Koi to Producer EVOL x LOVE Episode 5

This week the Heroine goes to visit her old school to investigate the reports of a female high school student who had gone missing while she also collected information for her program’s feature a Ramen Shop’s bulletin board, where it is said if you confess your feelings there, they’ll be reciprocated. Sure enough, Gavin was also at the school investigating the case. Despite his warnings for her to go home, because she saw someone resembling the missing girl she chased after them only to discover she was led into a trap set up by Jay, who had been going after her these past few episodes.

It turns out the girl who had gone missing was his twin sister Josie who is a powerful EVOL and is being held captive by Black Swan. They promised him if he went after the Heroine, they would return his sister to him. Their disappearance also happened to be the last case the Heroine’s father was investigating when they had vanished. Although police has Jay in custody, they didn’t exactly say whether they were able to save Josie. So I am under the impression Black Swan is still holding her captive. I can’t imagine they would want to lose a powerful EVOL such as herself. It sounded like she also had a lot of trouble controlling her powers as well, and based on what we had learned, her powers must be related to Fire since she has burned someone.

And speaking of powers going out of control, we saw that happen with Jay which caused him to pass out as result of it.  However it was a bit unclear to me whether the Heroine was responsible for it, or if it was because Gavin’s powers used to protect her when she called his name. It really can go either way, but I’m more inclined to believe it was the Heroine’s doing because the force was yellow instead of blue and the timing of its activation seems to be related to Jay losing control of his powers. It could be this is also in part of the side-effects of the Queen’s Awakening, as she is supposed to be able to draw out one’s EVOL, but it could be a lot more dangerous if it means those who already have it could find it put into an overdrive and have serious consequences if the EVOLVER is unable to control it.

But they weren’t the only ones who had a close call today. Gavin was almost shot by a sniper. Good grief, that was way too close for comfort to the point it even made me flinch! That shot seriously stresses me out.

Other than Black Swan’s usual shenanigans, it was great to learn a bit more about Gavin and clear up his history that was muddled with misunderstandings. He was never a bad kid from the start, but rather one who always stood up for justice and helped others. He was raised in a difficult household where he would try to protect his mother, he helped save a classmate who had gotten into a critical accident by rushing him to the hospital and paying the fees himself so he could get the care he needed as quickly as possible. So when you think about it, being a detective at the police force suits Gavin perfectly.

And Gavin you sly boy! It turns out that the bracelet was never a GPS from the start! Here I was thinking he was being so responsible and it was a good additional security measure to have on her! I can’t tell you how hard that made me laugh because that is not only adorable, but what a clever excuse to give her a gift! It goes without saying it’s a major improvement from the past where we learned the backstory on why she had received a bloodied letter. Goodness, he was an idiot for not taking the time to rewrite the letter and replace the envelope himself. It was mistake to ask Minor to rewrite it when he literally told him, “It looks cool like this” – NO MINOR! You can’t send a confession or letter with bloodstain on it! It’s no wonder the Heroine had though it was a threat and was terrified by it.

But as as nice as it could have been to know about contents of the letter,  I really liked that Gavin didn’t tell when she asked about it. I thought it was a great and fair way to tease her back considering as creepy as it looked, had she not assumed him to be a “bad guy” from the start, she may have had the courage to open it.

Needless to say, both of them screwed up back then. One for not making the time for a new one, and the other for having assumed Gavin was a bad guy who got into fights and extorted money from people.

Also let me say this: the line, “You gave me life, that’s why I will risk everything to protect you”, was absolutely awful. It made me cringe so bad. How is that supposed to be considered romantic when they literally never spoken to each other in the past? It’s fine to have a crush, but that’s a bit much. Either they should have had some form of positive interaction with each other in the past, or gone with something that would actually make sense.

We were also graced with some hilarious banter between Victor and the Heroine today when she made the mistake to call him when he had texted her earlier that he was going on a business trip to New York. Nothing like calling your program’s sponsor in the middle of the night to say you filed the quarterly financial report and then hanging up on them! I love that he actually called her back to call her out on it.

But it turns out his business trip involved following up on his own private investigation of Black Swan’s activities. It appears like Kiro and the Heroine, Victor too was among the children who were kidnapped and used for for illegal testing. We got a glimpse of his own memories where he and the heroine were running together towards an exit. It looks like they were trying to escape the facility together, which once again begs the question of the order of events between them.

By the sound of things, it seems Victor may be aware of Black Swan’s objective to awaken the “Queen”. He referred the Heroine as one of the most likely candidates, and believes her memory loss lies in the incident seventeen years ago and recognizes she is likely is experiencing PTSD, and because of that he needs to be careful how he approaches her. This also means Victor is not necessarily looking for “someone”, but rather their memories so he can move forward with whatever plans to do to take Black Swan. Nevertheless, Victor intends to get it back no matter what it takes, but if he isn’t careful about it, he may just end up inadvertently lending Black Swan a hand.

Next week it looks like we are finally going to be digging more deeper into the Heroine’s lost memories with Lucien doing what he can to help stir them. Though I must confess, I burst out laughing when they showed Lucien at Black Swan headquarters. Jeez! They didn’t even try to be subtle about it! I still can’t believe they would show that in the preview, come on, even if the majority of us already saw this coming a mile away, don’t spoil the fun!

PS: Last week I had a belated realization I could have used Potato Chip Princess as the Heroine’s name. However as amusing as it would be to start doing that, I decided against it because it’s a mouthful, hahaha!