Runway de Waratte – Episode 3

The pressure is on as Tsumura takes responsibility for repurposing Yanagida’s design for Chiyuki. Was it something that they wanted to happen? Honestly, probably not, but! Was it very valuable for their growth and experience in the industry? Absolutely. This event serves as their debut in the industry, granted it’s not an “all eyes on me” debut, but a debut nonetheless. As far as we know, this is Chiyuki’s first official appearance on the runway and for her first go at it she’s modelling for a designer that everyone does have their eyes on. Tsumura on the other hand makes his debut behind the scenes. Essentially, he gets no credit for his creation, except from those behind the scenes. But you know what? People seeing potential in him is fantastic; he’s not from the same background as other designers. He didn’t go to school and it’s not like he’s actually gotten credit for either of his creations. Nobody knows who Ikuto Tsumura is, yet he’s finding his way in the fashion industry.

The episode begins with Tsumura asking to accept responsibility for changing the dress, primarily to give Chiyuki her chance as a model. However, with the intense amount of pressure holds him back from thinking clearly – I mean he has less than half an hour to completely rework with the design, in completely unfamiliar territory… so I don’t really blame him for freaking out. And it’s not as if he needs to make a fix for a school play, no it’s for a very important fashion show which will be used to establish himself going forward. Failure really isn’t an option. And yet? I would say that he does fail.

Understandably, when Tsumura is tasked with this he becomes unable to think clearly. Everything completely overwhelms him until Chiyuki swoops in and slaps him in the face, but in a friendship kind of way. From here Tsumura sheds his insecurities and dives head first in making the changes. Were they professional level quality? No, but they certainly made a statement. But he fails to meet the time crunch that he was provided with and without the other models stepping in, the dress and show would have practically been a death sentence in his fashion career. And yet, our two protagonists and their unconventional nature catches the eyes of those around them (some of them aren’t necessary good glares) causing interests to pique enough to bend the whole show around them. Not entirely realistic, but that’s not really why I’m here. I’m here to see the two of them succeed and gosh darn it! They definitely succeeded in this episode.

With a little more time bought to save the show, the torch is passed off to Chiyuki to show off the design made just for her. And while I personally don’t think she had as much of a struggle as a Tsumura absolutely adored the monologues between her and the journalist. “When you don’t fit in you make a fool of yourself” really hit a chord with me and I really hope they explore that more in the future!

I thought the switches were so smooth that I barely even noticed that they happened, but the two building off each other was just absolutely wonderful. Both are underdogs who have quite frankly been hurt by fashion due to their height albeit to different extents. However, at the end of the day both of them have to deal with the fact that they are constantly told that they can’t do fashion because of their height and that they’ll never stand out. Of course, Chiyuki is there to prove everyone wrong. Her entire existence as a model is a huge statement in the fashion industry. And in turn, the journalist becomes inspired by the fashion industry strictly by watching Chiyuki. OH and don’t even get me started about how they worked in smiling down the run way. That was great too. Personally, I don’t keep up with fashion shows or anything so I don’t know what’s cool to do and what’s not. So having Chiyuki have the flash back to “There are two things you should never do 1) fall and 2) smile on the runway” and that moment just blew me away. It really hit home that, in typical Shounen fashion (haha) are protagonists and going to break the status quo and make a name for themselves.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed this episode all the way down to the mysterious girl showing up and raining on their parade. I mean the fashion industry is cut throat so it really didn’t seem out-of-place to have someone else put them in their place. Rude? Yeah, but she was right. I’m really glad that things ended up working out for Tsumura and Chiyuki, but they got a lot of lucky breaks throughout the whole performance. I mean, Chiyuki broke the two major rules of modelling and Tsumura pulled a fast one for kicks and giggles to save the day. In the future they won’t be so lucky, but for now we’ll celebrate the success.

So, we’ve hit the grand three episode mark: should you check this anime out? Absolutely! I know I have personally really enjoyed every one of the episodes that have aired and each week I consistently want more. I love ost and how they have been building up drama. I will admit, on occasion it does appear to be a bit much, but it’s not enough to steer me away. I would strongly recommend that if you’re even remotely interested in this anime to check it out. Give it a whirl and see if it’s you’re thing! Even though you might not continue, I guarantee this won’t be the worst anime you will experience. Sigh I can’t wait to see what will happen next.