After Yune is finally cured from her cold, Alice invites he and Claude to a tea party. While Yune and Alice tell each other’s fairy tales, Claude reminisces a few moments from their childhood when he was with Camille.
For a while now, it’s apparent that Camille doesn’t like her bourgeois life since it prevented her from being with Claude. While some of the things she said suggests this like the birdcage reference in Episode 6, she wants to unbound herself from the responsibilities from her parents. This is shown though the various flashbacks when she preferred the stray cats Claude brought to the white pet cat she owned. Unfortunately, her expectations of being the older sister forces her to carry on the family legacy and marry a man for wealth even though she doesn’t have any romantic feelings for him. Still, her younger sister, Alice got treated differently since she is not bounded by the same expectations.
In comparison to Camille, Alice rejected conformity and was rebellious. As shown with her childhood, she was disobedient and has a strong interest in the Japanese culture. She felt that their culture was more exciting than her own even though she doesn’t know much about their customs and traditions. Besides tying chairs in order to paint a dragon on the ceiling in the playroom, her fairytale was particularly interesting since it became a reality after meeting Yune. Although she is not as calm as her older sister, both of these girls have a lot of personal freedoms as metaphorically described through the dragon in her fairytale. Even so, Camille was faintly jealous of Yune because of this reason.
Towards the end of the episode, Camille became jealous of the amount of freedom Yune had. Yune practically sacrificed everything so she could be with Claude, which Camille desired. For this reason, I felt very sympathetic to her since the family she was born into prevents her from achieving her childhood dream. Even if she is willing to give up life as a bourgeois, there is still no real way to do it. In the end, she gets over it rather quickly after Yune picked Alice’s old dress. She compliments her choice and gives this dress as a memento. Also, she encourages her to continue telling stories of the East for her younger sister, so she will feel comfortable.
Yune’s and Claude’s visit to the Blanche’s brought many interesting details of Alice and in particular, Camille. Although there is a lot we don’t know about the relationship between Camille and Claude, it is apparent now that she is not satisfied with the life she is currently living. In addition, the interactions with Yune and Alice when they shared their fairytales were very pleasing. Hopefully with the next episode, will reveal more about their childhood romance and reconcile it. ¶
Need to catch up on this series, missing all the Alice/Yune action.
I mostly enjoy it because of Yune, but Alice is fine too if you leave out her obsession of the Japanese culture… Practically they are the selling points for the show.
This was my favorite episode to date. They are really building up Camille and Alice in an unexpected way.
I have to agree… Alice was simply so enthusiastic about Japan such a long age, but it was interesting to see how she contrasted with her older sister. Besides her obsessive personality, her position is similar to Yune, except she is with the bourgeois. Still, Yune’s social status in Japan and her education at the age of 13 is still unknown, but it’s probably up there.
I liked the focus on Camille in this episode. It was a nice change of pace from Yune prancing around being all cute and stuff, with very little substance. Ah well, it’s still a very enjoyable show even if it is just Yune doing nothing important.
I liked it too… It simply makes sense since it’s one of the reasons why Claude has a very pessimistic view of life. If only he was able to be her without any barriers stopping them, he would probably feel better about life…
but still, I like watching Yune prancing around being cute… but it’s the mere nature of a slice of life show. Details are very gradual.