Ramparts of Ice

Episode 5

I can't be the only one who felt bodied when one of the students started talking about how his parents were into Pokémon Go, right? I looked up when the game came out, and it's been ten years. What even is time?

But enough about the inexorable march of time! This episode was all about Koyuki and Minato, as the two reflect on the rift between them. Minato has really stepped in it this time, bringing up Igarashi in a desperate attempt to find something to connect with Koyuki about. Turns out the topic is actually pretty triggering to Koyuki, and she shuts him down as harshly as she can.

Koyuki's response to Minato puts me in mind of trauma-informed approaches, a principle I've learned as an early childhood educator. Basically, trauma affects a person such that they don't respond, quote-unquote “normally” to certain social situations. Physical touch can be triggering to a child who has been sexually abused, when it's comforting to most. Showing interest and asking questions gets most people to open up, but for Koyuki, who spent middle school being bullied by her boyfriend and fears being vulnerable, it feels nosy and intrusive. After all, the more someone knows about you, the more ammo they have to put you down. Even if she consciously knows that Minato isn't trying to harm her, her instincts tell her that he's a threat, and up go The Ramparts of Ice.

So what does Minato do when Koyuki snaps at him? Does he apologize and reflect on his error? No, he sulks. He gets lost in thought about how maybe he should stop trying with Koyuki, that she's already decided he's an enemy. He pouts over how unfair it is that she's iced him out like that. He spends the day distracted, spacing out when his friends try to talk to him. Some people might point to this as a sign that he's toxic, that he can't just accept Koyuki's boundaries and gets upset when she reasserts them. But to me, this makes him so much more human, when I feel like fictional characters these days are often obnoxiously self-aware. He's a kid with hurt feelings; few real people would react the “right” way to being told off like that.

I'm not alone in this, either – Minato's hurt reaction makes Koyuki realize that he is, in fact, a person with emotions of his own and not an intrusion in human form. She starts to feel like she was being unfair shutting him out the way she had been, especially when Yota tells her they heard about her middle school bullies from Miki, and not the gossip mill. The thing is, she wasn't entirely wrong; Minato did see himself as the savior of lonely schoolmates, after all. He wanted to befriend her for his own sense of altruism, rather than a two-way connection between them.

But human relationships can be messy that way, and it's not about who was right or wrong. Both of them feel bad, and Koyuki wants to try to make it better. Boy, did I feel it when, unable to get her words out, she started to tear up. And then, Minato being nice to her, making everything spill over? I've been there. Instead of finding a tidy resolution, he pulls her aside so a pair of students wouldn't see her crying and get the wrong idea, and the two end up bonding over a picture of his Pomeranian. Talking about your pets – a classic way of breaking the ice. Time will only tell if it's enough to take down an entire rampart.

But wait! There's more! The episode closes with a stinger of Miki and Koyuki out with their middle school friends, including a quick cameo from the girls of You and I Are Polar Opposites. Some chitchat about boyfriends, and we get confirmation that Igarashi and Koyuki did, in fact, date.

In case you're wondering why I'm so fixated on this: most romance anime, it feels like, focus on first loves that end in marriage. Even ones that deal with adults may have passing mentions of exes that barely figure into the story. A series that deals with the emotional fallout of a bad breakup? That's unique and interesting. 

Rating: 3.5

Ramparts of Ice is currently streaming on Netflix.