Youta’s little sister Sora has a strong sense of justice, since she feels obligated to help her senpai (and film club alumnus) Jinguuji Hikari out at her struggling ramen restaurant. Sora ended up getting chased by an unscrupulous debt collector, but her family and Hina won’t let her fight this fight alone. And by that, they all agree Youta should help her out.
Hina is supremely confident in her plan from the start, almost as if she knows how it will turn out—which I guess she does, seeing as how she’s a god and all. But it requires more strenuous work from Youta, who poses as a babyfaced 40-year-old “revitalization contractor” who promises to turn Hikari’s business around in a week—for the low price of ¥300!
Following Hina’s instructions to the letter, Youta practices tough love as he picks apart all of the flaws in Hikari’s menu and business model, and gets her to reformulate her ramen and develop a cold noodle substitute. He does this while shouting quite a bit, as if to shake the lovely Hikari from complacency.
Youta’s seiyu Hanae Natsuki is up to the task of strict taskmaster, and his detailed explanations for the changes Hikari is making—even changing the name from “Heavanward Ramen” to “Fallen Angel”—are delivered with hilarious conviction and intensity.
With the restaurant now serving food that’s tasty and cheaper to make, Hina’s next phase involves Youta the “40-year-old contractor” doing an interview for TV in order to create media buzz. The resulting segment is extremely well-produced, with Youta not just sitting in a chair between two ferns but in thematically-appropriate settings.
Like the film spoofs last week, Kamisama ni Natta Hi knows when to let its hair down and get silly, but here gets silly with such a stern straight face it accentuates the absurdity of, say, Youta’s claim to have worn the same one suit for ten years, even during his climb up Mt. Everest!
In an interesting segue, we meet a new character while he’s watching Youta’s interview in the back of a car. His fingers are bound and he’s being driven by a MiB handler, and we learn why when a mom calls out for her lost child: he’s some kind of master hacker who uses computer gloves to create a Minority Report-style floating 3D interface wherever he happens to be.
The silver-haired (and silver-tongued) lad quickly locates the lost daughter and reunites her with her mom, after which his handler re-locks his hands and return to the car. How exactly this hacker kid will connect with Youta and Hina, we’re left to speculate.
Meanwhile, Hina’s plan is a huge success, as there’s a line going outside Fallen Angel for its grand re-opening. That only leaves one more matter her plan must account for: the predatory lender. When he arrives to throw his weight around, Hina has Youta fight him.
While this would normally be impossible, as Youta is far more into basketball than martial arts, Hina laid out a sequential series of steps on the floor for Youta to follow so he’s able to dodge the low-level gangster’s punches and land a couple of his own, hastening the tough’s retreat.
With Hikari’s family business saved and the threat of the loan shark neutralized, Youta comes clean about being Sora’s brother, not uncle, and having never won a baby-face contest (as, he hilariously puts it, such contests don’t exist).
Hikari admits she already knew he was putting on an act (thanks to her film club experience) but adds that his efforts were real, as were their effect the restaurant. Youta, in turn, urges her to direct all praise to Hina. He’s not sure if she’s really a god, but is she isn’t that was a lot of coincidences, right down to his fight!
The episode closes with our learning the hacker’s name—Suzuki—as he’s been conscripted to find dirt on a preeminent quantum physicist and computer scientist. Could that be the guy who causes the end of the world, which is now in just seventeen days? We shall see. Until then, this was a fun “project” episode that gave Youta another chance to demonstrate he’s an uncommonly capable lad when following a divine plan.
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