Whisper Me a Love Song – 05 – Just Down the Road

Once Aki asks Himari if she’ll let her have Yori, all of her frustrations come pouring out. It turned her stomach to hear Himari was withholding an answer, and that its turned Yori into a bundle of nerves. But while she’s coming from a place of care and concern for Yori, it also comes from a place of envy and resentment, since it’s Himari Yori fell for, not her.

While Aki’s harsh words have Himari feeling even more pressured to come up with an answer than ever, when she opens up to Momoka she gets some sound advice: everyone expresses and defines their love in different ways. There’s no wrong or right way to do either. In her case she loves being able to cook for those she cares about. Momoka assures Himari that precisely because she’s thinking and stressing so hard about this, she has nothing to worry about.

Hearing this brightens Himari’s mood and makes her feel more confident in herself, so that when she and Yori (who both miss each other) encounter one another by the lockers by chance, they have the same thought to walk home together. Yori even tastes one of the tarts Himari botched while worried about her, and just as Momoka told her, it’s not how it tastes, but the fact Himari made it that matters.

Now finally able to talk this stuff out, Yori tells Himari that if she’s anxious about delaying her answer, the solution is to abide by a deadline. Yori’s fine with Himari giving her answer after the concert. When Himari worries she may not know then, Yori confidently tells her she’ll sweep her off her feet with her music.

Yori’s time with Himari and the way she feels leads her to write a beautiful and pure love song that impresses her bandmates. Even Aki can’t deny the feelings behind the music, and when Himari is invited to the club to meet the band, Aki is quick to profusely apologize for being so scary. Himari, in turn, holds nothing against her: on the contrary, it was the cage-rattling she needed.

I’m glad Aki didn’t linger as a villainess for long. She knows she went too far, and the most important thing for her is Yori’s happiness. Himari is a big hit with Kaori and Mari too, but there are storm clouds on the horizon of a different kind. Their former lead singer, the one who Yori replaced and one of Momoka’s besties, considers the band to be a bunch of “casuals just playing for kicks.”

But she’s operating on old intel. Now the band she left has a front-woman who is genuinely head-over-heels in love and not afraid to express and share it through her music. Far from casual, she’s serious about making Himari fall for her, and she’s playing for keeps, not kicks.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night – 06 – Cutest in the Galaxy

When we first encountered Miiko, she had defaced Yoru’s mural with her posters and was singing a cover of one of Kano’s songs, a double-steal that didn’t exactly endear her to us. But to be honest, we only met “Miiko”, unaware that far from “forever seventeen”, Baba Shizue (Uesaka Sumire!) is a thirty-one-year-old underground idol in desperate need of a new viral song and working part-time at a yakitori joint. Since she served as a stepping stone for JELEE, she reaches out to them via DM to commission a song.

Miiko has been faking it for fourteen years, but hasn’t made it, i.e. “hatched.” But she already has achieved something far more precious than a successful career as an idol: her adorable daughter Ariel. She’s her mother’s top fan, and is extremely proud of her. Her mom helped her open up in school and make friends, and also supports her life. Miiko’s not just her idol, but her hero!

Watching such a lovey-dovey mother-daughter duo makes Kano jealous, since her relationship with her mom frankly always sucked ever since they became business partners, and especially since she was fired. Fortunately Yoru brings up Kano’s stolen kiss to snap her out of her funk. I like how the kiss is addressed casually instead of too much of a big deal, while also making clear it wasn’t as “spur the moment” as Kano claims.

Mei and Ariel bond over their staunch fandom of Kano and Miiko, respectively. Mei assures Ariel that stanning Miiko can’t possibly be wrong. Mei’s passionate heartfelt pep talk inspires Ariel to not only go out in public in the idol costume her mom made her, but even stands up to some asshole boys who are too cowardly to accept Miiko’s invite to her live show. The look of pride in Miiko’s eyes (smudging her eye shadow) is priceless.

Miiko is able to witness her daughter being a frilly badass thanks to JELEE filling in for her when she goes to Ariel’s rescue (which turned out not to be needed). However, it means JELEE (posing as a “copy band”) gets to have their first in-person performance. Kano knocks it out of the park with her pro idol charisma, while Yoru makes her triangle playing count.

Miiko takes over from there, and bares all to her fans, dropping the “forever seventeen” Miiko charade and even telling them her true age and her status as a divorced single mom. But with her own unique and seasoned charisma, she manages to convince those fans that she’s cuter than ever as Baba Shizue. Her video goes viral, while JELEE’s aquarium nears 1 million views, they’re drawing closer to their goal of 100,000 followers.

Yuru Camp△ 3 – 06 – I Told You So

It’s fitting that the first episode we watch after the end of our trip is about endings, specifically the bridge-and-dam tour. We camped for a couple of nights in remote Alpine County, CA using a lifted 4×4 to access a couple of gorgeous campsites in the mountains.

We watched the ISS transit the night sky, saw an extremely rare aurora, and got a clear view of the Milky Way once the moon set. In true Yuru Camp fashion we even went to a local nautral hot spring, and got a little fancy with dinner on the second night.

After a sumptuous breakfast of ham-and-cream cheese canapés, our camp gals head to the next suspension bridge, which is Nadeshiko’s first. She’s scared of the wobbliness and 8m height, but Rin and Ayano have braved far worse. The two also exhibit just what fast friends they’ve become when Nadeshiko surprises them with a selfie and they strike a coordinated pose.

As Ayano meets Nadeshiko’s train friends and observes her rapport with Rin, she remembers how scared and lonely Nadeshiko felt when they parted ways. Ayano assured her she’d make friends—she likens Nady to a dog: everybody loves her and she loves walkies—and sure enough she did. Not just ordinary friends, but good ones like Rin, something Ayano confirmed  while they biked together and survived the Bridge of Hell.

When Ayano tries but can’t quite commit to a quick goodbye, she joins the others for one more bridge. It’s not a suspension bridge, but it is the world’s longest footbridge, and it affords them a new view of their old friend Fuji-san. Its iconic snow cap serves as a perfect capper to a fun, chill, and different camping trip, one in which Nadeshiko mixed solo and group camping and may have found her calling in “train camping.”

Ayano also assures both Nady and Rin that wherever they’d like to go camping next time, she’ll be there on her bike … after resting her road-weary body, of course. Nady gets home late, but the bittersweetness of a finished trip soon gives way to excitement over where she’ll go next, and who she’ll go with.