This week we get a sumptuously well-produced OP that spoils the fact that Mahiru and Kano are only half of the eventual JELEE artistic group. The third member is introduced first as a rabid fangirl of Kano’s Sunflower Dolls persona, Tachibana Nonoka, AKA Nono-tan. Just when Mahiru and Kano are wondering how the heck they’ll fund this project, this girl throws down over $1,600 to help their cause.
But this girl isn’t a fan of Kano, but Nono-tan, and wants her to go back to being the SunDolls idol she loved. Kano, establishing her resolve to move beyond her idol past, curtly refuses the money and sends the girl on her way. She almost immediately regrets this, not just because JELEE could use the seed money, but because both she and the girl have identical bags—an incredibly rare bag she designed when she was in SunDolls.
Swapping bags with your favorite idol has to be some kind of dream come true, and indeed one of the first things the girls does is give Kano’s jacket a good sniff. Meanwhile, her bag has her student ID—her name is Takanashi Mei Kim Anouk—and also an audio recorder that contains not only a piano arrangement of “Colorful Moonlight”, but other pieces that Kano and Mahiru really dig.
When they meet Mei at her school to exchange the bags, Mei is clearly chuffed by how much her idol seems to like the songs she composed. But when Kano asks if she’ll compose a song for Kano to sing—as the Yamanouchi Kano she is and always was, not Nono-tan, whom Kano insists is gone and never returning, Mei respectfully declines the offer and takes her leave.
It isn’t until Kano looks at Mei’s student ID stained with sauce from Mahiru’s lunch that she realizes she’s met her before, back when she had bright orange hair. We dive into Mei’s past as she is pushed to be great by adults and made fun of her classmates. Her music seems less “fun” and more simply fulfilling the potential assigned to her from outside.
In any case, Mei is not in a great place emotionally when she suddenly spots Tachibana Nonoka at a live meet-up. Struck by her “Cleopatra” like looks, she gets in line to meet her, but having been made fun of for her name Kim, says her name is Kimura instead. While the Nono-tan who initially interacts with her is the idol, when Mei tells her what’s troubling her, the real Kano comes out, bearing her heart in turn.
As Nano-tan, Kano did what all idols should strive to do: make their fans lives a little brighter, and give them the courage to keep moving forward. There was no artifice to her words; she comes right out and tells Mei she’s not really friends with her group-mates, and suffered similar social isolation during her training.
Kano becomes Mei’s lodestar, which makes Nano-tan’s abrupt fall from grace devastating. With all of this context, it’s understandable that Mei would feel like she was being abandoned by Kano for abandoning Nano-tan, and that she’d have to be alone again. It’s a horrible state to be in on the verge of what looks like a recital with big stakes.
But whether she has black or blonde hair, Kano is still Nano-tan and Nano-tan is Kano. Back when they first met, Nano-tan promised she’d watch Mei perform, and she fulfills that promise by entering the recital room with Mahiru. When she sees that her beloved idol is there to see her perform, she’s filled with joy and confidence and knocks her piano performance out of the park.
When it’s done and Kano gives her a standing O, Mei can’t help but run crying into her arms. Realizing she’s not alone, she agrees to join JELEE after all and write songs for Kano. She’s decided to support both Nono-tan and Kano—the “whole package.” Even so, while they’re shopping for equipment, Mei is surprised when Mahiru says it’s awesome she got to be friends with her idol.
But that’s exactly what happened! Sure, Mei had a borderline obsessive parasocial relationship with Nano-tan for a while, now that she realizes the real Kano—who again, was the person she met from the start—is just as awesome, if not more so, and now she gets to write music for her. Doubtless her love of Nano-tan and Kano will rekindle her love for music. It no longer needs to be simply her grim duty. It can be a delight … just as this episode was!
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