B-Project caught me by surprise this week with some fairly interesting events taking place this week. It also did a good job of setting the tone this show probably won’t be super happy-go-lucky, or fluffy to say the least when it comes down to establishing themselves. This week Tsubasa worked alongside with THRIVE, where Goshi (Gochin) was not happy with their song’s arrangements, insisting it should be louder and disagreements ensue. 
But instead of seeing them work on the song, we were in for a very interesting day at THRIVE’s promotion activity, a photo-shoot at Kiss & Hug Magazine. Now I wasn’t sure how this was going to play out, especially since Goshi was already on the edge, and the group insisted even when he is in a foul mood, he will still show up and do the job. However this particular assignment was certainly a struggle for Gochin. The theme was to be fun and cute, and he has no idea how to make such expressions. Yuta did a great job by making it work, by playfully tackling and poking Gochin, but unfortunately that wasn’t enough because everything went south real fast when Kiss & Hug’s Editor-in-Chief shows up.
Good lord, the woman was nasty. The fact she is a pervert with a cat fetish, (as Gochin so bluntly put it after she demanded they put on cat ears), certainly did not make the already tense situation any better. And if that wasn’t already bad enough, she starts trash talking about THRIVE and Gochin just snapped. He was having none of it. After having yet another hostile confrontation with the Editor-in-Chief, Gochin runs off and the Editor-in-Chief announces to scrap THRIVE and replace them with another group. So talk about a mess, the just got cut and now Gochin in missing. From this point on you can see the sprinkles of sugar as Yuta finally realizes the woman he had seen Yashamaru speaking with was the Editor-in-Chief. With this they search for Gochin and explain how they can’t lose this opportunity since Yashamaru worked how to entertain her, doing his best to get them into one page for the magazine. Once they got back, Gochin apologizes and then she has the nerve to say THRIVE should dump him, and if they do she will give them five – ten pages of promotion coverage of their REBIRTH. Tch, this bitch I swear to god… 
But Yuta and Kento are cool bros and shut her down saying, “NO CAN DO, WE’RE A TEAM!”After that I was almost convinced they were definitely not going to continue the shoot, but then comes along President Daikoku and outright charms with the lady into going on a date with him. DAFUQ? I suppose they should also count their lucky stars that the Photographer of the shoot was also sick and tired of the Nyan-Nyan Theme, and instead had them take pictures with an actual cat.
In all, it would be fair to say it was a bit a weird finish, but I appreciated experiencing the tension we don’t typically see in most idol-central shows (except for Wake-Up Girls, which highlighted the darker realities of Japan’s Entertainment Industry). This episode also further established the growing frustration about B-Project’s lack of success. Their individual units are thriving better than their group as whole, and don’t’ quite understand why they need to cut back on their units’ work to focus on B-Project. The boys are the ten primary members of B-Project, selected from among thousands of applicants, but unfortunately B-Project as the ten man squad it’s supposed to be doesn’t have enough appeal. Nobody cares about them, only the units, and that is why they would prefer to focus on their unit’s promotions and activities.
Finally, they confirmed that Tsubasa does in fact have a good ear for music, and her ears considered ‘well trained’ despite the fact she has never played an instrument before. Tsubasa’s only ‘training’ (so to speak) is listening to lots of music. Frankly I am not totally convinced how realistic that is, but I wouldn’t know because I don’t know if that’s actually a thing or not.
