Honey and Clover Ep 17

After Team B goes to Tottori, Nomiya, Yamazaki and Miwako remark that the office seems more spacious than before. Miwako asks Nomiya whether he had asked Yamada to make the large size plates and he says that he will only look for her after the school festival since she should be tied up with the event.

Meanwhile, Yamada recollects how she rejected her suitors' proposals and feels sad about hurting their feelings. Her childhood friend, Ippei who manages his family's bakery comes to look for Yamada and tells her not to blame herself for what happened since this is not her fault. Yamada is worried about the suitors avoiding her in future after the rejection but Ippei tells her to treat them as before. In addition, he asks Yamada to bring Hagu along to help out at his shop during Christmas.

Hagu is staring at Takemoto's graduation project when Hanamoto comes to look for her. He tells her that Takemoto should be returning to school later after his job interview and brings Hagu out to have dinner.

Takemoto returns to school and sees everyone cleaning up the campus since today is the last day of the school festival. As he has failed to secure a job again, Takemoto walks away without a word despite seeing Hagu and Takemoto having dinner. He goes to the hall where his graduation project is exhibited. He recollects the fact that he left home to study without a clear goal in life and is stumped during interviews now because he still has no idea what he wants to do. With this realisation, Takemoto grabs a chair and destroys the tower he had built...

The next day, everyone is shocked to find the remains of the tower scattered in the hall and Hanamoto tells Hagu not to worry since Takemoto was the one who did this despite that tower being the key to whether he can graduate.

Yamada and Hagu get down to work at Ippei's bakery. As it is snowing, Yamada finds her suitors cum childhood friends coming to offer refreshments and items to keep warm despite her rejection. Thus, this serves as an assurance to Yamada that they are not holding it against her for what happened.

Hanamoto, Hagu, Yamada and Takemoto hold a Christmas party but the atmosphere seems rather subdued without Morita and Mayama. Takemoto had thought that last year's Christmas party should be the last for the group since he felt that he should be the one absent from this year's party. Hanamoto sees that Takemoto is in a daze and makes him drunk so that he has no time to despair. Later, they play the Twister game made by Morita but Hanamoto accidentally injures himself...

It is one month to the submission deadline for the graduation project and Morita is still away. Hanamoto says that as long as Morita finishes the sculpture of himself, there should be no problems. However, as Morita is already in his 8th year, he might not graduate if he doesn't submit his project this time. Takemoto is also in the same situation as he has to make a new tower to replace the one he destroyed while he continues to get rejected at job interviews.

During New Year, Takemoto goes to his stepfather, Kazu's hometown with him and his mother and feels happy that his mother is getting along fine with Kazu's family. When he returns, he focuses on completing the tower and forces himself to continue despite feeling unwell.

Yamada and Hagu come to see Takemoto and brings food for him. However, Takemoto looks unwell and vomits blood before fainting which scares the girls...

Takemoto is admitted to hospital for stomach ulcer and has to be hospitalised for a period of time. This would mean that Takemoto would have no time to finish his project but Hanamoto says that the most important thing now is for Takemoto to rest instead of worrying over the project.

In his sleep, Takemoto dreams of his father who had cycled to bring him to a hospital when he was sick during his childhood. However, that also caused his father to be admitted since he was sickly in the first place. Takemoto wakes up to find Kazu holding his hand and his mother by his bedside. As he has to be admitted for a week, there is no way he can finish the tower in time. His mother tells him not to worry over money and he can consider repeating the final year instead of worrying over the graduation project. Although Takemoto is not too keen on this idea initially, he decides to heed his mother's advice to stay in the university for another year.

Hagu comes to visit Takemoto and his parents decide to leave them alone. Mayama, Yamada and Hanamoto are hiding outside to see whether Takemoto will tell Hagu about his feelings but Hanamoto runs into the ward and shows Takemoto a portable TV thus spoilling his chance. They happen to watch the Mochademy Awards on TV where the movie, Space Titanic wins the Best Special Effects Award and get startled when the winner goes on stage to receive the award...

I like the sentence which Takemoto said, "it's not that I don't have a map, it's that I don't have a place I want to go". Currently, I guess I'm also in the same situation. I am unsure of what I want to do so I seem to be wasting time while trying to find out where my direction is. Thus, I can understand Takemoto's apprehension. I'm not sure how long it takes for me to find my goal but I guess for Takemoto, since he has found out the reason for his unsuccessful job interviews, the thing now would be for him to find his goal before deciding how to achieve that.

Next episode would see the return of my favourite, Morita-san! Now that he's won an international award, I guess Takemoto might be feeling inferior to him again and it remains to be seen if anything will develop between Morita and Hagu after a long period of absence.