Hajime’s crew and the wider world of people with superpowers were revealed last week, but the Lit Club was successfully kept out of the fighting, which is probably for the best this late in the game. Instead, we return to the Lit Club’s own internal struggle: the initially friendly, but increasingly heated battle for the tainted heart of Andou Jurai.
Things start when Jurai reveals to Tomoyo that when he was in the eighth grade, he considered retiring from Chuunidom, after meeting a “really crazy girl who referred to herself by an archaic expression”, who was, of course, Tomoyo. Even then, they had that connection and shared understanding of Chuuni.
Interestingly enough, during a study session when the exam score rankings are revealed, we essentially see a list that’s the opposite of the Jurai Heart picture. While Mirei and Sayumi are at the very top, they’re the furthest from contention, while Tomoyo is at the bottom despite being the frontrunner. Hatoko, not surprisingly, is the closest in score to Jurai, as she’s been the closest to him period.
Still, Tomoyo is embarrassed by her low test score, and when Hatoko offers to give her personal tutoring, she doesn’t refuse. It also gives Hatoko an opportunity to probe her rival (Tomoyo really does seem to “understand” Jurai more than her) while starting what will be a trend this week of Hatoko making things sparkling clear and unmuddied by verbal embellishment, code, or white lies.
As Summer vacation approaches and Sayumi goes through mountains of paperwork so fast she’s seemingly borrowed Closed Clock, she finds Jurai’s original application form to join the club. Everyone gathers ’round Jurai and Tomoyo has a good laugh at his colorful language.
One thing that sticks out for Chifuyu is the claim on his form that he has “no emotion”, which she rightly points out is a lie, because he admits to liking her. If nothing else, it’s cute having this grade schooler back him into a logical corner…though the lightning strike at the end is confusing, in that I thought Hatoko was the element user? At the same time, there’s nothing saying Chifuyu can’t summon whatever she wants out of the either, including the elements.
While joining him to take out the trash, Chifuyu has an odd question for Jurai about what the nature of curry is. She opines that it’s only a liquid, and that it requires rice to become a meal. Unlike Jurai, I can kinda see where she’s getting at, since they just had a conversation in which he confessed to liking her. But ‘like’ is like curry, it needs something to make it ‘a meal’; in this case, hanging out with her over the Summer.
When she reports symptoms similar to arrythmia to Cookie, Cookie is understandably concerned, until Chifuyu tells her she only feels this way when around Jurai. So yeah, Chifuyu is in love with the guy. After all, puberty does seem to be arriving earlier for girls these days.
Meanwhile, Sagami Shimizu barges into the ladies’ room and snatches away Sayumi’s glasses. Wait, WTF? Sayumi should have claimed two or three of his ribs for such a brazen offense, but she’s not able to before he opens his mouth, confirming that she’s in the back of the pack in the running for Jurai, and offering to help her grab the inside line. Why? I’m not sure, other than the fact Sagami likes an underdog story.
It occurs to me I don’t even remember the last time Hatoko used her elemental powers, but that’s not really a concern, because far more useful, at least in terms of moving things forward in the Jurai competition, are her powers to tell things like they are, which is exactly what she does with Tomoyo.
Hatoko asks Tomoyo a straight question: “Is there anyone you’re in love with?”, to which Tomoyo responds with an equally straight but still untrue answer: “no one.” Hatoko then answers her own question, both clearly and truthfully: She loves Jurai. She wants to know more about him and go out with him, all of it.
Hatoko gives her the chance to revise her answer, because not acknowledging she loves Jurai isn’t fair to Hatoko, or Jurai, or herself. Before we get Tomoyo’s answer (Damn!), we cut to Jurai sneezing because people are talking about him…but naturally he has a chuuni way of describing that particular phenomenon.
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Hatoko’s final scene with Tomoyo was okay. Establishing that all the girls are hot and bothered over wanting Jurai was… okay, I guess. I get that it was all frame work to show each character’s strengths as a GFFL too.
But there wasn’t any glue. Parts. Pieces. Everything bouncing around with it’s own tone and tempo. A cacophony and exact opposite of Piano drama, IMHO.
We even got glimpses of the faerie-war side plot, albeit with no magic or battles. No spice for our apparently Harem soup.
Kinda… ugh?
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The theme of this episode (or “glue” if you prefer) was honesty. The tone was set in the pre-credits with Tomoyo asking Andou for honest editorial feedback on her novel but not being able to tell him that she was the inspirational chuuni he met. It carried through the underlings on the rival team deciding to lie to their boss about the escaped F-teamer, to Andou’s white lie on his application form about being emotionless, and ending with each girl being given the chance to talk to someone honestly (or not) about their feelings for Andou.
That said, this is clearly an episode that was laying the groundwork for the final arc of the season, and the spice looks like it could be Sagami. First he was badmouthing Andou’s relationship with Hatoko to Andou’s face two episodes ago, and now he’s trying to influence Sayumi. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s also a superpower user playing his own game to drive a wedge in the literature club’s unity, either to split them down the middle and pull one of the two factions into his own group or to encourage infighting so that he can defeat them piecemeal if they don’t start taking each other out. Because let’s face it, with the combination of gamebreaker powers that our main characters have, it would be hard for anyone else in this war to beat them as long as they present a united front.
The woman in the surveillance video is also an interesting issue. The way that scene was set up, especially with the underlings having the classic “we won’t tell our boss she got away” conversation, it’s pretty much a given that she’s going to show up again in a major way. I’ve seen some theories that it might be Satomi-sensei (Chifuyu’s aunt & the lit club faculty advisor), but I’m not sure about that. The clothes are right, but the hair looks too long. Someone else suggested Mirei, although that woman looks too old to be her. Still, it would be an interesting twist if it did turn out to be either of the two women, especially if they were secretly allied with Sagami as another F-group chaos spreader.
I’m also starting to suspect that we’re going to be left with an open ending and a setup for a second season down the road if the show does well. The light novels are still being published, and they’ve given us so much plot the last few weeks that it’s hard to see how everything’s going to be neatly resolved in just three more episodes.
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Nice analysis, Shishio! I touched on directness vis-a-vis Tomoyo/Sayumi vs. Hatoko/Chifuyu, but for me, honesty really does bring the myriad goings-on this week together with the honesty theme.
At the same time I understand Ogi-san’s frustration, as I didn’t even mention the brief scene with the rival team because I didn’t connect it with anything else in the ep at the time. This show requires careful watching to get the most out of it, to be sure!
I do wish the show had been more upfront at the start about how long it would run, and if there’s to be a sequel, I would prefer this first 12-episode run end at a satisfying stopping point, as Chu2Koi’s first season did.
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