It finally ends with Taichi spilling the beans along with other stuff regarding Iori’s past.
Obviously, Taichi accidently let the cat out of the bag and now suffering the consequences of being dragged into the youth thing. While it happens to him once, it’s now happening at an unpredictable fashion that none of the club members can go out of hiding. That of course leaves Iori in a tough situation of wanting to save her mother while realizing her real self. Thankfully, the Heartseed we saw before stopped this phenomena before it escalated.
On the other hand, while I’m glad that she resolved her problems and her mother chased away her 2nd violent former husband, I thought the finale felt rushed. I noticed this from how it ended in a somewhat abrupt fashion with everyone returning to a normal life. While it’s not necessarily bad, at the same time, I believe that the production team could have handled this episode better. Still, this anti-climatic feeling of the last episode casts a feeling of unease on what they have in store for the last four episodes.
Final Preliminary Thoughts
Like with most things in life, there are great ideas that look good on paper, but some do badly in execution. While having various phenomena playing with the member’s mind seemed like a fascinating idea to drive character development, it feels incomplete since nobody explained the full details how it works or Heartseed’s true identity. As a result, this show eventually rides on gimmicks and tries to play it safe by having Taichi at the forefront rather than going on the edge. This is noticeable after the first arc when they try to isolate themselves from Heartseed’s antics. In the end, talking easily solves the problems the characters have! However, you can argue that this chaos is meant to strengthen the friendship with each other. Even with this argument, there is still stuff that they haven’t touch upon enough like the reason why Iori and Inaba loves Taichi.
Don’t get me wrong, Kokoro Connect is enjoyable and has good production values. Nevertheless, you can sum it up as “Great ideas, but poor execution.”
Preliminary Overall Rating: 8.2/10, Good, B
It’s a teenager drama story, you can’t be expecting much more than what they’ve shown really…:D
I think I was a bit harsh… Even so, I think it could have done better with the character development as they only touch the surface and could have gone deeper rather than relying on gimmicks that led to eventual isolation. But don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it, but not as much compared to Dog Days 2, Hyouka and Tari Tari.