What a development! This episode had me so stressed for situations that never even happened and I’m so glad things ended on a good note! Honestly, my biggest complaint about the whole episode is that we didn’t get to spend more time at the FT4 concert.
I was really worried that we were going to get into a competitive love square situation with Nagisa entering the mix. It’s pretty obvious that he has feelings for her, and while Aizo and Yujiro don’t seem to have romantic feelings for her, I half expected this episode to bring them up. But if anything, LIPxLIP really just stayed the same and honestly, so did Hiyori. Nagisa was just the one that decided to shake things up for a hot minute before heading home. But I’m glad that everyone had a good time together.
Still, I’m really really not a a fan of situations like these, where a childhood friend shows up, makes assumptions, and then rocks the boat. There were just so many opportunities for tropes and cliche’s that I was so afraid of. And while I definitely agree with Chizuru that cliches can be good, some have just scarred me for life. Like when LIPxLIP was trying to get a confession out of Nagisa. In the back of my mind, I was just waiting for Hiyori to come in and hear all the mean stuff that they were saying about her. Knowing her, she would have just laughed it off and moved forward, but that also wouldn’t have been fair. And then in the classic fashion they would have some work cleaning up the damage that they had done. But I was pleasantly surprised that they pulled back after they got confirmation that Nagisa did have a crush on her.
And on that note, I gotta give kudos to Nagisa for actually acting on his feelings. He’s only really been around for one episode, but he’s gone to a concert, given a confession, and gotten an answer. A truly efficient trip to Tokyo !! I hope that we see more of him in future episodes. I’m honestly not too sure about how I feel about him, but he provided something that Hiyori needed. She’s oblivious to his feelings because she doesn’t think anyone could fall in love with her, but he’s able to jump in with the “well, actually… there is someone”. Which is cute !! Hiyori! People fall in love with you! You are precious and most definitely deserving of being a heroine.
For me, it was expected that she would turn him down. Up until the confession she had never really spoken about love and really seemed to keep him in the friendzone. She puts her all into everything that she does that taking on something new just isn’t feasible for her right now. So, I’m happy she didn’t outright reject him, she let him down gently with a ‘not right now’. But I did find the lead up to her answer to be pretty funny! I loved that she actually talked to Juri and Chizuru about the situation and I really want to see more of this friend dynamic!! I like Juri’s conversation about how she fell for the waiter at the cafe and that it wasn’t something that she was expecting, but she’s happy! And then of course Chizuru, who is normally pretty quiet just bursting out with all her feelings about childhood friendships! It was so delightful to watch! It was fun!
All around, this was a pretty decent episode. Again, I’m still bummed that we didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with FT4, but I’m hoping that they’ll come back in the future. I’m looking forward to seeing Hiyori’s journey to become a heroine continue!!
