Alice is finally back from a short break and now wants to take a photograph with Yune. Cue more endearing moments…
While Alice was rather annoying at the first time she met Yune, she is a very entertaining and cheerful character. Compared to her older sister, Camille, Alice has a laid back personality. It’s seen through her inability to stay still while getting a picture taken and wearing the kimono incorrectly. From her mentality, it’s obvious that she hasn’t matured enough compared to her older sister or even Yune. However, she eventually redeems herself once her older sister steps in and suggests Yune to demonstrate how she puts on a kimono.
Through the swapping of Yune’s and Alice’s clothing, the girls have learned something important about each other’s cultures. Most importantly, Alice finally wears the kimono correctly with some assistance. By having Yune show how she dresses and helping her, she broadens her appreciation for the Japanese culture. In turn, Yune gets an opportunity to wear an ornate dress. While she looks cute in it, it doesn’t feel right. It’s not just because of her short hair and small body, but her difficulty moving around. While she got used to the high-heeled boots eventually, adapting to the crinoline is still difficult. Her struggles will be symbolic to Claude’s attitudes towards society and his past relationship with Camille.
When Yune tries to pick up the cat that walked by, there is something that Camille said that caught my attention. She refers the crinoline as a “birdcage” that prevents someone from grasping something they desire. The birdcage is metaphorical to her relationship with Claude since the differences in class prevented them from being together. This explains why Claude is so bitter when it comes to money and doesn’t want Yune to visit Alice in order to wear frilly dresses. He feels that if Yune gets used to them, he will lose her like he did with Camille. Even so, the Episode 4.5 special goes further with this as it shows how he met her in their childhood.
Episode 6 was a very enjoyable episode that had many cute moments along with some subtle moments. It was nice to see Alice wearing the kimono properly and Yune in a dress as they looked adorable. Underneath these moments, Camille’s remarks have revealed more about Claude’s rather negative stance towards social status. I still feel that a similar thing could happen if he developed feelings for Yune since the difference of race could prevent them from being together. Still, preventing Yune from visiting Alice would be hypocritical since he advocated her to have more freedom. Therefore, he should just resolve his differences and loosen up so he can have a better overlook of life.
I’m not sure if it’s what Camille was getting at, but I felt that she was somewhat unhappy with her high society, bourgeois lifestyle. Other than that “Money really doesn’t buy happiness” moment, which contrasts with Alice’s ideals beautifully, not much happened, which I didn’t altogether mind.
You have a point here… We always see Camille being so proper and not minding the stuff around her, which is a big difference to Alice who believes that having kimonos and stuff are more important. Seemingly enough, Yune doesn’t care too much about the whole class thing, except when it involves Claude.
I found it surprising that Yune was the one who got distracted during the photo session (by a cute neko at that), more so bearing in mind she mentioned having done that before with her sister. Being composed and focused as usual is what I expected to see from her; perhaps the new environment and clothing clouded her judgement [:
Alice also got distracted because of a fly, but definitely not nearly as much compared to Yune… Probably she never seen a cat or have a fascination in them that she reacted that way (don’t know if that species of cats existed in Japan in the late 19th century). I still think Yune wearing a dress for the first time is more of a new experience more so than Alice wearing a kimono as it feels completely foreign to her.