A Star Brighter Than the Sun

Episode 4

Life sure would be easier if you could just…stop liking someone or something. But that's not the way it works, even though we've probably all tried at one point or another – “I don't like chocolate,” “I don't have a crush on her,” “I don't want that.” Sadly, all of those efforts are typically doomed to futility, because minds and hearts don't work that way. But you have to try, as Sae demonstrates this week. After Koki's confession that he likes someone, she's determined to stop liking him to spare herself the heartbreak of loving an unavailable boy. Her working theory is that if she can just avoid him, she'll be able to train herself out of her crush, which is some sound denial logic if I've ever heard any. Essentially, she's trying to quit him cold turkey.

Needless to say, it doesn't work. In part, that's because, as I mentioned, that's not really how most humans function, but it's also because Koki isn't stupid. He sees her going to great lengths to avoid him, from waving him off when she's choking on her breakfast meat to choosing another partner for their school's mandated torture run. (My high school did a similar thing; it was not fun.) He knows what she's doing, but he can't quite figure out why.

Even though I'm generally a proponent of characters actually talking to each other, I still like the way this plays out. Koki shows all signs of having hoped that Sae would see through his roundabout confession and realize that she was the person he was talking about. His signs have been subtle, but they're there – going out of his way to interact with her, defending her, blushing whenever their eyes meet. But he's reckoning without Sae's longstanding sense of her own inferiority. She's spent years being “the tall girl” and being teased for that to the point where she doesn't believe that a handsome, popular boy could ever like her – and it doesn't occur to her that Koki probably doesn't see himself that way – or see her that way, for that matter. Sae isn't “the tall girl” to him; she's a good friend and a kind person he genuinely enjoys spending time with. And he's not handsome or popular in his own mind, as we saw during his self-introduction; as far as he's concerned, he's still the awkward kid he used to be.

That means that, in many ways, A Star Brighter Than the Sun is about interiority versus exteriority. Both Sae and Koki's insides haven't caught up with their outsides in how they see themselves compared to how others see them. Sui is similarly trapped by her beauty, even though she's proven to be a very good friend and a much nicer person than Sae at first assumed. Izawa is on the opposite side, putting on a deliberate, conscious show of how he wants others to see him, while blissfully unaware of his own obnoxiousness. It's a little sad, really, or it would be if he weren't such a twit.

Using this as a backdrop really works for this episode. Sae and Koki's actions stand out against those of their friends and classmates, from Ayukawa's blasé disinterest in working with Sae to Sae and Koki being the only two unable to fit in a rowboat. (And let's be honest, they really got an unfair advantage getting the only fiberglass rowboat instead of one of the inflatables. I've rowed both, and the latter is like rowing a bathtub.) Everything is so ordinary that it highlights their hurt and discomfort, allowing the emotional narrative to progress unimpeded by the rest of the story. It's a perfect approach, even if it means we have to put up with Izawa being a jerk to Sae on the bus, because it gives space for it to be clear that their feelings are mutual, even if they don't realize it yet. Why else clearly show us Sae rescuing Koki after he rescues her?

The rest of the world be damned – these two need to end up together.

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A Star Brighter Than the Sun is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.