Highlights
- Horimiya: Missing Pieces Episode 4 focuses on daily life and lighthearted shenanigans, showcasing the dimensions and growing bonds of the characters.
- The episode explores the connections between Hori's family and Sengoku's family, providing an interesting angle on relations between two different families.
- While it lacks significant character growth or drama, the episode succeeds in providing insights into the characters and their dynamics, making it an important aspect of slice-of-life anime.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Horimiya: The Missing Pieces, Episode 4, "Hori Kotatsu", now streaming on Crunchyroll.
After a rousing sports day from the last episode, Horimiya: Missing Pieces returns to its lighthearted fanfare with another episode that focuses more on the daily life, as well as a bit of shenanigans that follows yet another scene or small chapter from the Manga that didn't make it into the first season. This time, it focuses more on characters we haven't seen much of before so far in this second season, such as Kyosuke, Hori's father. Or rather, on a small Kotatsu that has gotten everybody sleepy as well as pretty much entangled in a small set of scenes that overlap with one another with a set of shenanigans for the first half of the episode anyway. So far, the entirety of Horimiya has been able to show a new avenue of the characters as well as shenanigans. For the most part, this episode doesn't seem to focus too much on any individual character development yet. Even so, what happens and what can we gleam so far?
The purpose of Slice-Of-Life has been stated multiple times throughout the years, and especially shown without being directly stated in Horimiya. Showing the daily lives, as well as some friendships between the main characters and their supporting cast, the anime succeeds in this regard perfectly, if only because the characters themselves are perfectly expanded on and feel relatable as well as real to each other and even to the audience. They never feel like a collection of tropes mixed and matched just for the sake of following a trope. And this latest episode succeeds as always in showing the dimensions each character has, as well as their growing bonds in regard to their daily lives. This is true for Miyamura, Hori, and even the side characters like Toru and Sengoku in this episode.
Kotatsu Troubles And Familial Shenanigans
The first half of the episode in particular follows Miyamura, Hori, and her father Kyosuke as they seem to have caught themselves in a bit of trouble at the Kotatsu. That being particularly that they have tied their legs together that it becomes painful to pull them away, although this gets resolved really quickly in place of the next two events where Sengoku gets dragged into Hori's house by her father, and a small conversation evolves into more shenanigans overall. Not much happens during the first half, other than focussing and establishing both the familiarity of Sengoku's family and Hori's family with each other to the audience, which sets up a future scene near the end of this episode that once again takes place in a Kotatsu. Of course, the entire episode seems to be merely an exploration of the connections between Hori's family and Sengoku's family, of which comedic and somewhat relatable situations arise as a result.
Still even so, this provides an interesting angle most Slice-of-LIfe anime seem to not explore often enough, relations between two different families as well as the understanding of why they may be so different from each other and their dynamics. As shown in the story, Hori and Sengoku both have a dynamic where they have a close friendship, although it never really goes beyond that; Hori is also considered to be the one who has some power and leverage over Sengoku when his father and her father start arguing with each other once again over the Kotatsu. It's a brief moment, but it develops these characters in a unique familial fashion, all the while being comedic in nature and mostly involved in the lighthearted fanfare. This episode overall has a sense of low-stakes as it doesn't focus on a narrative or even a second episode, but rather on an episodic nature and exploration of Hori and Sengoku's friendship.
Final Thoughts
Overall, the episode succeeds as usual in providing an insight to our characters and their relations with one another. Where it first started as a lighthearted comedy regarding the Kotatsu, this episode soon takes a moment to establish most of its conversations on the Kotatsu to reveal important details. For example, that being that Sengoku's father and Kyosuke knew each other from high school back in their years; establishing a new understanding of the characters and their dynamics in the future. However, the episode doesn't focus too much on character growth or drama at all, since it is mostly just meant to be a lighthearted affair. Thankfully, the episode ends on a positive note, even with some comedic timing for the moment.
Still, Horimiya: Missing Pieces does successfully provide the audience an interesting development for the characters as well as the dynamic that allows the audience to gleam new information from the episode. Overall, there doesn't seem to be much of a negative thing to say about the most recent episode aside from a bit of lack of development. Horimiya: Missing Pieces succeeded but also proved itself to be an important aspect of slice-of-life anime.