Skip and Loafer

Episode 4

I am not kidding when I say that I got through yesterday because I knew I could watch Skip and Loafer today. Episode four continues the gentle, soaking rain of feel-good charm that this series exudes with every single interaction, its characters acting like honest-to-God human people. The central theme for this week is that you have to do things in a way that's best for you, and it's handled with a mix of subtlety and more direct messaging.

The understated bit, unusually, comes first when Mitsumi learns about Shima's past as a child actor. That's something that we could have guessed from Kanechika's increasingly desperate wish for him to join the drama club; equally obvious was that Shima really didn't want to talk about it. That makes it a betrayal of sorts that he reveals Shima's past to Mitsumi, something she figures out pretty quickly. Although she can't quite articulate it to herself, she blows an English quiz while her mind hamster-wheels on the subject, trying to sort through what to do with information her closest friend in Tokyo didn't want her to have. It's not a situation she's ever been in before – when you live in a town as small as the one Mitsumi's from, there are pretty literally no secrets. That means that her moral/social compass, Fumi, never had a chance to demonstrate what Mitsumi should do, leaving her high and dry and in a full-on tizzy.

Despite Fumi not being a major on-screen presence, her influence may be the biggest driving force in Mitsumi's life, whether she knows it or not. When Mitsumi and Shima talk about Shima's past, it's Fumi's guiding actions that help Mitsumi to be there for Shima in the way he needs her to be. Fumi is the voice in Mitsumi's head, and while her actions are her own, they're influenced by what Fumi did for her. And the main thing Fumi's done? Just be there. That's what Mitsumi promises to do for Shima; their pinky promise is the real deal, apart from being a striking bit of imagery. Mitsumi is earnest enough that she takes it as true, and Shima wants very much to have a friend he can believe in and talk to, making the moment feel much more important than dozens of similar scenes in other shows.

It also gives Mitsumi peace of mind where Shima is concerned – her job as his friend is to respect what he wants, and he does not want to have anything to do with his acting past. We saw in episode one that he appears to live alone, and his body language when he confesses that he only acted for his mom is very telling – there's not a lot of warmth in his parent/child relationship. That body language is a major strength of the episode, with Mitsumi contrasting nicely with Takamine, the older student her less-than-enthused homeroom teacher foists off on her. (Is she still holding a grudge for the barfing incident? Honestly, I think she just doesn't like Mitsumi. It happens.) Takamine is rigid to the point where she might snap, planning her days down to the minute, and that radiates from her upright bearing and perfectly smooth hair. She's not equipped to deal with Mitsumi, whose high-functioning anxiety is very different from hers. Her horror when Mitsumi deals with missing a bus by just playing with a cat she found sums up her whole method: chance and change are bad because they can't be planned for. Ultimately, she learns (through a fantastic Totoro dream) that maybe she could stand to be a little more flexible, but the bigger takeaway is that, as Shima says, everyone has their own way of doing things. And that's something that you have to figure out for yourself.

And if your way is, like Mitsumi's and mine, saying hi to every dog and cat on the street? That's perfectly okay. You do you, and that's going to be enough.

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Skip and Loafer is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.