To Heart - Remember My Memories 040
Aoi and Kotone practice for the upcoming match against Ayaka. The gang gets invited to the Kurusugawa estate for training with Ayaka. Aoi and Ayaka fight, both are strong. Multi finds the joys of strawberries, shows more human emotions, and ends up saving an life.
To Heart - Remember My Memories is a great example where they have a really good voice cast (Ayako Kawasumi, Yui Horie, and Michiko Neya to name a few), a good fan-based, and a previous series to work from BUT do a horrible job at it. Maybe because the first series focused on Akira and Hiroyuki’s budding relationship, that they decided to focus on the next popular character Multi for the second series. Multi’s character is all well and good, but with such a diverse cast of characters to work with I’ll rather see other lessen on-scene characters get their chance to shine.
Anyway, episode four starts off with Aoi and Kotone training at the nearby local shrine for their upcoming match against the talented fighter Ayaka. Bringing back memories of when I was watching Ippo, the two girls are studying Ayaka’s fighting style, techniques, etc from a recent taped match against another opponent. Aoi’s biggest threat against Ayaka: Ayaka’s “untrackable high kick.” Hiroyuki, Akira, and Multi drop by to help Aoi train and give moral support. Ayaka passes by while jogging, asking if the whole crew wants to go to her estate to visit/watch/train. Kotone is suspicious at first, afraid that Ayaka is trying to scope out Aoi’s weak points, but eventually everyone wins her over and they all agree to go. After Ayaka leaves, they offer a pray to the gods at the shrine before leaving hoping the training camp (i.e. chiling with the Kurusugawas) goes well. And on cue, Multi being the innocent and naive robot she is asks, “Who is ‘god’?” 
The next day, everyone is waiting for their ride to the training camp er… Kurusugawas’ estate. Including Shino, which Hiroyuki isn’t really happy about. Usual Shino and Hiroyuki bickering occurs when the LIMO arrives to pick everyone up. And guess who the driver is? Jii-san, the servant of Serika who isn’t really fond of Hiroyuki. Albiet to say, the girls are treated like queens while Hiroyuki is stuck with the “funs” of being with Jii-san.
While everyone is making their way to the estate, Ayaka is on the phone with one of the guys mainly responsible for Multi and how they can continue the Multi project. Seems like while Multi has regained some of her “old” self, they’re not sure if it’s going to be enough to convince the council to let Multi be as is… seems like the guy, Multi, and Ayaka’s only hope might be the Chairman (Ayaka’s grandfather). Just as we might learn more, Serika comes in with tea and tell Ayaka that everyone is about to arrive. Ayaka compliments Serika “knowing abilities” while Serika gives her the peace-sign… I just don’t know about that one. heh.
Seems like everyone has arrive safe and sound except for Shino who might have gotten car sick (at this point they pan to the estate and it’s LONG CURVY DRIVEWAY). Everyone is off to do their own thing: Aoi, Ayaka, Kotone, and Hiroyuki to train. Serio and Multi to pick strawberries from the garden. And Akira and Shino helping to make lunch for everyone. The foursome (well, really only Ayaka and Aoi) are sparring hard when Ayaka gets Aoi with her “untrackable high kick.” Much to Hiroyuki’s charging, he isn’t pleased that Ayaka went all out on Aoi and knocked her out. Ayaka gives him a speech about fighting and expecting someone’s all etc etc etc. Of course, Aoi is okay so they take a breather where Aoi is actually happy that Ayaka goes out on her showing Ayaka respects her abilities. While Hiroyuki refills Aoi’s ice-bag, Kotone ask if Aoi has found any of Ayaka’s weaknesses yet…. unfortunately not yet. Speaking about Ayaka, when she leaves them she’s amazed how much stronger Aoi has gotten. Too bad the poor quality of animation doesn’t show that at all.
Serio and Multi arrive at the strawberry garden, and in typical Multi fashion she’s amazed at how beautiful all the strawberries are saying they look like stars. An old man, assumedly one of the gardeners that attends to the starwberries, slightly startled the two and is surprise (and humored) at Multi’s unique description of the fruit. The two robot girls go to pick strawberries, though Serio is a little suspicious of the man… like he looks familiar or something. Just as the two girls finish up picking strawberries, the old man suddenly falls ill. Multi shows a huge amount of human emotions as she’s terribly worried about him, doesn’t know what to do, and starts to cries. Luckily, Serio is on top of it and signals for a ambulance to come.
A bit later, after the man has been taken to the hospital Akira, Multi, and Serio are discussing what just happened over cleaning the dishes and strawberries. Akira tries to cheer up Multi saying as long as she does her best everything is okay. Multi, though thankful for the pick-me-up still worries. She thinks may be it’s better that she’ll be better like Serio since Serio was on top of things instead of just being “more human” and showing emotions like Multi did. poor girl… 
Cut to a few days later, the guy in charge of the Multi project is worriedly waiting to talk to the council and present his case to countinue the project. Fortunately he doesn’t have to as he gets news that the Multi project is to be continued thanks to the Chairman. The scene cuts to the old man from the garden in the hospital with Serika watching over him. The man isn’t what he seems to be as he talks about Multi blah blah blah… apparently HE IS THE CHAIRMAN!
The animation, as most can tell, is the real problem with this series. I’ll admit it’s a interesting idea to go back to the animation from the game, but when the animation from the first animated series was better they should have really stuck to that style. Beside the animation, the episode was okay. Even though it didn’t toally focus on Multi for once, there are definite foreshadowings about her future. I actually hope they continue the episodes sort of like this, where they focus on other characters in the series while keeping the “main” Multi storyline in the background. If they could do that and somehow up the animation, To Heart - Remember My Memories would get a new breath of life.