A Star Brighter Than the Sun

Episodes 9-10

It may have taken us ten episodes to get there, but at long last, we have it: official confirmation that Koki likes Sae. I'll be the first to admit that we didn't technically need official confirmation, though – every single time Koki's been onscreen, he's been proclaiming his feelings in everything but speech. And with this latest school event at Million Events High School, he's been even less subtle, occasionally to his own detriment. He all but permitted Ayukawa to pursue Sae when the other boy asked if it was okay if he invited Sae to play chess with him again, probably in a misguided attempt to “support” Sae's crush. I daresay Ayukawa knows that Koki's putting on a show, though, given the alacrity with which he ran off to give her milk candies after asking Koki what she likes. He's hopeful, not stupid.

Which is absolutely more than we can say for Izawa. When the series started, I thought maybe he was aware he was putting on a show for his classmates, making a deliberate ass of himself to win social points. But by episode nine, I retracted that idea: I think Izawa may just be exactly as presented. That's actually not all that surprising, given that we've probably all been in school with a guy like him, the one who can't quite differentiate between good attention and bad. He's still a very human character despite his preternatural levels of obnoxiousness; he really was upset that Sui turned him down, and his drive to find a girl to date probably speaks to his ideas of what it means to be popular. He's going about everything all wrong, but so are most people in this story.

And that's actually one of the strengths of A Star Brighter Than the Sun. It can absolutely be annoying to see people acting at cross-purposes and being blind to what's obvious to even other characters. Still, it's pretty faithful to how teenagers (and, if we're being honest, adults) sometimes act. Sae and Koki both can't believe their crushes could be mutual because they see themselves as lacking. Episode nine, which shows them interacting with their younger selves, makes it clear precisely what's holding them back: inside their own heads, they're still little kids. I think a lot of us can probably relate; age notwithstanding, there are moments when you feel like you need an adult (or an adultier adult) because somehow no one's noticed that you're actually an eight-year-old in a thirty-eight-year-old's body.

The way Sae and Koki idolize each other without recognizing that the other person is doing the same is frustrating, but it's also remarkably normal. Both Subaru and Ayukawa give us insight into that – just look at how little Ayukawa wants to admit he can't ride a bike, and how Subaru is determined to do everything herself. Those are both actions rooted in insecurity. Both of them put on an excellent show of maturity and confidence (though in Ayukawa's case, I'm not sure it's deliberate so much as an assumption people make based on his looks), but it's not the sum total of who they are. It's just who people want to see, or who they want people to see.

Still, I think Subaru speaks for all of us when she sternly tells Koki that he's being stupid for making assumptions about who Sae likes. Granted, she's on the outside looking in as Koki's older cousin and not a part of the class dynamic, but she's not wrong in wanting the two of them to just get over it and date already. She may not be putting the pieces together as far as Sae thinking Subaru's the one Koki likes, but I can't blame her for getting annoyed at their apparent reticence. Hopefully, her collapse will put all three of them in the same room so that she can yell at both Sae and Koki together. I suspect Subaru will not mince words, and that's precisely what our would-be lovebirds need.

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