Episode 13 "Today Is On Me"

This week's episode of "My Love Story" focuses more on periphery characters and the very real occurrence of unrequited love. In that way, this episode proves that "My Love Story" might be the most relatable romantic comedy I've watched in my long list of anime series I've enjoyed.

Before I get to how relatable the experience of unrequited love is, briefly I'd like to mention how Suna continues to be an amazing character via his juxtaposition with the extreme expressions of both Yamato and Takeo. As a standalone character, it would probably be easy to get bored with his lack of drive toward any one particular thing.

But because we're constantly seeing him as the only "normal" character, it's a nice breath of comedy among all the "feels" offered by Takeo and Yamato.

As for the "unrequited love" of this episode, the final scene with Oda and Takeo is probably one of my favorite scenes of all time (at least so far) in this series. Sometimes the relationship between Takeo and Yamato may not feel relatable to those audience members who haven't experienced a teenage romance. This is why the focus here on Oda's purity of feelings is both sad and cathartic.

Most importantly, this episode is an offering to fans who may be getting tired of the seemingly perfect world in which Yamato and Takeo live in. Sure, the conflict in this series is resolved quickly most of the time, but when you have other characters experiencing the tougher subjects land that much better.

That is to say, "My Love Story" uses juxtaposition to create the ultimate feelings of catharsis in its audience.

Overall, this week's episode of "My Love Story" may be just another episode that contains what the show has already proved its good at. But at the tail end of the episode with Oda's monologue, it's a reminder that even when there isn't a happy ending, there's still a sense of happiness.