Time for another episode of dumb idiots doing dumb things because they’re in love. And while I refer to them as idiots, I don’t quite agree with Hayasaka since there HAS been progress between the two, but it’s very subtle and a lot slower than normal relationships lol. And while Kaguya is my favorite, she can get insufferable at times when she lets her emotions go wild. Like, gurl… DON’T SAY THINGS THAT YOU’LL END UP REGRETTING. DON’T TAKE THINGS OUT ON THE ONE PERSON WHO WILL STAY BY YOUR SIDE.
Now, I feel like the minority when it comes to this, but I’m not the biggest fan of Hayasaka centered episodes. I don’t have a problem with her personally, but they always feel a little weaker comedy-wise and don’t feel as engaging to me. But maybe that’s just my taste. It’s still interesting, but maybe because it takes the focus away from the main focus of the series. However, I will admit I did feel bad for Hayasaka during this part of the episode. She has to deal with so much from Kaguya’s outrageous demands and man, telling her to try and seduce Shirogane in a day to prove her point as to how it’s difficult to move a relationship forward was going a bit overboard and definitely unfair. Especially by the end of it, she’s the most flustered I think we’ve ever seen her.
And while it seemed like a hopeless situation, Hayasaka reluctantly takes the challenge. But hot dang, Hayasaka sure knows how to put on an act. She’s SO much different than how she usually is. But she was challenged and she’s going in HARD. You don’t challenge Hayasaka, foolish mortals. You have obviously underestimated her abilities. She freaking assembles small computers on her days off and is able to sneak past security to break in. Not to mention, she seems to be an expert liar, though there were some things she said that probably went against what she said prior. But Shirogane being Shirogane, only honed in on that she was in a similar situation as him and admired her efforts, much to Kaguya’s exasperation. The fact that Hayasaka was using literally ALL of a typical “how a shoujo romance starts” in her act was actually freaking hilarious. Even going as far as spewing typical shoujo lines and gave him the face of “just fallen in love with you.”
In the end, however, it proved to be all for naught when Shirogane declines the disguised Hayasaka’s date invitation, saying that there’s already someone he likes. That honestly must have meant so much to Kaguya since he technically did admit his love for her, though not to her face. Which brings us to the next story where Shirogane just wants to ask Kaguya to be in charge of his campaign speech, but it somehow gets spun into him confessing in front of the entire student body, much to his confusion. Talk about miscommunication. Too bad he realized too late that they were all believing he was going to confess. Well this is certainly awkward lol. Did Kaguya not hear him when he talked about wanting to talk to her about student council business??? Or did she just short circuit after he said he wanted to speak to her in private? Probably the latter.
Also boy did Hayasaka show that she’s still bitter from the other day.
After three episodes of Kaguya just turning to jelly, we finally get to see Shirogane’s perspective on his feelings for Kaguya. I found it interesting of his true reasons to have Kaguya be the one to confess first. While yes, pride was a key factor as we all knew, but he also felt like they would be able to date as equals if she, a high status, confessed to him, a lower status. However, because of all the things they went through, Shirogane was willing to let go of his pride and confess right then and there to Kaguya… only to back out at the last second and tell her what he actually wanted to talk about. But I’m glad that he didn’t confess to her since I’d rather them confess to each other on their own terms rather than being forced into it… despite that being what the series has been striving for this entire time lol. Still, it was nice to see that he is willing to set aside his pride in order for them to be together… when the time is right. And it was mighty cute for Kaguya not to get angry over it and instead gave him a yes to “both things” which was very swoon worthy.
And then finally… We finally get to see the new character make her official appearance, Miko Iino! And boy is she small! It was actually really funny to see that Shirogane is literally more than a head taller than her. She is somewhat interesting, challenging Shirogane for the presidential role in the student council, but so far, she’s kind of bland. Well, compared to the other over the top four main characters that have already been established. I’m sure we’ll get more into her character later and there is more to her than what we saw in this episode. Considering she only made her appearance in the last seven minutes of the episode. Though I do admit it was amusing to see both Shirogane and Ishigami act like freaking cartoon villains towards her and Chika of all people had to try and stop them from antagonizing the small child. It’ll be interesting to see what this girl can do since I’m sure that underestimating Iino could very well be Shirogane’s downfall since he’s pretty far up on his high horse. It’s only a matter of time when he comes crashing down. Especially since this isn’t the end of Iino for sure.
This episode felt a little weaker than the other three eps, but it’s probably because it’s more of an establishing episode. Most of the stories felt like set up for what is to come so I’m sure next episode will be a wild ride. Kaguya definitely took more of a back seat this episode and mostly hung around in the background rather than be front and center as she has been for the majority of this season so far. Even the episode commented on her being mostly background in that last part of the episode. Though I appreciated that she took a break and Shirogane was the one mostly being focused on this time so we could get his feelings and thoughts.
Can we also talk about Chika real quick? I kind of had a feeling that Chika was trying to sway Shirogane to choose her to help him with his campaign. There are times where I’m unsure if Chika is actually consciously being selfish and self important or if she genuinely doesn’t realize it. Sometimes I feel like she’s innocent, but then sometimes it feels like she’s putting on an act. When Chika tried encouraging Shirogane by saying he chose Kaguya over her, I had to pause the episode and just take in a deep breath. Chika continues to show us that she is the unpredictable variant that just seems to exist to cause more problems for them. Not only that, but she switched sides pretty fast when Iino declared how much she looks up to her… just because she played piano really good that one time. It kind of felt like they were making fun of Your Lie in April in a way… But then immediately goes back to Shirogane’s side when she realizes what Iino was doing for her campaign. Most of the time I saw Kaguya’s contempt for her as nothing but Kaguya being petty in the moment, but now I’m starting to wonder if there was some sort of truth behind it…
