The Geika festival is in full swing and Ikuto finally gets his debut as a fashion designer. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get teary eyed near the end! All around, I think this was a pretty good episode in terms of delivering emotional moments, but I do think the pacing a bit off to the point where everything seemed a bit rushed or unfinished. We still have two more episodes to go, but I have a feeling there are some things where I’ll have to look towards the manga for answers.
Despite Chiyuki and Kokoro making their appearance in this episode they certainly weren’t the focus. they certainly came off as background characters and I’m bummed that Chiyuki only sees Kokoro as competition. I mean, in the last episode, Chiyuki made herself Kokoro’s model for the show just to prove a point that people should pursue what they want and you’d think the two of them would honestly be more supportive of each other? But it doesn’t really seem like Chiyuki is in to that. Maybe I’m reading the situation wrong, but it feels like there’s some unnecessary tension there. But they didn’t really get enough screen time for me to dig deeper into it, so I’ll just have to see how this plays out in next week’s episode.
Ikuto and Kaoru were the main focus of this episode in their respective shows. I’ll admit….. Kaoru’s felt kind of out-of-place. It was weird to see her story come in so late after everything that has happened. I get that she doesn’t like Ikuto for what he did at Yanagida’s show, but I mean why are we just addressing it now? She’s upset at herself for not volunteering when the other girl collapsed and as a result that elegant design that Yanagida created was ultimately more flashy. She ultimately admits to just being swept away by the applause that Ikuto received at the end of the show and she’s never out right declared Ikuto a rival. I felt as if I was missing some context about how we ended up exploring this jealousy this late in the anime. Perhaps it’s because we’re limited to 12 episodes and there wasn’t really a better place to put it. Ah, I hope that there’s a little bit of closure of Ikuto and Kaoru at least talking it out though else it just feels like it was added for the drama. Kaoru’s clothes tho? Straight fire (literally). They were really cool and I really enjoyed them! Red is also my favorite color so I’m a bit biased :p.
I loved the set up into Ikuto’s show, they lead into it very well. From the conversation of “Mom doesn’t cry” to Honoka listening to the album he used in the show? It was just so good. It was great to see how he incorporated each of his family member’s into the show. Honoka with the music, Aoi and the color blue, Ichika and bows, and even his mom with the clothes he made for her. It led to a pretty emotional show! I’m not a fashion person, so I’m not really going to critique all his designs. I felt some were pretty cool and neat and others… were just beyond my fashion knowledge. But I loved the grad reveal of having the France design into just “clothes for everyone” it was unpredictable, and honestly just really wonderful to see. So when Ikuto’s mom called out to him? Oh man, if they just let that moment play a little bit longer I would have absolutely been bawling. An absolutely wonderful way to end his show.
And so next week it’s finally Kokoro and Chiyuki’s turn. I’m torn because I want to root for them, but after everything that happened in this episode with Ikuto and his family… I’m just very conflicted. I want them all to succeed ;_;
