn to get younger. She is so cute and adorable! WOW!!! Oh and Yui and Iori reaction!
- Why Aoki doesn’t recognize Yui?
- Naked Inaban!!!
- I see so that’s why Aoki didn’t recognize Yui… he thought she was the big sister of his first date. And Yui reaction to that was like…she thinks Aoki doesn’t love her, but sees her as the first girl he liked.
- The fact that they keep their memories of their childhood can be problematic at some point…
- Iori, would redo her life if she had the chance to…
- So, now Iori is 14 years old.
- Oh Inaban!

Well, I’m curious to know the route they will take from here… I must repeat that Mini-Inaban was so cute and adorable! Can we have her again around that age?

[Damius]

- So that will be the new OP they will use on the BD.
- Having a baby in your arms can lead to misunderstanding.
- Arg… Yui regressed to the worst possible time. Just around the time she experienced her trauma…
- And of course, she remembers everything now… That most be so hard for her… Poor Yui… ;_;
- So we meet Nana. That sure was fast… I feel bad for Nana...
- And he rushed to Yui to declare his love to her.
- Yui, was able to hug him. She did the last step.

[Damius]

- So he told everything…
- And yeah, it happens randomly now… it can happen anytime. And to Taichi too.
- Iori’s mom wants to go back with Iori’s “second father” and he can be violent… Really?
- Iori regressed and wants to go home to protect her mother… Ouch…
- And now she is back and yeah she remembers…
- And Inaban convinced her to not go alone, to ask for help. The others were there for her. Nice scene.
- Iori sure regressed at the worst possible time… At least, Taichi was fast enough to get her and run away.
- So Heartseed #1 took care of #2, they won’t regressed anymore.
- Hmm… Heartseed gives the chance to Iori to go back to the past.
- And she has the support from Inaban and Taichi, another great scene. She doesn’t need to start over.
- Well, I don’t really like how they fixed the Iori’s dad issue… She only had to talk to her mother and realized it was a misunderstanding between the two to fix it… It sure felt rushed. They could have done something much better here.
- Yuki will start Karate again.
- And I like how they finished the episode with Iori’s monologue. Now I need to be patient until Michi Random…

This arc should have been longer… it felt rushed. But, I still really like this show, like it enough to still import it. I’m quite curious to know what will happen in Michi Random…

[something]

Time for more Sawashiro Miyuki voice sex.

Episode 14:

- Aw, the quality isn't horrible but it's not great either. I guess there's no good source, at least not this soon, for these episodes. Oh well it's on the watchable end of the spectrum. Just too bad CR didn't get this (or Nekomonagatri) but at least they have Saki and GirlPan.
- Taichi asks Iori to go out with him, and she says no. Uh, ok. Also, did he just hear her thoughts? I wonder if that's the plot device of this arc.
- Okay, sort of. A person's thoughts are, at random, transmitted to one or more of the others, also chosen at random. The transmitter knows who got it, but the receivers don't know who else got it.
- They all kinda know the drill by now.

- Having just rewatched Saki, all I can hear from Itou Shizuka's Fujishima is Takei Hisa.
- And she's awesome as usual.

- Annnnnnnd then shit starts hitting the fan. Stupid Aoki brings up love and everything completely goes to shit after that.
- Oh, damn, nicely played. The last mental transmission of the scene is unknown to everyone - including us - except Iori and Inaba.

- Adorable imouto chocolate is best chocolate. <3
- Inaban is so goddamned adorable. The look on her face when she wants Taichi to keep telling her how awesome she is. SO CUTE. She's also taking this whole new phenomenon a lot better than some of the last one, and better than Iori for sure.
- All that said, I still feel like her character has lost a little something, slightly, when she started getting deredere for Taichi. Oh well she's still so awesome that it doesn't matter much.

Aoki being set up as hero of the arc? I lol'd at the show outright stating that he's the most useless character though.

Very good episode. Definitely on the better side of what the show has to offer.

[something]

Episode 15:

- And we begin with Iori crushing some poor boy's heart.
- Then after the OP, being cold as ice to the girl who likes said boy. Well this arc isn't going to be good for Iori's reputation.
- Especially when she follows up by being pretty terrible to a girl who was trying to back her up.
- She's really given up. Just completely given up on doing anything about this, and just rolls with it, no matter how depressed it make sher.

- Inaban on the other hand is just looooove love love. Love the faces she makes when Taichi presse her to admit she doesn't really want the club to disband.
- Hahah that fist pump and smirk. Gah why is she so fantastic?

- More imouto! Taichi tries to act all mature. Imouto destroys him.
- ...Taichi, you're getting pretty full of yourself as a chick magnet, aren't you? That or you have been watching too much anime.
- HAHAHAHAHA his brocon is broadcast to everyone but Iori. Oh god, that was brilliant.

- Heh, Aoki's lucky day. Yui expresses interest in him and he hears it.
- Uh oh. Yui is all gung ho about helping Iori. Inaba is right, this is going to end badly for Yui. Iori, that walking emotional WMD, is going to destroy her.
- ...Yeah, Yui you really should have listened to Inaban. You're pulling a protagonist without being the protagonist, and that's going to fail miserably.
- And so it does.
- But Yui bouncesback pretty well when confronted by Heartseed/Balloon Vine (so apparently they're the same thing, take your pick). Good on her.
- Hahah maaaan she just goes off on Taichi. Oh how the tables have turned.

And then Iori just goes off on Inaban at the end, wow. She has a point, of course. Inaba says "date Taichi!" then when she does Inaban says "I love him too!" and then when Iori rejects Taichi it's "How could you do that?". It's not really fair taken as a whole, although Inaban didn't have a lot of options at each individual step so it looks worse than it really was.

Another very good episode, although having every character imaginable have the same "You're not the person we know!" conversation with Iori felt a bit awkward/forced.

Rina still wins this arc though.

[something]

Episode 16:

- Inaba looks pretty good the next day, all things considered, though apparently it hit her hard last night.
- Heh. Gossan actually shows up as himself.

- Uhhhhhhh. Damnit I think I like depressed Taichi better. He's trying to stop the rumors about Iori by... ...acting like he tried to rape Iori (not in so many words but of course that's how it'll sound to people)? What the fuck, you are an absolute fucking moron, Taichi. I think the reason episodes 14-15 were so good is that you weren't much of a factor in them. -_-
- Inaban does not approve.
- And after Taichi royally fucks up, it's up to Fujishima and Inaban to diffuse the situation. As usual.

- The girl Iori pissed off isn't convinced by it anyway, so it's a double-failure. And it costs the club their presentation materials, which get torn to shreds. (Oh yeah there's this whole club advisor showdown thing I haven't even mentioned because really whatever it's not that important.)
- Oh shit. The rest of the club members get fired up to start over and overcome this, but Iori saw the destruction and... yeah wow. I think she literally might murder someone.
- ...Maaaan. Toyosaki Aki, I love you. The absolute hatred and rage she felt towards Setouchi was conveyed disturbingly well. Pretty sure Setouchi just pissed herself a little.

- So Inaban's approach to dealing with this is... talk about masturbation again!
- It, er, doesn't quite go according to plan. But it ends up getting us where we need: Iori telling everyone exactly what her fears are, exactly what's driving her so crazy.
- And holy shit it's fantastic. Toyosaki totally knocking it out of the park again. Goddamn. Iori lays it all out and it's pretty devastating to hear.

Inaban and Taichi give her an answer she's at least willing to consider, and they go their separate ways.

...Then Inaban finds the guys who trashed the room, confronts them, and gets in waaaaaaaay over her head pretty damn quickly.

Now we're set up for everyone to come together and save Inaban for the last episode. I was wondering how they'd use a full fourth episode after having the confrontation with Iori here. This is certainly one way of doing it.

[something]

Episode 17:

- Everyone rushes to Inaban's aid, and Iori finally decides to get out of her funk and come as well.
- But in the meantime, Taichi and Aoki double-team one guy while, hahahah, Yui just totally manhandles the other two by herself. Fuck yeah, I was hoping that would happen. She used Taichi's "special move" too.
- Sheesh leave it to the guys to not take their dude out properly. Yui's are out cold, but the other guy has a knife to Inaba. Put that down you fucker or you'll experience a whole new world of pain.
- ...Gonna do anything, Iori, or just watch? How about calling the cops?
- Ah here she goes. A decent plan relying on a bit of luck pays off, and once again it's Yui to save the day. Fuck yeah Yui. Everyone would be rather screwed here if you weren't around.
- Now, someone please lock Setouchi in a room with Inaban for an hour or two. The girl would never come out the same. Assuming she survived. =D

- I guess I'll settle for Iori knocking her right on her ass. Haha, she meant to slap her lightly and nearly took her head off. Well, it's the least she deserved, and now they're all good friends and so on and so forth.
- Then they all go home as the sun rises and make up and happy happy day and Taichi gets beat over the head with a lead pipe. Hey, wait a second.
- As he's out, he has a magical telepathy conversation with Iori where they decide they loved each other, but don't want that anymore. Well isn't that refreshing? An anime where the obvious couple falls in lvoe, goes through hardship, and then decides at the end, "Hey let's not do this after all." Huh.
- And then as soon as Taichi wakes up and sees Inaba next to him, he asks her out. And I think her brain implodes. Honestly, I'm okay with this. Inaban has always had better chemistry with him than Iori ever had or will have. (And Fujishima, now's your chance!!)
- Phenomenon over.

- Presentation time! Yeah that was a thing wasn't it? Presentation comes complete with maid Inaba, bunnygirl Yui, and cheongsam Iori.
- And Gossan says "well I can just do both."
- Epilogue. Dereban. =D
- Inaban and Fujishima "take care of" the things who attacked them. Poor bastards.
- All is well, but they can't let their guard down... looks like the ending teased at what I assume are characters in later novels, not that we'll ever see it animated.

And that's a wrap.

I know the novels continue, but I honestly have to question how many more you can do without ruining what the story has done a pretty good job to achieve so far. We have a romantic pairing for the protagonist. We have have closure on Iori's feelings about herself - better closure than we got from the previous arcs, I feel. We don't have Aoki and Yui going out but that's really not necessary, they'll get there eventually.

I think the story has reached the limit of what can be done in a meaningful fashion. You can't fight over the romance anymore without regressing. You can't explore Iori's personality anymore without regressing. 17 episodes in four arcs seems like it was a good length. A good place to stop, for that material.

Any future arcs would really have to be about how the phenomena affect some external entity. Or an arc that gets to thet bottom of who Heartseed is and why this all happened. But the character relationships? They've been taken as far as the emotional manipulation devices can go.

I guess that's what new characters are for, though...

All in all, I don't regret importing this. I still don't think it was as good as it could have been and a lot of the pacing and narrative fell short of the top tier, especially at the end of arcs. For example, Taichi was so focused on Iori for so long that no matter what, these episodes weren't going to sell his feelings for Inaban as well as I'd like, especially since Inaban is far and away my favorite character in the show.

But it's a damn solid show nonetheless, with some great voice acting, and it nails a number of really intense emotional moments too. Not a favorite, but definitely good stuff.

[ookamigirl]

Episode 14 - 17 Final

Heartseed playing his usual weird games.
Lots of ups and downs in their relationships.
The amount of drama they went through was just high.
Seems like Nagase was the one with most issues.
I guess it was necessary to make them more resilient and stronger.
Final episode was especially interesting with the whole kidnapping thing.
After that things kinda settled like they were supposed to.
All they've been through connected them with an unbreakable bond.