ハチミツとクローバー (Live Action Dorama) Ep. 10

SPOILER Summary: Hagu-chan has an operation on her hand, which was severely injured in the previous episode. Hanamoto-sensei sends Morita, Ayumi, and Takemoto home, where Takemoto resumes work on his graduation project. The next morning, Takemoto gets a call and returns to the hospital, where Hagu-chan wakes up and remembers everyone. Meanwhile, Mayama takes a rented car with Rika-san to Otaru. She doesn’t say much until they reach the snow-covered place (which her deceased husband painted once), after which she cries and thanks Mayama.

It is evening and Takemoto gets a call from Shin-san, whom he worked with at the temple restoration site during Takemoto’s trip. Apparently they have an opening and they want Takemoto to join them on their next project in roughly a month. Despite school not being out, Takemoto feels he can finish his graduation project by then. Meanwhile, Mayama and Rika-san spend the night in a hotel room. The following morning, Rika-san tries to sneak out, but Mayama is quickly to confront her before backing down and apologizing. They return to Tokyo where Mayama learns of Hagu-chan’s accident.

At the hospital, Ayami’s father, Yamada-san, pays a visit and gives a gift certificate for liquor from his store to Hanamoto-sensei. In Hagu-chan’s room, the group promise to bring her art supplies. Ayumi decides to get some flowers for Hagu-chan after the guys leave but when she comes back, she overhears Hanamoto-sensei informing Hagu-chan that Hagu-chan may not get feeling back in or use of her right hand. Ayumi returns to the campus to inform Takemoto, Mayama, and Morita of this, who take the news hard. Takemoto thinks they should bring her art supplies anyway and is elected to do so by Morita.

Meanwhile, Nomiya packs up this things to go to Tottori. Ayumi comes by and the two talk briefly before Miwako comes by to give Nomiya a bunch of food to take with him. Meanwhile at Harada Design, Mayama comes in to pack up his things, only to discover a fax with a work Visa application, which Rika-san confirms is his as she wants him to go with her to Spain. Elsewhere, Takemoto packs up some art supplies and some donughts (provided by Morita after Teramobori-san went out and bought them for Morita). Hagu-chan is in pain, but she wants to feel the pain so she’ll know when feeling returns to her injured right hand.

Returning home, Takemoto finds that Lohmeyer-senpai has made him a meal (oden?) to strengthen him so that Takemoto can strengthen others. The following day after observing hagu-chan’s rehab, Mayama, Ayumi, and Takemoto walk home where Mayama eventually reveals he’ll be moving to Spain with Rika-san. When Nomiya hears the news of Mayama, he decides to call Ayumi, who’s upset despite her claims otherwise. As such, Nomiya decides to drive all night to Tokyo.

Meanwhile, Hagu-chan tries to do something simple like hold chalk, but can’t. Shouda-sensei comes by to see Takemoto’s work and gives him some advice, which leads Takemoto to decide to turn down the job offer and spend time with Hagu-chan. At the same time, Morita learns the truth that Hagu-chan may never fully recover from Hanamoto-sensei and so pays Hagu-chan a visit, telling her she doesn’t have to paint again. He then takes her and flees out the hospital room window (her on his back) just before Takemoto comes to try to take care of Hagu-chan.

Thoughts: As we are nearing the end, things feel like they are dragging story-wise, and I’m not sure why.

I noticed that the TV version really didn’t give an indication that Rika-san and Mayama slept together on the trip. If you were watching closely, you’d notice only one bed was slept in (the one Mayama was in) in the hotel room. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t wanting to see a coupling scene but the anime did make it overly clear that the two slept together and it was only that which told me, “look for the signs” in the TV version. I think had the TV version given more of an indication of what was to happen and what did happen, it would have had more impact.

Frankly, the major problem with this TV adaptation has been the writers expecting the audience to be familiar with the source materials and just fill in the blanks that they leave. That’s gone for character names and certain situations, such as the Rika-san/Mayama coupling. I think that’s a poor way to write this. While I understand not wanting to get bogged down in a lot of details with only 11 episodes, some things needed to be said, characters needed to be named, and situations needed better setup at times.