#Kokoro connect summary full#
On the other hand, this conversation is coming roughly eight minutes of screen time after another heroine just told Taichi she was almost raped, and includes lines like “on his deathbed, my fifth father told me to be myself.” Topics like this demand a delicate hand, and Kokoro Connect can come off as frustratingly clumsy at times.īut even if this sequence’s execution can be wonky, it’s still full of the details that make Kokoro Connect compelling anyway. On the one hand, this is the stuff I love getting shows about, and I appreciate Kokoro Connect’s very frank approach to its dialogue.
Iori and Taichi’s conversation nicely highlighted my contradictory feelings towards Kokoro Connect. And so we soon learn that Iori’s genki persona is truly a persona – one of many she’s adopted over the years, prompted by an abusive father who taught her it’s easiest to simply be the person others want you to be. Inaba’s parting shot is a cruel one – following on Yui’s (still very bad) trauma drama, she breaks Iori’s trust by asking Taichi to help her as well. A line like “never forget that kindness can hurt as well as help” offers a warning to Taichi while also giving us clear insight into Inaba’s own psychology. And on a fundamental self level, it’s likely she’s punishing herself, and running away from her own feelings for Taichi. On a perception of self level, that’s almost an underhanded jab, as “needing someone else” seems to be the one thing Inaba could never stand. She first states that “you two would make the perfect couple, because you need each other.” On a surface level, that’s both her pushing her friends together, and also her pushing away from the personal, self-focused topics that make her uncomfortable. Inaba’s concluding lines here reflect that layered approach to character writing.
That layered approach couldn’t be more valuable than in a show like this, which is obviously obsessed with the differences between our fundamental self, perception of self, and performance of self.
Not only do the characters in this show have a refreshingly frank rapport, but their comments and responses always seem to evoke at least two simultaneous responses: an immediate reaction appropriate to the ongoing conversation, and an expression shift reflective of their underlying feelings. This scene is also a fair example of Kokoro Connect’s satisfyingly layered personal interactions. The overall effect of these scenes firmly defines Inaba as someone who likes to keep her own secrets, and who dislikes feeling vulnerable – a preference that’s fundamentally incompatible with the inherent vulnerability of body-swapping. Inaba is clearly not doing well, but she waves off her friends’ concern, saying that it’s “nothing I would have gone to the nurse’s office for.” In the following scene she again tries to push off their support, first saying that she can walk home by herself, and then changing the subject to Taichi’s confrontation with Yui. The episode opens with Inaba and the gang in the nurse office, just after her collapse from last time. Kokoro Connect uses a classic conceit to facilitate those conversations, and this episode’s conversations center on two of its main characters: Iori and Inaba. It’s one of the reasons I expect my readers picked this one for me to write about – many of my favorites obsess over how we define ourselves, and how we navigate the impossibility of conveying our truth to others. The fundamental conceit plays directly into that topic, with body switching facilitating not just romantic drama, but also questions about “true” selfhood and perception of self. The show’s always about identity to some extent, of course. Kokoro Connect’s fourth episode is about: I D E N T I T Y.