The Scene from Ano Natsu I Think About a Lot, Maybe Too Much

It’s no secret that I’m a hopeless romantic. I’m such a sucker for a good romance story. Heck, doesn’t even have to be good. I just needs to make me feel emotions. Good emotions, bad emotions, cringe emotions. Everything in-between. Give me some good, consensual love scenes and more often than not, I will like the heck out of it. Even 20 seconds is all it takes to get me to internally whoop and holler.

That brings us to one of the clips that I always think about from time to time - The last moment of episode 2 of Ano Natsu de Matteru, or in English “Waiting in the Summer”.

Even without context, I think this clip is just soooo great in many ways. Shy boy asking a question that may change the trajectory of their relationship (or not), tall girl making that soul read and physically placing her fingers to his lips with the nicest but most pleading smile saying “don’t do this, not right now”, and all while the build-up of the ending credits music is happening.

God it’s so good. This is why we watch anime, why I watch anime. For moments like these.

There’s also this added effect where I watched this anime as it was airing, and it was in the time period where I frequented a certain anime image board that must not be named to read a thread of everyone’s reaction to the show every week. Perhaps that’s why this scene sticks out in my head so much. It was just a perfect moment at the time, so effective where it just made me feel it in my heart, my kokoro.

Adding some context into it, Ano Natsu is an anime about a normal high school boy having what is supposed to be a normal high school summer. But then he almost dies. Then an alien girl saves him. Then she sticks around to make sure he’s ok since it turns out it is kind of the alien girl’s fault. To do so, she enrolls at his high school to fit in.

Anime romantic tropes happen and she ends up living in his house, taking care of him as his sister leaves for the summer for work. The night before she leaves, she heads out for errands and comes back - opening the front door to see that girl’s lips on her feverish unconscious brother attempting to save his life in the most sci-fi romcom way that involves nano-machines. To make matters worse, the sister is also accompanied by the crush of the protagonist boy.

So, the ladies all agree that this never happened. It’s all a weird dream.

Of course, in romantic trope fashion, they (except the sister) do not let this go.

More things happen, from the introduction to the rest of the three or four main cast to the plan of spending summer break to make a film and the final part before the scene above, having a big meeting/party about said film while also unknowingly consuming spiked lemonade that makes everyone beyond tipsy while also being filmed by the mastermind in order to get b-reel footage.

Ano Natsu is one of my favorite romance animes and just anime in general. It’s a bit of personal bias as it was once of those “right time right place” pieces of media that I really related to at the time. The idea of unrequited love of not just one character, but three at the same time was something that I felt in my heart and what interested me to seeing this show all the way through. The other part of it was that it was unique and silly in a lot of aspects (Men in Black, alien sci-fi stuff, filming antics, beach episode gone wrong in many ways, the final ending chase scene, and finally this show being a sequel a very similar anime through dropping so many hints bur doesn’t outright say it is). Ano Natsu really encompasses that summer vacation vibe of cool memorable one-of-a-kind adventure that you look back at and say “it’s wild that this happened”. Every time I rewatch it it always makes me nostalgic in a way. Perhaps it’s the way the main character uses his vintage film camera. Perhaps it’s the way I had my own summer fling. Perhaps it’s just me wanting to go back to a much simpler summer time.

No matter the case, this scene, to me, is something that’ll always stick out to me. There are many more moments throughout the show, and I definitely recommend this anime to anyone looking for a good romance/romcom show to watch. But this one will always be the one that gets me. The subtleness of their body language, this moment of intimacy between the two, how once just takes control of the situation despite both of them being a little bit brave/tipsy. And that good old classic build up to the ending credits song.

This, to me, is peak 2012 anime.

They don’t make them like they used to.