“I don’t want to graduate. But as long as I’m here, Kanata will be an understudy. I’m crushing her dream…for the sake of my own.”
Summary
The concert goes off successfully, and everyone congratulates the unders for standing in for the successors. Kanata goes to welcome back Takamina and the other members, however Takamina is still thinking back on what she witnessed at the underground temple. AKB’s next concert is at Tundrastar, a planet fully under the Entertainment Ban, and so the group go off fully expecting DES conflict. The DES attack early though, and with no help from the wotas Takamina goes out to fight with a few other successors, but has conflicting emotions and is shot down by a DES mecha. Kanata ends up saving her, and she wonders whether it’s right to pursue her own dream while crushing someone else’s.
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Impression
So Takamina’s averted her death flag…for now. It was given that she’d have to do some serious soul searching after being told by the Kirara that Kanata was a better Takamina than she was, but it was terribly bad luck to have a DES attack right when she was at her most emotionally vulnerable. It sounds like Takamina really was a good coordinator and mech pilot, but just wasn’t herself due to thinking about other things while fighting. To be honest, when she was gunned down I actually thought they’d killed her off (especially with the blood and all) but I suppose it wasn’t her time to go yet. If Takamina did die, it would cause Kanata a lot of grief, and even more so when she’s informed that she’ll be taking over Takamina’s name. I’m sure that’s not the way she wants to succeed her – instead, she herself believes she needs to get stronger.
Successing isn’t without its own bad sides either – and we see that with Sae-chan (previously Youko) who is the only person from the 76th generation to become a full member. I’d always thought she was a more experienced member, but she seems to have succeeded recently, leaving behind her 76th gen friends and mingling with others. Now she hardly talks to them, and as a result her former friends have grown a bit bitter as well, and that extends to the 77th gen, who they see as being closer than them in becoming successors and getting all jelly.
Takamina hasn’t even come to a decision as of yet, but is perfectly clear that by being Takamina, she’s effectively stopping Kanata from getting anywhere. Yuko was surprisingly cold when replying to that – and in a way she’s right, since everyone in AKB has the same dream and they’ve worked so hard to get to where they are, so the least they deserve is to live that dream. For Takamina to graduate to help Kanata would be the ultimate act of kindness, and if she does do that, the respect I’ll have for her will be massive.
- Random thought – no episode is complete without its obligatory Nagisa x Chieri.
- Wait, I just realized…wasn’t Nagisa the main character at one point?
lol Well, she’s the POV character, but she’s not interesting enough to carry the show on her own so…. still, I expect she’ll have one moment of awesome at the end of the series.
The way she replied was very… Yuuko lol. Even IRL Yuuko has always been gunning for the Nº 1 spot (the center), which meant to shoot Acchan down from that position. There’s no way around it, if you want your dream granted, you will always end up crushing someone else’s dream. That’s the reality of being an idol.
No, it would be the ultimate act of cowardice. That’s what Yuuko was trying to tell her. Besides, Kanata herself wouldn’t want that either.
I agree that as an idol, it would be very cowardly for Takamina to stop pursuing her dream and give it up to Kanata that easily. However, I do admire how Takamina as a person even entertains the thought of graduating for Kanata and making that sacrifice, as a person that’s supported Kanata and watched her grow,