With over two Million with an M likes, Mei’s heartfelt bout of terrible singing went unexpectedly viral, but despite Mei hating her singing, the vast majority of comments are positive, supportive, and excited for the new song that’s now back on. Mei’s courageous stunt got Kano wanting to sing again; but the question that still eludes her and holds her back is knowing why she’s singing … or for whom.
I thought it had already been established she was singing for Mahiru, just as she was drawing for Kano, but whatevs! Maybe after their little kerfuffle they’ll need to rediscover that. In the meantime, Mahiru is not having a great one at Hayakawa, delivering some concept art that Yukine immediately rejects as not Umitsuki Yoru’s art, and nails her assessment of Mahiru as someone who doesn’t love their art.
After watching a demonstration of how the mocap system will graft her art onto virtual SunDolls, perhaps to give her more motivation and inspiration, Mahiru ends up in a car with Mero, who asks her what she thinks of LookIdiot’s videos and methods. Mahiru is quick to denounce them, but also admits sees a bit of herself in Look, only someone who took their “griping” to the extreme and ended up hurting people.
Mahiru/Yoru only emerged to the point where she’s even drawing again thanks to Kano, so she can’t judge someone who doesn’t have a similar lodestar. Whatever else Yukine is to Mero, she’s not that!
After Mei tells Kano she’s not singing like herself and suggests she rewrite the lyrics so she’s singing about something she wants to in the here and now, Mahiru hits another snag in her relationship with Yukine: She’s now out of time. Yukine claims to want to give her more, but there are deadlines to meet, so she marks up Mahiru’s art and tells her to adhere to a prescribed style—an art style entirely not Yoru’s any longer.
Mahiru has a little monologue on the street pretending she’s okay with all this, but the truth is, she’s not, and she’s not going to give up on her art, even if Yukine ordered her to do so and may well fire her if she defies her. To this end, she travels to the storage unit with Kiui that contains both of their art from when they were little.
Kiui was a great artist, and admits she picks everything up quickly and gets good at it, only to be overtaken by those with genuine passion and drive. It was the case with Mahiru’s jellyfish mural idea. She jokes about always quitting before getting overtaken so she never actually loses, but eventually Mahiru can sense that Kiui was lying about not having people message her about being outed as Nox.
Kiui has gotten a lot of nasty comments from her former classmates, ruining all the work she did to reinvent herself. She’s also weary of going to the old arcade with Mahiru for more inspiration. She uses Kiui’s own superhero posing and meter to list all the great things about her that make her, to this day, an “ever-shining superhero” in Mahiru’s eyes.
Kiui gains the courage to accompany Mahiru, but soon retreats to the bathroom when she sees other classmates. Then the two that were sending nasty messages encounter Mahiru, congratulating her while shitting on Kiui for being a liar. Mahiru comes loudly and proudly to Kiui’s defense, assuring her she’s cool as ever. When they mock her for what they deem as not “growing out” of that admiration, Mahiru holds her ground.
Kiui can tell Mahiru needs some backup, so she confronts her naysayers, who start laying into her incessantly and nastily. They even make fun of the fact Nox is a guy and wonder if she wants to be one. This is shitty teenagers at their shittiest, but Kiui weathers that shit and declares she hasn’t changed one bit from the person she was.
Kiui was ostracized for unapologetically being who she was, to the point she “let the world get the better” of her. But she created the Nox persona as a way of continuing to love her genuine self, and won’t let anyone deny her that identity. We don’t see how the normies react, but it doesn’t matter. Kiui isn’t going to let their normie bullshit stop her from loving who she is and always was.
Witnessing Kiui put herself out there among the wolves and not only survive but thrive re-energize’s Mahiru’s desire to find the Umitsuki Yoru art she loves. Kiui took a huge, courageous swing without worrying about the ramifications, and Mahiru follows her lead by defying Yukine.
Mahiru starts off by telling Yukine about her friend that she loves, and the ideal persona they created to keep loving who they are. Then she unveils new art for the Virtual SunDolls that dazzles with the same playful energy as that jellyfish mural. Yukine dresses her down for not doing what she was told (and not speaking to her with respect), but then smiles and tells her that this is precisely what she wanted: the art she loves.
It was a risky-as-hell gamble, but because it works out, Mahiru has a teensy little bit of leveage with Yukine, and she decides to use it immediately for JELEE’s sake. She asks that Hayakawa find a way to squeeze a performance from JELEE into the same end-of-year event as the SunDolls.
If Yukine agrees, Mahiru will have given JELEE a huge boost just when it felt like she couldn’t be any farther from the group’s current activity. That activity includes all-new lyrics by Kano. Lyrics she won’t sing by just following the notes (something Mei was once accused of by her parents), but in a way that takes the listener of a vivid journey. If Yoru succeeds, JELEE will be able to go head-to-head with SunDolls—and with Kano’s mom.
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