I just finished my long overdue coverage of Horimiya Season 1, as promised in my third episode review poll. The poll only entailed Season 1 as that was all there was to the show at the time. That said, we now have a second season subtitled Missing Pieces. I enjoyed the original series well enough so unless I don’t like Missing Pieces and I decide to drop it, I might as well continue the Horimiya episode reviews.
As you can infer from the subtitle, Missing Pieces is a companion season that adapts chapters from the manga that the show’s staff did not use for the original season. Whether you like Horimiya or not, I think we can all agree that this approach is stupid. The show should’ve been longer and it should’ve adapted the whole manga from the get go. If the production committee was gauging for commercial interest before greenlighting a new season, they should’ve mandated that the first season adapt partway through the manga and then decide to adapt the rest if the first season sells enough. No matter how good Missing Pieces is, the fact remains that this entire adaptation is fundamentally imperfect. But whatever, this is what we’re dealt with.
I think the ideal solution for Missing Pieces is to produce it a way so that its episodes fit perfectly in between the episodes of the original season. That way, you’re free to enjoy it in perfectly chronological order. At least with the first episode, this does not appear to be the case for some reason. The premiere begins with a recreation of the characters’ high school graduation. The first segment after the OP depicts the characters taking a school trip to Kyoto. The second and last segment has Miyamura (Koki Uchiyama) and Sengoku (Nobuhiko Okamoto) trying to wiggle their way out of an obligatory swimming class for gym. You can easily tell these segments are far apart from each other in the timeline by Miyamura’s hairstyle. These segments do connect thematically as it involves Miyamura’s tattoos and his struggle to keep them a secret. They also share a recurring joke involving periods and mileage will frankly vary with that. I get the reasoning behind it but if this is how Missing Pieces will be for the whole cour, it’s going to be a structural mess.
The first segment is easily the better of the two. I kind of wish it was included in the original series as it sheds some light on Miyamura’s relationship with Hori (Haruka Tomatsu). During the Kyoto trip, Miyamura faces a dilemma in that boys have to use the public bath. To help Miyamura keep his tattoos as secret, Hori lets Miyamura use her hotel room’s shower while Yoshikawa (Yurie Kozakai) is out. Miyamura later finds a time where he can comfortably wash himself off though the one time he uses Hori’s shower proves to be an intimate moment as Miyamura points out to Hori that she offered the shower to him without skipping a beat. Obviously, Hori means well but she clearly did not take into consideration what her gesture might imply about her feelings towards Miyamura. If this segment was included in the original series, it would be a nice bit of foreshadowing on where the main couple is going in the story.
The second segment is fine but I can see why it was left out of the original series. It’s kind of neat to see the show explore Miyamura’s tattoo situation after his glow-up. By this point in the timeline, the tattoos are almost never mentioned. That said, this doesn’t advance the plot all that much. Sengoku’s inclusion here is a bit odd. I understand he’s self-conscious with his body but compared to Miyamura’s situation, his refusal to swim feels rather dumb. To be frank, I was much more interested in the first scene of the segment where Remi (M.A.O.) suspects that Miyamura is wearing long sleeved shirts to hide something. Knowing Remi, she probably could figure out Miyamura’s tattoo situation and if she did, she’d definitely keep it a secret. I’m surprised Miyamura doesn’t reveal his tattoos to more people. He’s only revealed them to Hori and Ishikawa (Seiichiro Yamashita). I figured he’d trust his secret to more people within his circle.
Watch Horimiya: The Missing Pieces on Crunchyroll and Funimation
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