Highlights
- In this episode of Horimiya: Missing Pieces, the focus shifts to Shu Iura and his overprotective nature towards his sister, revealing a more complex side to his character.
- The dynamic between Shu and his sister is explored, showcasing their playful interactions and the conflicts that arise from Shu's protectiveness.
- This episode effectively gives Shu more depth as a character and highlights the strength of the show in fleshing out the supporting cast, making the world of Horimiya feel alive and full of multi-dimensional characters.
Throughout the story, there is a brilliant little synergy between the main cast and their connection to the audience when we start focusing on their dynamics alone as well as individually. Horimiya: Missing Pieces has been a story with the main duo, but the supporting characters get just as much development, and this latest episode manages to provide exactly that. Shu Iura, and his sister are the main focus of this episode, and the interesting thing is that this starts to take hints towards Shu's personality as well as how overprotective he can be.
However, Shu Iura's protective nature of his sister turns into a somewhat more complicated, but nuanced examination of what it's like when the person your sister likes, ends up liking you. However, this episode also provides an insight into the usually excitable and silly Shu, who surprisingly has a protective personality for his sister.
The Dynamic Between Brother and Sister
It is no doubt that Shu Iura, with how little we see of him in the first season, can be perceived easily as part of the support cast, excitable, silly, if also a bit more perceptive and much like your typical teenager in High School. However, with this second season that shows bits and pieces of the characters that weren't adapted from the Manga in the first season, Shu Iura is given a brief window into this story for us to look through, and to sympathize and relate with his curiosity and perhaps even a deeper sense of understanding.
However, one could argue that this episode is more time to shine a spotlight on Iura's character and his interactions with the rest of the cast, especially considering his personal plight when it comes to Kitahara, a middle school student who had developed an interest in him that is left vague but teased to be a deep admiration. Even so, his sister doesn't seem to like how he hovers over them both out of protectiveness, and yet this entirely seems to be played up for laughs, and the story succeeds in making this engaging despite how small it feels.
Something to note is that Iura's little sister is a character not many of the audience knew about, let alone ever saw on screen for too long in the first season, making her appearance in the second season very special overall. The better part is that the episode starts with this very dynamic of brother and sister, showing the shenanigans that can come up from them both, and their own personal feelings and wishes for the other. Shu Iura is trying to see if Kitahara is good for his little sister, while also testing him and being a bit stand-offish in the process. Later on, due to the confusion that Kitahara respects and admires Shu, despite Shu not wanting that attention or even misunderstanding the entire situation entirely, the episode devolves into a bunch of comedy scenarios with the green-haired young man trying to evade Kitahara entirely.
The Overall Review
Horimiya: Missing Pieces as a story so far has provided clear and impressive comedic relief in the form of Shu Iura's shenanigans. Overall, the episode did something that not even the first season could do without sacrificing some content in the process, giving Shu a deeper character that, while simple, also provides a simple context as to his relation with his sister. That being that he clearly cares a lot about his sister, but can have his own flaws for the most part. Then again, the focusing of Shu's character is refreshing due to the fact that it gives all the characters a fair chance to earn their spot as the supporting cast.
Still, even so, the fans can expect to see more from Horimiya: Missing Pieces when it comes to using characters that are otherwise not as fleshed out in the first season. This method of providing characters their own scenes and episodes helps make the world here feel alive and bigger, in the sense that now we have an understanding of the people around Hori and Miyamura. This, in turn, allows for the story to prove itself to show the side-characters as non-reactionary characters and instead people with their own living thoughts and likes. Shu Iura, as a character, wasn't focused on too much before but now with the Horimiya Missing Pieces anime we get to understand more about him. And if anything, this only proves to be a greater strength that the audience can look forward to in the future of this season.