Uta no Prince-sama Maji Love 2000% Ep 10: Nasty Rivals

Impression:
The Utapri Award conditions and set up for the competition between HEAVENS and STARISH have been updated after SHINING had suggested to his rival (creator of HEAVENS) Raging Otori that to make the competition more exciting, have both groups sing the songs made by the same composer aka Nanami Haruka. To make things even more dramatic, both groups will be putting their careers on the line since whoever loses, will be disbanded.
So lets talk about HEAVENS. /heavy sarcasm
Oh my freaking god, “HEAVENS” MY ASS. At least two of the three of them are fucking devils I tell you.
You have this obnoxious thirteen years old brat Mikado Nagi, and Otori Eiichi really at the verge- if not a yandere, EXTREME SADIST who is a nasty piece of work who really scared Haruka with his horrible personality and then you have Kira, who I don’t have any problems with since he’s the quiet one and hasn’t said anything offensive whatsoever towards STARISH. In short, I think and certainly hope that he is the sane one of the group. (PLEASE LET THAT BE!!!!!!!!!) He actually reminds me of a Persona series character because of his gold eyes. I mean, they look really alike the ‘Gold-Eyed’ Persona Characters.
When Nagi had slapped Natsuki’s hand away, you have no idea how much I wanted Satsuki to come out and give the kid a piece of his mind. He wouldn’t be laughing in his face after being beaten to pulp. Well if that had happen, it would have literally destroy STARISH’s careers by tainting their reputation and having injured their rival. But ughhhh I really did want Satsuki to scare the shit out of them (although I can imagine Eiichi would probably have a field-day because that’s the kind of sadist he is). However despite their horribly nasty characters, I do hope that we will actually be able to hear and see HEAVEN perform. I mean, this is a music competition, they are supposed have a music face off so yeah- if that isn’t included I’m going to drop some points.
Tokiya really didn’t get much screen time, let alone lines this episode. Instead, I felt they had given him meaningful brief shots at him showing us, the audience that Tokiya was only one picking up the real reason why Haruka is feeling so down. He knows that she of all people has the most faith in STARISH, her passion for music and how much she devoted to their group. With that said, the rest of the boys seemed to have failed to pick up that she is in fact upset that Shining had taken her songs and given them to HEAVENS without confronting her about it. On top of that what makes it even more frustrating, is the type of people HEAVENS turned out to be. They are essentially her worst nightmare.

I found it almost random when they decided to insert Tokiya’s character song and give us that little bits of off-screen flashbacks of what he has been recently discussing with Haruka. Honestly speaking, I don’t think they really needed to debut Tokiya’s songs this particular episode, especially given the circumstances. But then again, they might not have time for it, so they needed to squish it in. The song itself surprisingly didn’t become one of  my instant favorites, but I think it will grow onto me over time (more likely than the other boys’ songs). But I have to say that I really love the lyrics.
While I am not exactly holding my breath for Tokiya to have an entire episode devoted solely to Haruka and him like the boys had since he had all that last season (cue to the recycled scenes from Season 1 – he is so in love), my shipper fangirl has the mighty need for at least half of the episode with the two of them together. So with that said, I really hope that Tokiya will go after Haruka and check up on her. ;w;
Overall the episode was really laid back, a bit different to the usual pace we’re used to, but I take this as an improvement. While it wasn’t all about theatrics and was a tad boring despite having given us that dose of drama, they did a really good job laying everything out onto the table, setting things up to unfold over the course of the final three episodes. All I hope is that, by having done what they managed to pull off within this episode, will allow us to experience a smooth finish without anything being crammed.
NOW. TOKIYA x HARUKA FANS. TIME FOR A PRAYER CIRCLE THAT WE WILL GET A SUFFICIENT AMOUNT OF SCREENTIME WITH THE TWO INTERACTING WITH EACH OTHER, PREFERABLY ALONE.
PLEASE GIVE US THE LONG AWAITED TOKIYA x HARUKA INTERACTION PRETTY PLEASE!!!