3-gatsu no Lion – Episodes 15-16

What do you do when you’re on a slump? Like, when you feel like you can’t do it anymore, or inspiration won’t come regardless of how hard you search for one?

It’s a fairly simple answer, and you wouldn’t be surprised to hear that you just have to stop doing it. Pause, take a step back, do something else, and come back after a week or two — that’s it. For the record, I’m not explaining why I wasn’t able to write last week’s episode 15 post (got a bit busy, and there wasn’t much to say about that episode anyways), but I guess being able to detach myself from writing kinda helped boost my efficiency both in and outside of blogging and or anime. I’m saying this because episode 16 reminded me of what I wasn’t able to do when I was burned out from work a year ago. I could’ve relied on someone, I could’ve taken a week of vacation and go sightseeing for some birds, or maybe I could’ve taken a bite of Inari sushi somewhere.

Life had been a constant struggle, and back then all I ever thought was that in order to win, you just have to keep pushing forward with some “I’ll do my best” warcry to raise morale. While that’s true to a certain extent, it can be foolish to tackle whatever comes your way headlong with sheer perseverance. I guess life’s just like shogi. You gain experience through trial and error, you learn new tricks you can employ when shit happens again, you may lose from time to time but probably that just means that you overlooked a chink in your opponent’s armor. There’s always a next time when you fail — it’s you who decides what you can and cannot do tomorrow. There’s always someone willing to lend help — it’s you who decides whether or not you’ll accept that person’s kindness.

Anyways, enough being emotional about stuff. 3-gatsu does that to me specially when I’m at this point in life wherein things can get a little rough. Nonetheless, my favorite moment this episode is easily that part with Hayashida-sensei giving Rei some life advise. I love it for the reason I’ve already explained above, but I guess this part became a bit more personal because, well, I took Chemistry as my major in college. I was only able to finish up to 3 years of studies due to a couple of issues. I dare not go back and take the same major again, nor do I have the slightest intention to complete all those missing units (I mean, it’s going to be suicide working AND studying at the same time — that’s why I’m trying to save some monies for now), but seeing the After School Burners club doing stuff I also did before was nothing short of nostalgic.

There’s also Rei to consider whom, for some reason, is showing signs of interest on synthesis and whatever fun stuff you can do with Chemistry. Will Rei be in the same club if he lived a normal life? Probably. Would he have become a stronger person if he lived a life conveniently? I don’t know. Would I still be blogging, watching anime now if I was able to finish my studies? Most likely not. I’d probably be enjoying life a lot better if I graduated but… hey, life isn’t so bad after all when you get used to its idiosyncrasies. Life’s weird? Definitely yes.

Short thoughts:

• And with the said there won’t be a Konosuba episode 4 post this week.
• Why is it that every time Akari starts talking about food, I get literally hungry in 2 seconds flat? She’s putting Shokugeki no Soma to shame!
• Inari sushi HHMMMMMMMMMMM
• That part too when Rei and Shimada-san were on the same wavelength. Damn, I swear they’ll be perfect as father and son.
• So what else can you do when you’re on a slump? Take a walk with best boy Nikaido.
• Hina’s too cute.
• Ahh, those pillow shots. I haven’t noticed it until now but I guess they’re also doing it to transition from one tone to another. Like… the Kawamoto family were talking about food with a lighthearted atmosphere, Hina looks up, and they cut to this shot of power cables with the sky as the back drop, then the gear switched to a more serious tone as she remember Rei.
• Same thing during the introductions in Shimada-san’s house. Guitar riffs for a comedic tone, a shot of a cactus, then the gear switched to a serious mood.
• One of the best thing that happened to me this week is seeing Rei smile. Seriously.
• I once extracted pure caffeine from tea. It was awesome. I also extracted uhh some sweet smelling compound from a pineapple, I think. I still have the vial in my closet. I wonder how it smells now…
• Contrary to what others say, Chemistry isn’t that difficult… though it’s a huge help if you can do some Math. Then again I felt like when you’re doing experiments, you just have to be precise with the numbers, know what the formulas are and you’re good to go.

That’s pretty much about it. Nothing big to talk about, and I feel like I’ve already covered all the stuff 3-gatsu does to make its episode great, which is also why I’d rather talk about personal experiences and how that applies to my perception of this show. Anyways, I’ll leave this nifty Sayuri song to conclude this post (I forgot to include this on my Kuzu no Honkai post but whatever). I’ll see you folks next week~