Insomniacs After School 君は放課後インソムニア 1×08 is actually quite emotionally difficult to watch, if you’re someone who tends to feel the emotions that people are experiencing on-screen.
The Meteor Shower Party planning goes well, but then on the day of the event there is a deluge of rain, and Nakami 中見 experiences the cancellation of the event as an immediate intense personal failure, he feels like he has ruined it for everyone.
We learn later he has a kind of very severe anxiety that he tries to manage by doing everything correctly, by following every step as well as he can, and that when this doesn’t work he finds this lack of control devastating.
Backstory Speculation
This could be a kind of autism, or anxiety disorder, or other emotional disorder, but there is an backstory hint that makes me think he may have lost his mother, either she’s passed away or she has left, and he’s been trying frantically to manage his emotions through behaving and planning “correctly” and through control of situations ever since.
If he didn’t lose his mother, the whole thing where he’s growing out of his sneakers but doesn’t get larger ones doesn’t make any sense.
Radio Signal is Weak
I thought the two separate radio stations as a way for them to connect without having to directly engage emotionally worked really well when they were trying to fall asleep in 1×07. As a plot device it makes a ton of sense for communicating with someone with autism or intense introversion that makes direct interaction awkward, but I found the scenario of them using it while literally sitting side-by-side was a bit clumsy.
It’s basically a way of emphasizing how intensely difficult they both find direct emotional engagement. On which point it doesn’t help that Yui Shiromaru (Shiromaru-sensei) harangues them both relentlessly at the slightest sign of romantic attachment.
Thoughtful Episode
This was a thoughtful episode about the intensity of Nakami’s emotions, something that we would be unlikely to see for a male teen in most Canadian dramas.
It’s nice to see how supportive the rest of the group is, with them reminding Nakami that they can all just do an event together again during one of the next major meteor showers.
Previously:
May 23, 2023 Insomniacs After School 1×07
Manifesto Multilinko 2 
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