What’s done is done, but Kumiko isn’t quite able to pretend that she’s not angry. When Mayu haunts her steps, she turns on her “nice” voice and kindly asks her to stay the fuck away from her. The thing is, Kumiko isn’t sure who she’s angry at: herself, Mayu, Taki-sensei … whoever. The point is that that anger is there and she isn’t quite sure what to do with it.
At least in Kanade she has a venting partner. Kanade is great this week, as she not in so many words tells Kumiko “I told you so.” This whole auditions for every round of competition is ostensibly meritocratic, and something had to change after two years not winning Gold, but the resulting effect on the entire band calls into question the decisions made by the man at the top: Taki-sensei, someone in whom the underclassmen don’t have blind faith.
Also unsurprisingly on Team Kumiko is Shuu, who is clearly down in the dumps about how things went down with the auditions. Kumiko is flattered that he feels this way, but assures him she’s fine and that as vice president he needs to buck up and stop worrying about “silly things”. This season has been super-light on Kumiko-Shuu interactions as they apparently broke up in the movie I didn’t see, so I appreciated this scene with the two.
While Sapphire rejects the “picking sides” concept, it’s undeniable that the band is splitting into pro- and anti-Taki factions, which is to say some trust him and the process without hesitation (most of all Reina, but also Hazuki) while others are more like Kanade, Sapphire, and Shuu, feeling like something is off with Taki-sensei. Reina makes it quite clear she has zero tolerance for criticism of Taki-sensei, storming away when Kumiko blithely tells her she agrees with her over Shuu and being distant the rest of the day.
When Kumiko chases Reina down and they meet on a bridge during sunset, it’s clear Reina can sense that Kumiko has doubts about Taki. When asked directly, Kumiko has to admit that this is the case, and then Reina brings the hammer down, calling her “a failure of a president” and marching off.
That’s high school for you: one day you’re swapping swimsuit tops and bottoms, the next day you’re not going to school together or talking for what Kumiko believes will be a non-trivial amount of time; never what you want with a band president and its drum major, but also two friends as close as Kumiko and Reina!
It’s clear Reina feels betrayed that Kumiko is doubting Taki, but may also be upset that Kumiko didn’t do what was necessary to beat Mayu for the soli they promised to do. I held out hope that Kumiko could just win the audition for the nationals.
But with both the band and the two girls in such a bad place, will they even make the nationals, and if so will Reina still want to do the soli with Kumiko? How do they come back from Reina calling her a failure?
RABUJOI - An Anime Blog 