I knew it. At this rate, Kana is going to end up as my favorite character in this series. From the previous episode, you could tell that she isn’t the same little brat she was as a kid and has grown into a charming young woman. Though she still has a little brat left in her with how she jumped to threaten to bully Ruby lol. There are just some characters where I get this strong feeling that I’m going to really like them down the line. I also am attracted to characters that give off the impression that there’s a lot more to them and will have really good development. Nino from Quintessential Quintuplets is the character that comes to mind about how I just had this feeling that I’d really like her and sure enough she eventually went through some great character development and won my heart lol. I’m a little sad we didn’t actually get to witness her development as it happened off screen, however, I’m sure there will be more to her as we go along.
While I feel like I shouldn’t have been so surprised about how forward and pushy she is considering how she was as a kid, I still was lol. Though she definitely wasn’t as overbearingly obnoxious as she was in the first episode. Despite her being incredibly pushy and a brat at times, I found her to be incredibly amusing through out the episode. I found myself laughing at her antics every time she was on screen and she is just a delight I was not expecting. I’m honestly really glad she dropped the antagonistic streak she had going on and instead seemed enthusiastic in getting to know Aqua more. But man, I laughed pretty hard at just how hard she was trying to hang out with Aqua.
While the two hung out at the director’s place, to which I totally forgot him and Kana were already acquainted lol, Kana brings up an acting opportunity for Aqua. Acting had always just been a means to an end for Aqua and was content with just doing behind the scenes work instead. And on one hand I can see everyone trying to push him to be an actor as annoying, however, as I’ve stated in a previous post, I do think it would be a good thing for him to put his energy into rather than revenge. However, Aqua’s revenge is the forefront of his mind so when Hana brings up the director she’s working with, Aqua becomes more interested. But GOODNESS. I cannot believe he spent THAT long trying to crack the passcode. The amount of obsession he has for his revenge is honestly just sad to watch. After four years of trying to crack the code, he finally opened it and found the name Kaburagi as one of her contacts, the name of the director that Kana is working for. So of course, Aqua plans to take up the offer for a role so he could get close to him and find out if he’s his biological father.
But holy crap, they came for live action adaptations THROATS this episode and I couldn’t help but laugh. Just hearing the voice acting for the bit of the show just had me rolling because of how terribly hammy it was. And then proceeded to laugh harder when Miyako just wordlessly closed the laptop. It was hilarious how Ruby basically just voiced how everyone feels about unfaithful adaptations and the “that didn’t happen in the manga!” comments. However, I did like that they actually explained why the adaptations ended up the way that they did. Such as how creative liberties had to be taken and things have to be adapted out to fit so much content into a limited TV season. For this live action in particular, they wanted to feature as many models as possible to appeal to the female demographic despite them having no experience in acting. Which is where Kana comes in as the well known actor to incite familiarity so that people would be more willing to look at the project.
Unfortunately, that means Kana has to hold herself back from acting as well as she can. She basically has to stoop down to the models’ level of hamminess so that that she doesn’t outshine them and make the project feel lopsided in acting ability. Which makes sense since the models would stick out even more if Kana were to go in with the best of her ability. It’s honestly sad that Kana isn’t able to use her full potential in this project however, the show makes a good point in stating that good acting and good shows don’t often go hand in hand. But man, the amount of disappointment on the original creator’s face upon seeing how the project has devolved felt so real. I can only imagine how many original creators feel disappointed when an adaptation of their work ends up not being what they had hoped.
I really came to respect Kana in this episode as she has taken to actually make herself be an easier person to work. Literally the complete opposite of what she was in the first episode. She definitely seemed to have opened her eyes since her first run in with Aqua and came to realize that her attitude was basically burning so many bridges around her, which the director had predicted in the first episode. She already showed to have some decent self-awareness in her ability and it helped her realize she needed to be better in communication. Something that the director had said to Aqua as well. She knows there are better actors out there than her and needed to communicate what she had to offer that others can’t. She even does her absolute best to strive for good quality of the production instead of demanding it be her way. Despite the rough patch in her career, she still persevered and is putting so much effort into her acting that I can’t help but root for her. It’s honestly funny how the lead actor, Melt seems to basically be a mirror of what Kana used to be with how he acts like a big shot and even stops the filming because some water got on his face.
Despite Kaburagi looking kinda similar to Aqua with his lighter hair, I’m pretty sure he’s just a red herring since it felt like they went out of there way to make the guy seem suspicious. However, the only thing that can’t be disputed is the fact he has some kind of relationship with Ai. We just don’t know what it is yet. I was honestly hoping this guy wouldn’t be a terrible person and my hopes got slightly dashed. ONLY SLIGHTLY. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to be a sleazeball, but he seems to focus more on convenience and using things to his advantage. All the while not caring about the quality and is only looking for how to promote. Which is honestly really sad since Kana believes that her talent was recognized by him but he only views her as a tool. It’s a realistic approach but it’s still disheartening, especially with just how much hope Kana has.
I was kind of bummed we didn’t actually get to see how Aqua acted in this episode, but maybe they wanted to save it where it’ll count the most since it seems like he does want to end his job with a bang. Hopefully it won’t be a setback for the project. Either way, I’m still really interested to see how all of this plays out and what role Kana will have for the future since I really do want to see her succeed. I also really liked the symbolism of showing Aqua in front of a dark wall and Kana was out in the open. She’s naive and hopeful while Aqua is bogged down by reality. While I don’t know if I particularly ship them, their dynamic is really fun so far.
