© 森野萌・講談社／ 「花野井くんと恋の病」製作委員会

There's a lot to infer about some of Hananoi's comments about how he views his significant others and potential hurts from his past romantic partners. What's interesting is, such an overly emotional guy seems to have an almost coldly reasonable response to why he doesn't bother making friends. He said it seemed like friends would distract from what was “really important” regarding his family and significant others. While you could argue that there are situations where you need to prioritize certain people over others, and that everyone's relationships are different, it would be difficult to shape friendships that way because of this. That can often cause a person to seek out things from their family or significant others. you usually get from friends.

The little insight we get at the end of this episode opens the door to a number of explanations and approaches to Hananoi's behavior. This may be a controversial opinion, but I don't think this episode's emotional high of Hotaru discovering her romantic feelings for Hananoi was worth it. Maybe this is being set up for a much larger purpose or we are laying the groundwork for a different kind of relationship development between our two prospects. However, I'm not sure what to find adorable in this relationship. I like the growth Hotaru is going through as an individual, discovering the meaning of jealousy and dealing with constant hurt from a friend who seemingly ruined her life.

My problem is that I don't know the basis for Hananoi's perceived values ​​in his relationship, so I don't feel comfortable whenever his values ​​inform or direct Hotaru's development. I'm glad we're finally starting to see an explanation for Hananoi's behavior because up until this point, I've only really been allowed to judge his actions and what he says. But even cute moments like being on the roof still feel like they're being handled by this unintentionally duplicitous atmosphere (what are his plans if Hotaru gets really sick or uncomfortable up there? ?) The show seems to make viewers pay attention to Hananoi's outwardly good boyfriend actions because those are the actions that make Hotaru fall in love with him. Yet the film leaves everything open for later exploration as if his actions should be questioned or we should be curious about them.

I hope that once the series starts moving more in the direction of Hananoi, this misalignment will be corrected. Maybe I'll rewatch previous episodes and things will suddenly feel much better now that I know what things are leading up to. I can only rate these episodes based on what I saw and wasn't particularly pleased with what I was seeing.

Rating:

A Condition Called Love is now streaming on Crunchyroll.