This show has some interesting and real views on love. What it means, what it feels like.
How it can be a double edged sword, the worst and the best feeling in the world and how it could cause trouble for not only yourself but those people around you. If you let jealousy fester, if you bottle your feelings and misdirect them. Ritsuka has come to the realization that he is jealous, jealous of the person that Mafuyu loved. Also, that he’s scared now. Scared of the lyrics, scared of the song that Mafuyu will write and if it will be about this person that he loved so deeply. He’s also suffering from his first gay panic and coming to terms with his sexuality and, boy oh boy, I love Akihiko.
Akihiko taking Ritsuka aside to talk to him like.
1. It’s super obvious that you’re in love with Mafuyu. (I laughed way too hard here, it was like Akihiko committed a live murder. Poor Ritsuka was so flustered, he looked like he was going to die of embarrassment.)
2. It’s fine for you to be in love with Mafuyu, there is nothing wrong with you. You aren’t broken or anything, there is nothing wrong with liking men. Akihiko even comes out about how he dated a guy at one point.
Speaking of the person that Akihiko loved, we get a little backstory and focus on Akihiko’s love life in this episode. Like we got some backstory on the band and Haruki’s story back in episode five.
A boy he met back in high school, a violin prodigy. Someone who made him feel a mess of complicated emotions, a person that he lives with even now. Though, from the way they talk to each other and the way that Akihiko says that his dating a boy was ‘a long time ago’ it’s clear that they aren’t still dating.
The band is in trouble, it’s stagnant in the way that Ritsuka is becoming complacent in the way he plays his guitar.
Mafuyu hasn’t finished the lyrics and the show is only about a week or so away. So Akihiko calls an end to the group practices for a variety of reasons. Mostly, because of Ritsuka and his attitude. He’s going to let himself get buried under Mafuyu’s sound if he doesn’t step up and try to do better.
Something Akihiko leaves Haruki to talk to him about. (After calling him Haru, breathing on his ear and making him a complete mess that freaks out and keeps missing the green lights when driving Ritsuka home.)
The last thing to really talk about in this episode is that girl. The one who told Ritsuka about Mafuyu’s past, she actually sits back and acknowledges that she did an awful thing. That she was kind of awful and you know what? I respect that, i’m glad that she could own up to what she did and that she knew it was something hurtful. With that acknowledgement, Ritsuka does forgive her. It’s really nice to see her become a more rounded character by facing what she’d done, then just the trope of a girl in a boys love show.
Favorite parts of the episode.
-Akihiko absolutely calling Ritsuka out on his crush
-Mafuyu laying his head on Ritsuka’s shoulder while sleeping and Ritsuka’s heart skipping a beat.