I straight up loved this episode. It wasn’t a perfect episode, but everything they were able to cover in such a short amount of time was absolutely fantastic. Some of the developments that happened bummed me out, namely Ikuto losing Chiyuki as a model, but this episode was such a roller coaster that the eventual growth of a handful of the characters moving towards the Geika Festival was fantastic.
I really appreciated that they started out the episode, by back tracking a little bit to give us Chiyuki’s thoughts returning from Paris. We knew it wasn’t a great experience and it was something we all were expecting – I mean, even Chiyuki was expecting the response that she got. But in this moment she was losing her passion for modelling everyone who ever told her that she had no chance to become a successful model come flooding in. Thankfully, Ikuto appears right when she needs him, I mean, he just went through his own emotional crisis so who better to cheer her up? Also! I don’t know if I’ve really talked about it yet, but I really appreciate that there isn’t a whole lot of romance between Ikuto and Chiyuki. I mean, yeah Ikuto’s an awkward high school boy so of course he’s nervous around a pretty girl, but beyond that they aren’t romantically interested in each other. It’s kind of nice to see!
As I mentioned before, I’m bummed that Chiyuki is going to be in Kokoro’s fashion show instead of Ikuto’s! I thought his concept was really good and would have been really fantastic for the both of them if he had succeeded in his theme. But it looks like it was fate that Chiyuki and Kokoro crossed paths again in this episode and at first I thought there was going to be a fight between the two of them that left Ikuto in the middle. At the end of the day there was kind of a fight, but it wasn’t between the two of them, but rather a fight against Kokoro’s manager. AND MAN THE MANAGER WAS ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL. We already knew she was pretty meant to Kokoro (which again, it’s weird to treat your star model that way??), but she just had nothing nice to say to Chiyuki. I’m honestly surprised that a fist fight didn’t break out. And then – AND THEN she just straight up told them about her plan to get Ikuto to convince Kokoro to be his model. (I appreciate it though so it wouldn’t be a “how could you!!?” moment later on. So having her just go “lol yeah, I told him to do this and you both suck and will never amount to anything.” Just took care of everything).
And so this episode becomes one of spite. Everyone wants to prove to someone else that they can make it. Kokoro wants to prove to her manager that she can be a designer and can pursue her passion, Ikuto wants to prove Toh that he is more than just a pattern maker and can follow his passion, Toh wants to prove to everyone that he can surpass his grandmother, and Chiyuki wants to prove to pretty much everyone that she can be a model with her height (also on that note, what happened to the journalist? I wish we could have seen more of her ): ). And trust me – as someone who runs on spite I completely understand where everyone is coming from. I believe in all of you and I hope you guys can figure out a way for all of you to be successful (except maybe Toh, I’m still mad at you).
I’m happy to see that Ikuto’s mother is doing alright, but I was ready to groan when Ikuto started to be a martyr again. It’s his personality to put other’s before himself, but to immediately find relief in wanting someone else to win? Ahhhhh, buddy no. That’s how people end up stepping all over you. So even though it’s sad to think that his mom was actually writing a will, I’m glad she was able to bring Ikuto out of that funk of “I’ll let my friends win!”.
I really hope that Mr. Yanagida appears at the fashion show. I think of all the people that we’ve seen in the anime, he’s had the most profound impact on Ikuto, mostly as a mentor. Kokoro and Chiyuki are friends and rivals he wants to support and Toh is just a rival that he wants to prove wrong, but Yanagida has actually invested a little bit in Ikuto and I think deep down he really wants him to succeed. I’m on the edge of my seat. I can’t wait until next week’s episode! Geika Festival here we come!
