English Dub Review: The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity “A Morsel of Warmth”

That takes the cake!
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Rintaro scrambles to think of a good gift for Kaoruko, so he goes to his baker father for help.

OUR TAKE

We’re down to the final three episodes of the season, and possibly the series as a whole, and the task of the week for Rintaro is coming up for something for Kaoruko’s birthday, as dropped to him by best Wing Woman Subaru. A simple gift would probably do the trick as any surprise gift from Rintaro would probably make Kaoruko’s day, but thankfully Rintaro has enough sense to go a bit more personal and deeper than that. She comes into his parents’ cake shot all the time, and she’s had every cake they already make, so why not just make a cake for her himself? And to make this cake to the best of his novice ability, he’ll need help from…his dad? Who’s alive? I mean, I guess there wasn’t anything indicating he was dead, but all I’ve ever seen at Rintaro’s home was his mom, and his dad only appeared in flashbacks, so I just assumed he was…not with us anymore. But to my surprise, he is in fact alive, he just overworks himself a lot, and is more than happy to help Rintaro put this confection together! And in the end it turns out…acceptable, meaning that it is hopefully fit for consumption!

And as can probably be expected by this point, Kaoruko is over the moon about this, to the point that I’m surprised that she didn’t just confess her love and kiss him right then and there. But for whatever reason, we’re stretching that out, likely until the end of the season in a couple weeks. This series has had a rather annoying pension for delaying things that should naturally happen at a certain point for dramatic effect, but at least I can say that I am having a better time with the show than I was in its early weeks, as we haven’t had one hint of school feud related drama in sight, and hopefully won’t before the end. The problem then is that there isn’t that much in terms of conflict, as we seem to just leisurely strolling towards these two love birds eventually reaching official dating status, and as cute as it is, the ever present question of “why aren’t these two dating already” continues to loom bigger and bigger with each passing week. Thankfully we should only have at most two more weeks to have this answered decisively, so hang in there with me as we inch closer to that point.