Kobato 05: Hope and Fireflies

At this moment I wasn’t sure Kobato could read…

After overcoming great technical difficulties (a storm knocked my internet out for THREE DAYS) here I am with the fifth installment of Kobato. This episode was actually really touching and didn’t have any characters from other series popping up  at all. I feel like that made this a much stronger episodes because I finally was able to separate this series from other CLAMP works in my head. Not that I don’t love the other series but I kept feeling like there was some hesitation on CLAMP’s part to really make this series at all if it was just going to lean back on other characters.

Anyway this is the first episode that made me weepy despite being kind of predictable. Maybe it’s just a firefly thing. In this episode Kobato practices reading out loud, finally meets someone who doesn’t like her immediately, makes many bad guesses, stands up to thugs, and has the fireflies bring hope to an old man.

I forgive Kobato for being bad at reading to kids, it’s actually pretty difficult sometimes.

This episode starts out with Kobato working in the nursery. The kids want her to read a story (The Fireflies Light) and she become ridiculously nervous and clumsy about it. She drops the book, skips pages and seems to have more difficulty reading than anyone with public school education past grade 6 should have. Instead of watching Kobato fail for more than 30 seconds we are shown Sayaka-sensei receiving a call.

It’s her pimp calling!

As Iroyogi-san looks on the call seems pretty serious. We’re shown a glimpse inside the schools balance books as well and everything seems to be in the red. Poor Sayaka, what have you done?

I just noticed her pants underneath the apron >.< It’s bad enough she’s wearing pink with pink hair…

Kobato, the great disruptor, comes to Sayaka-sensei and asks her if she can borrow the book to practice reading to the kids. Considering that in the shots before all the kids were sitting quietly it probably is easy but maybe Kobato has reading issues because she has no memory…

She seems to have no trouble reading when by herself.

Kobato settles in with the book and starts to read the story out loud when an old man comes down and interrupts her.

Get off my lawn — I mean stop reading that book!

This man is irrationally angry about her reading aloud to herself. She naturally stops but then follows him back to where he’s sitting to pry into his life. *shakes head*

What’cha doing?

She inappropriately runs up to him and asks him if he’s homeless. He gets pissed off and walks away from her and so she goes home to read the book somewhere that others can’t bother her.

Iroyogi is ready to give her no points for today.

In the morning Kobato runs all the way to the nursery because she’s super late having overslept as usual. Instead of smiling faces though she sees three thugs who are standing in the courtyard.

You gotta be pretty bad ass to steal from 4 year olds.

Kobato gets pushed around and doesn’t really understand what’s going on. Even when Fujimoto appears and they attack him she kind of just stands around being shocked.

Guard dog to the rescue!

Sayaka-sensei steps out and tells them never to come to the nursery during daytime hours ever again and that she has everything under control. The lead thug asserts that if she just paid them they’d leave her alone. I disagree, no thug has ever just gone away after being paid but that was a good try Mr.Thug, you almost had me there.

I’m not sure she understands but I really felt proud of Kobato.

Kobato stands in front of Sayaka trying to protect her, even Fujimoto is a bit surprised. Toshiko, who you may remember from previous episodes, pretends to cry for a police man to come and seeing trouble brewing the thugs leave.

“Don’t you have something better to do than bother old men?”

We don’t know what happens to Sayaka-sensei because Kobato doesn’t stick around after work instead she finds the man on the bench and starts bothering him about the book again. Naturally he gets even more pissed off and leaves again. Kobato goes home dejected but I’m not sure why she expected anything else to occur.

YOU’RE NEIGHBORS!?

Kobato is as surprised as I am that Fujimoto lives next to her. He tells her that the man she’s been bothering is the author of the book she’s holding and Kobato wonders why he would hate his own book but since he stopped writing after that book it must have been something traumatizing.

This story gave me Chobits flashbacks because of the “A Person Just For Me” story.

Kobato reads us the story. It’s a pretty typical kids story, especially for Japanese stories. A firefly lives alone in the dark for so long he can no longer remember that he is a firefly. He sees a glowing lady firefly and wonders what she is. She teaches him how to glow again and they fly off into the night. Very cute.

What the hell are you doing? I thought you couldn’t read!

The next day Kobato is up at the crack of dawn at the library doing some hardcore research on fireflies. I don’t think fireflies are that complicated but whatever floats her boat I suppose.

Third time is a charm.

This time when she goes back to the man she doesn’t bother him or imply that he’s homeless but simply tells him to meet her on nearby riverbank tonight and then goes off on her merry way.

Do not try to meet strange men at night, your results may vary.

Because this is a TV show he actually shows up. He wonders how she knew that this was the place his ex-girlfriend wanted them to go. Nice one Kobato! Seems your research and stalking have actually paid off ^^b

“Not now I have a headache”

We’re shown a flashback of the man’s youth while he was writing the book. His girlfriend did the pictures and he simply wrote the story and was busy every second of his waking life. She kept bothering him to see the fireflies in this specific riverbank. When he did get time, on the way to the river, she was in an accident.

I guess she broke up with him because he was a jerk.

I don’t think she’s dead since only her eyes were bandaged but I guess now that she’s blind and can see his true insides she doesn’t want him? In the present the old man is angered by Kobato’s actions and he starts to leave, as Kobato chases after him she falls.

Wet leaves + Kobato = not a good time.

He picks her up and the book falls out of her bag. He looks up to see the path before them.

And realizes he’s seen it before…

His ex-girlfriend came here, to this exact place to draw the pictures for his book. This is what she wanted to show him all along.

What did one firefly say to the other? — uh, nevermind

They see one firefly light up, and then another and they fly off together into the sky just like in the story. And because that wasn’t cinematic enough these two firefly cause hundreds of others to glow around them.

This actually happens though so I forgive you overzealous production team!

Kobato doesn’t just get to see the beautiful fireflies though she also gets…

a brand new green glowy candy!

When she returns to the place the old man used to sit it’s now empty. He’s found his “glow” again and has begun to write new stories. Iroyogi congratulates her for healing his heart but because she dumped a stack of books on him in the library she can’t get 100%!

Oh! A solid B grade!

Final Thoughts:

I was not expecting Fujimoto to live next to her. Maybe in the same building but not next to her. I got misty eyed when the fireflies took off. This episode in particularly I found that Kobato despite stalking an old man, completing ignoring social conventions, and failing at reading to young children was really easy to watch this episode.

I enjoyed that she stood up for Sayaka-sensei and that she did the research to help the old man instead of just continuing to bother him until he finally admitted to something. I feel like these are really clear signs that Kobato is growing and learning.

I’m still waiting to see the crocodile. And I still want Fujimoto’s story even though I have a sneaking suspicion we’re going to learn all about Sayaka first.

Til next time!~