Happy Pride! It has not been a great past few weeks for anime baby lesbians, folks. Whisper Me a Love Song? Yori and Himari are great, but their show is delayed due to production issues. Reina and Kumiko are on the rocks over at Hibike! Euphonium.
As for Kano and Mahiru, they neither see nor talk to each other this week, and Kano just isn’t emotionally in a place to sing. That’s the bad news. The good news is, Kiui and Mei fill in for them as temps at the bar, and while they proceed to suck at their jobs, but they’re not ready to give up on JELEE.
JELEE essentially stays together all because of one Kim Anouk Mei Takanashi. Mei encounters Mero from the current iteration of the SunDolls. Mero assumes she’s a fan, but she’s not. While she’s initially pacified by a kiss to the cheek, Mei manages to track Mero down, leading to some very intense facial expressions from both of them.
When Mei finally identifies herself as a member of JELEE and after Mero sings some karaoke (Mei passes on this), Mero answers Mei’s question about what she think drives Kano. It’s the same thing that drives Mero: knowing that her performances are “sustenance” for Yukine.
Mero personally loathes singing, but will do it as long she’s Yukine’s sustenance. It’s not a healthy dynamic! When Mei brings up Kano’s new goal of getting 100k followers, Mero laughs and chalks that up to simply another way Kano wants to get her mom to notice her all over again.
Kano herself tries going to school, but quickly tired of the chatter about her, says her head, stomach and muscles “are all hurting at once” and bails. She encounters two JELEE fans performing her song in front of Yoru’s mural and loudly proclaiming their excitement for the the song they’re coming up with at the end of the year.
When she returns home, Mei is waiting outside her door, not as a fan, but as her friend. Kano explains that the reason she just doesn’t feel like going on with JELEE is that just as her mother took advantage of her, using her life for her own gain, she felt like she did the same with Mahiru.
With Mahiru busy with her new project and Kano saying they should simply disband, Mei and Kiui are in the unfortunate and uncomfortable position of having to address their fans with news that JELEE is no more. They do so at a live session while visiting Miiko, who is now making mukbang videos of all things.
Kiui makes the announcement as the shocked and disappointed comments roll in, and then she plays what they have of their new song, which is now their final song. Or it would be, were it not for Mei. She doesn’t want it to end like this, so she doesn’t let it. So she does something she’d normally never, ever do: she sings.
Shimabukuro Miyuri puts on a clinic of bad singing, buying time for Kiui to rush to Kano’s house so she can listen to the appeal that follows the song: she loves Kano so much, and her singing makes the songs she compose shine so brightly, that they simply have to continue with JELEE.
Begging Kano to take responsibility for making her fall in love with her, Mei’s passionate appeal works. Kano is still scared, but she still wants to sing. All of this happens on the livestream, leading to comments of relief. Mahiru is listening too as she works away on her drawings.
JELEE was down, but is not yet out. Kano and Mahiru still have some making up to do, and Nox’s IRL identity may have been exposed, something Kiui feared and almost expected might happen, so they’re not out of the woods by a long shot. But at least they’re no longer lost in those woods. All thanks to Mei’s love, stubbornness, and terrible, beautiful voice.
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