Chizuru says it’s “ridiculous” to have a conversation about Kazuya being in love with her without Kazuya there, reiterates that he already told her his feelings, and steers talk back to photographing the rewards. When they part for the evening, Mini tells her merely wanting to see her succeed as an actress or helping her grandmother isn’t enough motivation to do all Kazuya is going.
There’s more there, and she believes true love can start even from something fake or on borrowed time. When Chizuru reacts to that, Mini snaps a photo and bids her goodnight. Right after that, Kazuya comes home, and Chizuru is too embarrassed to face him, and so retreats to her apartment without talking with him.
The next day, Chizuru meets with her actor friend Umi-kun, asking him to spread the word about her upcoming film. He agrees to retweet (re-X?) her crowdfunding page to his 200k-plus followers, but asks for something in exchange: that she go see a play with him. The date of the play happens to be July 28, which is not only today IRL, but the last day of the crowdfunding window.
Chizuru agreed to hand out fliers that day, but if she turns Umi down it will be awkward considering she asked him to promote the project. She relays this info to Kazuya and Mini, and despite Kazuya’s misgivings, Mini gets him to agree that Chizuru going on a date with the hot famous guy is the right move. He’ll have to lose this battle to win the war.
Kazuya is concerned that anyone who wants to go on a date with Chizuru either has designs on it going further, or just naturally arrives at that point because she’s so amazing. Unfortunately, he turns out to be correct in his assessment; Umi immediately struck me as someone who didn’t just ask a friend to fill in for his girlfriend.
Kazuya is down in the dumps about Chizuru going on the date, but snaps out of it when he realizes that both Ruka and Mini are still helping him. He tells Ruka he wouldn’t have gotten as far as he has without her and thanks her for everything (which makes her blush).
After the play, Chizuru is brimming with joy and giddiness about the performance she and Umi saw—just as Umi expected. He admits to her that he actually broke up with his girlfriend a week ago, and decided he wanted to pursue someone who was more serious about acting…someone like her.
Frankly, it’s a bit shitty for Umi to drop this on Chizuru, especially right after she just had a bunch of fun at the play. At the same time, I have to respect him for not settling and going after who and what he wants. When Chizuru declines his offer of a fancy dinner at an exclusive restaurant, he asks her if she’s in love with Kazuya.
He asks her this because he noticed the change in her demeanor around the same time she started spending more time with him. It’s not just Mini now saying this to her: Umi is convinced she likes Kazuya. All she can tell him there and then (after some smarmy school kids walk by) is that she doesn’t like Kazuya…but she doesn’t not like him either.
I don’t think that’s a cop-out, either; it’s as close to the truth as she can get right now. But the fact she didn’t stop at “I don’t like him” is huge. Despite being turned down by the girl he likes for someone he likely deems as far inferior in almost every way, Umi still follows through and retweets the crowdfunding page. That clinches it for me: Umi’s a good kid!
That retweet isn’t the only reason Chizuru and Kazuya not only meet the funding goal before midnight, but exceed it by 30,000 yen. But it is most definitely the push that was needed. I can’t imagine how demoralized the team would be if they’d come up just short. In the end, Umi chose Chizuru’s happiness and success over resentment or jealousy.
And when Kazuya shows Chizuru the met goal on his phone, her reaction of pure unbridled joy is even more powerful than after watching that play. They’ve got their script and their film crew, and now they’ve got their budget. It’s Go Time!
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