This episode takes a departure from it’s 3 act structure to explore an overarching story of preparing a party for a foreign school visiting the academy.
Part 1 is about what to wear. Apparently, France is the second largest country for cosplay after Japan. At least, according to Chika that is. So clearly, cat ears are the answer for breaking the ice with the visiting French school. Except, Kaguya thinks Shirogane looks cute in his cat ears. Shirogane thinks Kaguya looks cute in her cat ears. It causes both of them to act completely unlike themselves and insanely irrationally. As Chika steals the cat ears away, they come back to themselves and come to one very important conclusion.
“Cat ears are scary.”
Thus they were banned by the student council from that moment forward.
The next part is the best part of the episode and the continuation of the fact that Chika is A. amazing, fantastic and we should love her, but also B. a giant meme. They need to do some shopping for the foreign guests, pick up some appropriate gifts. So they choose to pick who will be going shopping by playing the forbidden word game. Each person writes something they think the other person is likely to say and it ends up being a giant game of manipulation. Mostly from Chika, she starts out by completely changing her speaking style and going full rap.
Then we move to her act to trick Kaguya into saying “Love”. Which works like a charm and freaks out Shirogane, causing him to overthink and end up saying his forbidden word. “Serious” Honestly, this little pink haired child is my angel and my demon and I love her. I also really love the look on her face when she sees that her forbidden word…well phrase in her case was “Check it out”
Next part is a two parter focusing on the same thing. The shopping trip for Shirogane and Kaguya. Kaguya wants to text to iron out the details for the shopping trip, but her pride is keeping her from being the first one to send the text. So her maid is like “Well if you won’t text. Call him.” and dials the phone before Kaguya can argue. Honestly, it’s beautiful to see her react when the elder Shirogane picks up. That awkward moment where you unexpectedly find yourself talking to your crushes father.
Then the phone gets passed to him and he’s in the tub. The maid is a riot here as she whispers about how Shirogane is exposed and naked, flustering Kaguya completely. They decide to meet up at Shibuya station by the statue of Hachiko at 11. Shirogane tries to say something more, but Kaguya hangs up so he sends a text to deliver his last message for her to keep warm and sleep well on that cold night.
Their plans are however ruined by a rather nasty rain storm, and she still takes 30 minutes working herself up to text him and cancel the plans. Leaving him stuck out in the rain, but that’s alright because this is the first text he’s gotten from Kaguya.
We move from there to the party at last. The French students are all there and it seems that most of the student council speaks French, except for Shirogane. Which I suppose works out for him in the end, as the Headmaster sends in someone from the French Student council to verbally rip Shirogane to shreds. Trying to test if he is truly fit to lead the school, trying to see how he reacts and to try to take him down a notch. Might of worked, if he knew anything of what she was saying and could do more then sit there and nod and smile.
It seems to impress the headmaster though, as he is unaware that Shirogane doesn’t know what’s going on and just thinks he has hard skin. However, eventually the French girl goes too far and Kaguya steps in. Verbally eviscerate the poor girl so badly they started animating her hair as white instead of black after that.
“Japanese high school girls are scary.”
Yes they are. Yes they are.
Kaguya gets concerned that Shirogane will think less of her after hearing the kinds of things she said. He reminds her that he honestly only skimmed the French handbook and didn’t have a full grasp on the things that had been said. Only that Kaguya had stepped in on his behalf when the other girl was bad mouthing him. Which he appreciated and thanks her for, she takes this moment and his lack of knowledge of other languages to say something along the lines of “That’s what I love about you most.”
Too bad he didn’t understand it and there is no way in hell she’s going to say it in Japanese, at least for now.
This episode had a lot of funny moments, but also a lot of cute and heartwarming ones. Funny enough though, when all is said and done and this season is over. While I love Shirogane and Kaguya, Chika is going to transcend this anime. The dance from last weeks episode has been everywhere…
She’s a living meme and it’s almost scary. She will become known to everyone and yet no one will know where she’s from. It’s a frightening power.