Sorry for the delay everyone! Wednesday’s icestorm caused a real mess so I didn’t get power or internet until this afternoon!
Akane wakes up to a horrible hangover, but she may as well count her lucky stars that there was no one-night stand, and the fact Yamada’s a good guy. Not only did he pay for the fill, he brought her back to his place and even washed the clothes she puked on. F for the brand new outfit she just purchased. And if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, it turns out Yamada is younger than her (though not by too much), a third-year high-school student at a prestigious school with a lot of bright students.
That isn’t to say Yamada isn’t without flaws of his own though. He found himself in a somewhat awkward position today when Akane scolded him for not being a bit more considerate of the fact he was being confessed to. The problem was that he actually had no idea that was the case, blissfully unaware, and only focused on the time since he wanted to get home on time to meet the window for a boss fight. We already know he’s a good guy at heart, but today we saw that it’s difficult for him to read the room or being tactful when it comes to understanding things like being confessed to.
This episode focused on a theme of letting go of the things you don’t need anymore. The issue initially came about when Yamada logged in only to find that the guild’s storage that he had previously tidied up and organize became filled with a bunk of low quality junk that wouldn’t serve to even be beneficial to new players. Much to Yamada’s dismay, it was Akane who had dumped all that in there without actually sorting through things. Of course she’s still a beginner at the game, so she wouldn’t know what to keep or not keep, at the same time I do understand where he’s coming from– especially when he’s the one who has the habit of making sure there’s space in their inventory and everything is sorted properly. Though calling it trash pretty much crushed the already low-spirited Akane, and she wasn’t particularly inclined to log in again after that. It’s not like she knew better about the value of the items and gears.
Since Akane hadn’t logged into the game since being roasted over making a mess of the Guild’s Inventory, Yamada had taken it upon himself to try to catch her at the station to return the broken necklace. It’s funny considering he said they probably wouldn’t meet again, and yet while he could have easily tossed that broken necklace, he didn’t. He gave her another hand of kindness by giving her his umbrella so she wouldn’t have to run in the rain, one she she took the opportunity to return— though slightly poor timing of being slightly drunk with her VERY drunk friend in tow. At the very least, he wasn’t as annoyed given that she didn’t just give him back the umbrella, but also thanked him for helping her out that day at the game event.
But soon Akane found herself forced to take a hard look at her inventory when all of her belongings when her mother shipped all of her things from her bedroom to her apartment after she had decided she was going to turn it into a training space. With no room in her apartment, Akane had absolutely no choice but to sort through her things and decided what to keep and what to throw, including her broken necklace she was reluctant to let go of. Her friend Momo’s cut-through suggestion was to “toss it all”, which she was close to doing until she remembered Yamada’s words: “Be more selective” when choosing what to keep or put into the guild inventory. It was that little wisdom that gave her the comfort of knowing she didn’t have to chuck them all, and ultimately decided to keep the teddy-bear that held precious memories of her grandmother, and Yamada’s umbrella to ultimately return to him. Admittedly this situation made me nervously chuckle to myself as it served as a reminder of the boxes I need to sort through myself for this year’s spring cleaning. While it’s hard to let go of things, god forbid letting it get to a point where you’re just hoarding it all, so I do try to do this on an annual basis.
That said, I think it goes without saying, even though Akane (who had no interest in games prior) had started playing the game because her ex introduced it to her, there is a silver-lining in all of this. While she lost him, she gained something else, and that’s new friendships with the likes of Yamada and Rurihime (the guild leader). Speaking of Rurihime, it was great to see a bit of them this week. I especially loved the comedic time and every detail that went into the in-game interactions. I can’t wait to see more of it, especially that post-credit scene: That was GOLDEN because Yamada had fallen asleep at the keyboard and went AFK while Akane found herself in a pickle HAHAHAHA!
