I want to protect that smile.
Impression
Kumiko is right. It is more likely than not that, when an audition occurs, members are selected based on skill instead of seniority. But whether it means everyone accepts the results is a different question entirely. It’s now completely clear why Kumiko felt so terrified in the run-up to the auditions last week – because in the past, her success has resulted in a jealous senpai getting on her case and venting over the unfairness of it all. I think she was afraid that Natsuki-senpai would react in a similar manner. I’m so glad those fears turned out to be unfounded.
Natsuki-senpai is the best sport I’ve seen in a long time. Not only is this girl still cheerful and upbeat despite her failure – she even takes the time to reassure her kouhai that she’s okay, making sure that the two of them are still on good terms. And she likes chocolate. What a perfect senpai. Thank you, Natsuki-senpai. Thank you for being such a good sport, and thank you for being there in my darkest hour, featuring capsizing yuri ships and spiteful Reina bullying. It’s ironic that we only got to see so much of her because she failed the audition – it was a plot point with potential drama that needed to be resolved, and instead of inciting any drama whatsoever her scene with Kumiko left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. She even bought Kumiko a milkshake and wrote out a cute note for her. I can’t stress how nice it is to see someone so gracious in defeat – she knows why she didn’t get through, and will keep working hard so she can play alongside Kumiko next year. Natsuki-senpai’s best girl points went way up this episode.
In contrast, I have to say that Reina’s best girl points fell. It’s partly because of her love for Taki-sensei, but I’ll get to that in a bit – it’s mostly about how she reacted to the tension finally reaching boiling point. I think we all saw it coming, to some extent – the friction has been there ever since she displayed her skill and was thus marked as a ‘threat’ to Kaori. But I didn’t think Yuuko would end up doing what she did – yes, I’ll be calling her Yuuko from now on instead of ‘ribbon loli-senpai’. It’s partly because I now actually know her name, but also because she’s the last person who deserves to be called ‘senpai’ at all – if Natsuki is the best senpai, then Yuuko is undoubtedly the worst. It’s one thing to have an opinion, but its another entirely to act on it out of pure spite – Yuuko was an utter bitch in voicing her disapproval in front of the entire band, putting both Reina and Taki-sensei in the spotlight by force. I actually think she’s hypocritical as well, in accusing Taki-sensei of favouritism – she’s the last person I want to hear that from, given that she’s been flooding her panties over her precious Kaori-senpai every single episode. It’s unfair on him too, because Taki-sensei has been nothing but clinically professional with how he’s managed the band. I know Kaori tried hard. But everyone tries hard – Natsuki-senpai tried hard. If a random first-year happens to be better than Kaori in the year they decide to hold auditions, then that’s just how the cookie crumbles.
As for Reina – I sympathise with her, and her frustration was cute. A part of me does agree that Yuuko is in no position to be making such a fuss over skill when she herself can’t compare. But at the same time, I do think she went too far as well – it was a touch arrogant of her to confidently state she was better than Kaori, and to tell Kaori to her face that she shouldn’t complain until she’d surpassed her. I know the unspoken tension between Reina and Kaori must have affected Reina as well, so I’d like to believe that it was just her emotions getting the better of her at the time. At any rate, Yuuko ended up further fuelling the gossip and rumours surrounding Reina and Taki-sensei, so I guess she got what she wanted. After all, people don’t care if there was actual bias or not – all that matter is an appearance of bias, and that was more enough to badly shake up the atmosphere within the band.
I’m not sure I liked how Taki-sensei handled it all, either. Starting from Asuka, all the characters I previously liked seem to be unravelling slightly. Instead of enforcing his stance on the matter and asserting his lack of bias, he ended up letting the issue fester to the point that the only way all the distrust in him would dispel was if they held second auditions judged by the band members themselves. It almost feels like he’s given in to them – and then there was the scene where he raised his voice for the very first time, a complete change from how he previously showed disappointment through a neutral yet stern tone. I guess it’s because it involves his relationship with a student, and is thus a far more touchy subject – one wrong step and the entire thing could blow up for both him and Reina. But I do strongly want Reina to win the solo part again. It seems like Kaori only went for it after being fired up by Yuuko – before, she was prepared to grin and bear it. Actually, you know what I want? I want Reina to win the solo, and I want Yuuko to have voted for her after being forced to admit, maybe even with tears in her eyes, that Reina was better than Kaori was.
Now, let’s deal with the romance. As a die-hard fan of the yuri route, I think it’s time for me to raise a white flag of surrender. Even if Kumiko x Shuichi doesn’t happen, Kumiko x Reina still wouldn’t be reciprocated by Reina herself, because Reina is in love with Taki-sensei, whom she’s known since middle school. I did find this really odd, because a successful student-teacher relationship is practically impossible – and Reina should surely be smart enough to know that. To be honest, Reina x Taki-sensei is even more unlikely than Kumiko x Reina is at this point. And given all the band drama Yuuko has stirred up, I wouldn’t be surprised if Taki-sensei goes out of his way to stay even further away from Reina for the sake of both their reputations. It might be why she hasn’t confessed (yet), but if she’s attending Kitauji for his sake it makes it seem like she’s chasing after him, and it feels like a doomed pairing right from the start. I’m not even sure why Episode 8 was even a thing any more – they put in all that effort only to later disappoint the yuri fans, settling on an unsatisfying ‘more than friends but less than lovers’ vibe. They even go to the trouble of animating the dust particles in Kumiko x Reina storage room scenes. In hindsight this baiting was outright cruel.
If the yuri ship was destroyer Kisaragi, then this episode was the Battle of Wake Island. Fuck you KyoAni.