It still has typical BL problems, such as feeling incredibly rushed -- or maybe that was a feature of it being a 50 min movie instead of a, say 4-6 episode OVA; I haven't read the source manga -- I didn't keep exact track of how much time passed between Takano breaking it to Yokozawa that there was no chance at them ever getting together, but it felt like at most 2 weeks. Hm. I should rewatch to check out the weather, because at the end the cherries bloom; maybe more time passed than I realized. Anyway, it felt much too fast, because it takes time to let go of the old feelings, even though Yokozawa sort of always knew that there was no real hope with Takano, he had just settled into that role. And I don't believe anyone would introduce their new flame to their kid this fast, and leave them alone together.
I also didn't like that Yokozawa got ukefied, and into a tsundere to boot; ugh. Why can't more mangaka let go of the idiotic stereotypes? I am pretty sure at this point Japanese women can handle the occasional BL couple who both act like men, and who switch. But at least they didn't have him undergo a complete character change, which means he has now replaced Yukina as the most transgressive Nakamura character -- an uke who doesn't at all look like an uke and doesn't behave like one in public either. Nicely done, Nakamura-sensei. Go on, be more daring!
Since Yokozawa got mildly ukefied, of course we needed an über-seme, henceforth the very forceful Kirishima, who didn't shy away from a little friendly blackmail because right after my rapist, my blackmailer is who I'm gonna fall in love with; so much for realism. Well, we can't have it all. At least we were spared a naked apron scene.
But it was still better than any of the silly seme-uke pairings of the main anime with their never-ending push-pull antics. Not a lot of time was wasted on superfluous drama and artificially thrown up barriers like random women standing between the men, or their own weaknesses preventing them from actually grabbing what agency they could get, unlike the other pairings. Kirishima was very straightforward, to the point of hurting Yokosawa's pride at one point, which was a realistic problem -- some things, however true, are very hard to hear from somebody else, especially somebody by whom you want to be respected, but Yokozawa pulled himself together without weeks of moping.
This is now my favourite pairing because they acted the most like adult men, and actually gave the impression that they could have a healthy relationship, not something I feel is a given for any of the other couples. Yokozawa was a bit of a prick to Onodera in the previous installments, but I never saw him as a true villain, and here he completely redeems himself, in more than one circumstance.
