Welp, Akane certainly found herself in momentarily state of denial at the meet-up. Despite Eita having introduced himself as Rurihime earlier, she still kept on persisting the idea that his sister Runa, was Rurihime. Honestly that part was embarrassing to watch. I’m like “GIRL, PLEASE! YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT’S NOT RURIHIME!” especially given Runa’ hostility towards her. My god, that kid already hates her, I would have backed off and kept my mouth shut at that point.
It turned out that Eita, Yamada, Takezo and Runa have all been friends in another game before Forest of Savior launched. They all carried over to this one as per Eita’ suggestion and formed a guild together just consisting the four of them. The only thing we didn’t get was more backstory of how they’ve all befriended each other in the previous game, but I suspect that will never see the light of day. Anyhow, we do have an interesting range of ages, though that is generally the case in guilds. Takezo (a strawberry farmer) is the eldest member of the group, and the reason why Akane had yet to meet him in game is because he’s usually out and about farming in dungeons. Meanwhile Runa tends to log in every couple of months, and noticeably hasn’t checked in since Akane had joined the guild.
For most part they are all nice people, with the exception of Runa, who left a rather nasty first impression of acting like an obnoxious, territorial brat, showing immediate hostility at the idea of a new face, and that being a girl joining their circle. She does not take the idea of Akane liking Yamada or getting along with her brother nicely.
On the other-hand, Eita (Rurihime) was very excited to finally meet Akane in person– but when Akane finally realized that Rurihime was in-fact a guy, she felt frustrated. Unfortunately he didn’t have enough self-awareness or tact for that matter to really understand why Akane was shocked and annoyed with him. And I mean yeah, of course she’d be– though it is equally on her for giving out her number to a stranger when it’s just as her friend said, you don’t know if the one you’re talking to on the other-side of the screen. These things will always come with that risk, but I digress. Nevertheless, while it is admittedly weird that he modelled his characters’ avatar off his sister, quirks and all, Eita isn’t a bad guy by any means. He speaks the truth when he says he’s a romanticist at heart since we can see how much he really enjoys the talk of romance and giving advice for it. Heck he even role plays it a bit in game with Yamada (who been given orders by him (as an upperclassmen) to play along). For that reason he doesn’t like being called a Nekama (a guy posing as a woman online) and considers his character Rurihime to be one and the same with who he is, and yet different– anyways the way he explains it is really complicated and difficult to understand (and deliberately so since even Akane was like “what does that even mean?!), so let’s leave it at that. Either way, the issue was more or less blown over as quickly as it came thanks to Runa getting all hostile and almost putting Akane on the spot for accusing her of having feelings for Yamada.
Speaking of which, good grief, Runa made the meet-up rather difficult with how hostile she was towards Akane, putting her in an awkward spot when Akane accidentally said she was ‘glad’ that Yamada didn’t have a girlfriend. She was already embarrassed at herself for saying such a thing, especially when she only considers Yamada a friend at this point. Sadly that’s not the end of it though, as Runa is pretty dead set at the moment to get Akane to leave the guild on her own. She’s plotting something, and unfortunately Akane is being rather naive after the way Runa had behaved around her. She was initially right with the the idea that Runa hated her, but she has since let her guard down to think nothing weird is up with the way Runa has suddenly flipped from hostile to friendly, especially over phone. Though in all fairness, I suppose one wouldn’t really expect someone to be plotting something up in order to get them to leave the guild. It’s not exactly the first thing you’d think of. Anyhow, we know Runa won’t be where she says she claims she’ll be since we now know that on the day of the invitation, Yamada scheduled to tutor Runa.
Apart from second-hand embarrassments it was still an enjoyable episode. It was pretty funny how in the moment Akane was wishing she could just disappear into a hole, Yamada had sensed the sentiment to an extent, but misinterpreted it as her begging him to leave! Hahaha, well, when it’s all said in done, that decision to step out was a good call on his part since fit helped clear the cloud of tension Akane found herself in.
We did however that Yamada has always had difficult time understanding girls feelings, and is especially at loss to do when they are crying. But while he might not understand them or really be able to tell the difference between them, at the very least, Yamada currently has a pretty good understanding of Akane’s character. It’s just as he says, she is very much the same as she is in person as she is in game. Though in all fairness, Yamada is currently the only one who knows her best, as he has already seen many different sides to Akane that she has yet to show or been seen by Eita and the others. We also got to see that he is happy to see she is bouncing back from the breakup, as well as her excitement of befriending other members of the guild.
And finally last but not least, there was a cute moment when Akane realizing that Yamada doesn’t really eat properly (freaking pudding for dinner), so she took matters into her own hands and decided to share the leftovers she had with him in exchange for the convenience store meal he was going to settle on. Some might consider this gesture as an overkill or being too nosy, but I think it’s fine considering Akane cares for him as a friend and knows that since he’s still in high-school, it’s important for him to eat properly. That said, even though she says it as from one guildmate to another, I do think it’s still a nice gesture all the same, especially with how Yamada had taken care of her when she was drunk!
