Kids on the Slope Episode 10 Review

I knew that Kids on the Slope jumped around in time a lot. It was pretty evident from the previous episodes, but they did that jump fairly well, or at least better than this most recent one. We jump from winter to summer after Kaoru has confessed his feelings yet again to Ritsuko, who had just given him a pair of hand-knitted gloves. This is the first time where I really felt like this show was suffering from having only 11 episodes. With even 13, it could have done so much more.

What kind of shocked me here was Sentaro’s decision at the end of the episode (What? He’s leaving. Spoilers.). I didn’t really feel like this fit his character given everything that’s happened up to this point. He’s waited for Kaoru to turn around and now Kaoru’s going to have to go get him because he’s running away from his scary drunken dad who hates him. And he’s leaving his siblings to the scary drunken dad who hates him. He’s got another friend in Kaoru now who would most certainly take huge backlash from his aunt and family he’s living with just to give Sentaro a place to stay and I’m positive Ritsuko and her family would also welcome Sentaro with open arms. Maybe they have something planned, like a reunion with Jun and Yurika in Tokyo, but he’s running with good reasons, but not enough good reasons to justify it.

What I did love though was Kaoru’s confession. But give that aftermath time! Don’t just jump to an entire season after it happened to the school festival for the convenience of the story unless you plan to revisit that (which they shouldn’t do since the show hasn’t relied on flashbacks at all except with Jun’s stuff, which is arguably the only time it’s going to work now). So a whole few months passed without Kaoru or Ritsuko talking about them liking each other? At all? A little unbelievable.

Overall, I like the direction this series is heading, but MAN, take your time with it. The manga is all done, I think they would have known that it was nearing that point if they asked the mangaka. So let Shinichiro Watanabe have his time with the show and have as many episodes as you want. Guilty Crown is thus far the longest Noitamina show and Kids on the Slope could most definitely benefit from the 22 episode count that Guilty Crown had (while Guilty Crown might have thrived with something in between). But I digress on that topic. Another time maybe.