That was a nice bit of character drama. Kudos for the work that Koshimizu Ami did with Horo; on the other hand, while I like Lawrence's character, I think that Fukuyama Jun should have toned down his performance a bit.
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Originally Posted by Darknemo2000
In other words - spoilers button is pretty much useless - you are not allowed to post actual spoilers and what are you allowed to post are not spoilers already (and since its just a courtesy it is not a must at all to use it).
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For the individual episode threads, the spoiler tags aren't totally useless - they should still be used whenever you reference a spoiler for a different show.
For example, the character dynamic in Spice and Wolf is similar to the one in the Crest of the Stars because:
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Originally Posted by MeoTwister5
Personally I never thought Horo was as strong as she tries to show. It felt more tied to trying to present a "god-like" presence and demeanor towards those around her (and especially to Lawrence), but there are little bits and pieces of scenes that pop out during important and stressful moments that further hint that some of her strong-willed maturity is very good acting.
Under it all is really just a person who's either been glorified by people who don't really understand or vilified for her supernatural status. The curse of a god methinks, that you exist on heightened existential plane that very few mortal humans are capable of understanding, let alone reach. As the cliche goes, it's lonely at the top.
And when you're alone at the top... well... Horo might just be the last of her kind, and I can't begin to imagine the metaphysical problematic of realizing that you're the last surviving individual of your race.
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More than just that, it's also pretty clear that Horo has been nursing precisely that fear. Having events turn out to match one's fears can't be very easy to handle, and Horo doesn't have any sort of release valve.
Couple that with the fear that Lawrence, the only one she's opened up to in umpteen years, was trying to get rid of her, and it's pretty clear where her degeneration comes from.
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Originally Posted by riva2model64
Admittedly, despite the somewhat normal first-half (with the exception of the proposal ordeal), I was on edge the whole episode because of the title name.
Someone did state that Lawrence's part at the end had felt somewhat scripted in order for Horo to lose trust in him. I kind of felt Lawrence did less than possible in his defense, but perhaps it was that Lawrence was unable to properly express the Yoitsu situation, coupled with his state of panic/depression in the wake of Horo's display of raw, core-cutting emotion. Powerful episode.
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I think that Horo was already broken up from reading the letter, and over the hours that she had to work herself up about it, there wasn't a whole lot that Lawrence could do about it. Lawrence seems to understand this instinctively, and he acted as if anything he said was potentially dangerous. Under such a circumstance, I think that it's very natural for him to panic.
On a personal level, I love watching believable drama of this nature: where one or both speakers devolve into self-destructive behavior. It's great for what is revealed about the characters, for the hints as to how they'll recover from such actions, and because they just make for riveting scenes.