This episode was not the most eventful overall but I feel like they’re setting up for some shitstorm of shenanigans on several different fronts in the next few episodes because Kiriya-sensei is definitely not okay (he and mild-mannered Book Girl Ashihara are the primary focus of the episode along with Rui) and Hina and Natsuo are gearing up for yet more Extremely Poor Decisions (TM).
Ashihara is cute and I don’t mind her, but I’m not too enthused about her character so far; honestly, her introduction and general personality remind me of the nerdy shy girl’s route in a generic dating sim. Even the music that plays during her first scene feels like VN background music. But I sense that her character isn’t as important as the wacky stuff that’s going to happen to her. For example:
What the fuuuuuuuuck. Are all the teachers at this school as wildly unprofessional as Kiriya and Hina? But seriously, what is Kiriya’s angle? It obviously seems like he’s been grooming Ashihara for something, but if it’s sex, why would he be so eager to recruit more Literature Club members? Is he planning on cultivating some sort of group that follows his every whim? That’s what it seems like from the almost-kiss scene (speaking of which, just how many more women is Natsuo going to have near-miss romantic encounters with anyway?). Or is he just really into shipping students? Either way is pretty bizarre and gross. And what happened to the former members Ashihara mentioned? And then there was his weirdly intense exchange with Natsuo on the roof at the start of the episode. Does he get off on making people uncomfortable? That’s probably best-case scenario here.
Momo continued to be cute this episode, and I was glad to see her back because I was worried she might just be a character of the week and she deserves better than that. It looks like she gets to be a semi-regular cast member now, yaaaay. She was, however, not as cute as Rui, who’s joined the Literature Club in a transparent bid to get closer to Natsuo, leading to this wonderful line:
Like excuse me Natsuo, didn’t realise you needed a portfolio to join your shitty high school book club.
Rui’s scene towards the end at the café was so sweet. It’s a cliché, but I have a soft spot for socially unaware characters getting to grips with their feelings. I also love how Marie decided that the best way to deal with Rui would be to tell her about his forbidden yakuza love. Based Marie, never change. There is nobody even approaching him in the best boy race. And to be fair, part of that is down to a serious lack of good boys in this series when compared with the girls, but Marie is still a really fun character.
And as if the seeds of drama sown by this new group dynamic weren’t enough, Hina has also decided to throw some chaos into the mix right before the end by asking Natsuo out on a date. She had been suspiciously quiet, I guess she had to throw in some nonsense in case we started to forget about her. Yep, next episode is going to be fun alright.