[DreamSword]

Episode 16: Part-Time with Kiriko!

An interesting character study on the pros and cons of prioritizing seeing the good in others.

As you might expect from a premise like that, Hayami is the one who takes center stage here, with his encounter with a troubled girl being the plot.

Hayami's' goody-goody nature unfortunately leaves him suspect to not only getting into his own head about the hidden good within others, but also makes him rather gullible and easy to manipulate, as we've seen before.

But unlike the episode where he was able to temporarily become Changerion, this one more so looks at how, yeah, Hayami is a sucker, but it's his attitude of always trying to do the right thing that also endears him to others who are also good at heart.

In the end it's a nice tale about genuine kindness overcoming cynicism, but this episode was refreshing in that it wasn't only Hayami's' kind deeds that won Kiriko over. Akira shines in this episode too with how he not only looks out for his friend, but also forces Kiriko to confront the harm that her lies are doing to the guy she's been manipulating.

Sure, in reality things are hardly ever this clean, and people who take advantage of others will often do so without so much as a care and will keep doing it as long as they continue to gain something out of it. But, in a story, and in a world we often like to dream of being ideal, stories like this are always nice to see, and just maybe, one day we as humans will grow to sprout enough joy and love to one another that such stories won't be just a fantasy.