I’m going to be real with you, I don’t really feel like I have much to say about the final two episodes. I was left feeling underwhelmed, and not as invested as I wanted to be by the end of it. I think the best way to describe it as it fizzling out, especially following up Episode 11 which was by far the strongest episode of the season.
Not too much really happened in episode 12, there were a lot of gloss-over scenes, which made the episode itself feel as a whole, pretty blah. Even the comedy act between Minami and Fumiya was sort of meh, and seeing Minami resolve her confession to him herself was sad to watch. The most important bit was in the beginning of the episode when Fumiya confronted Fuuka on the discovery he made about her from Andi’s book.
What Fumiya really wanted Fuuka to understand that she doesn’t have to force herself to change to fit in. School is nothing special, just a space where they are all in at the moment. The world is much larger than that, and with a little searching, she’ll find that there are lots of people out there at share her interests and views. All this time, Fuuka thought of herself to be a freak who didn’t fit in. Fumiya’s words of how she doesn’t need to mold herself to her environments was comforting to know. He wanted her to do things because she wanted to, not because she thinks that’s what how she would fit in the world best. He even helped her open a social media account so that she could join in on discussions with Andi fans like herself.
But in Episode 13 as it turns out, Fuuka couldn’t really follow his advice, or rather she felt like she couldn’t because it’d be too selfish of her. That’s why when the play’s concluded, just when Fumiya thinks it’s all over, a Fuuka bomb drops with a surprised Epilogue, where Kris had sent a letter to congratulate Libra’s and Alucia’s marriage, aka: she’s saying Aoi and Fumiya should be together.
Fuuka knows Fumiya understands the characters and can read between the lines, so he recognizes she has turned down the opportunity to receive his confession. He leaves the festival feeling terribly dejected over being rejected, and then Minami comes into the rescue to tell him to face Fuuka, to talk and make sure it’s over.
This was a something that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. How should I put it…. while this absolutely shows Minami is absolutely best girl and will always look out for Fumiya even after being rejected, frankly it sucked that she had to push him to go and talk it out with Fuuka once more. And I say that, because episode 11 was pretty rough for Minami. She overheard Fumiya asking to speaking to Fuuka at the end of the festival, and recognized that he wasn’t going to return her feelings. So she made sure to beat him to the punch by ending it in a way he didn’t have to verbally answer her himself, but rather just make it clear she understands and got the memo. And now here she was playing as the reliable friend who is willing to put another’s happiness before her own. This episode was just adding salt to the wounds of Minami fans, myself included. I just wished it didn’t have to come down to that. I think I would’ve preferred Fumiya confronting Fuuka himself, but I get why he wouldn’t want to right away, and needed someone else to slap that sense into him. This conversation could have always happened later, so as long as both Fuuka and Fumiya held onto their feelings.
Which brings me to the final point: A part of me wished the confession wasn’t locked into having to happen during the school festival. As much as I like Fuuka and Fumiya as a ship, that moment just didn’t feel quite right. I suppose it was because it got dragged out in that manner that it sort of spoiled it for me. In some ways, it kind of felt rushed and shoehorned in for the sake of it, so the build up leading up to just didn’t do it for me. And that sucks, because my heart didn’t feel anything as I usually would when my ships are confessing to each other. So I’m hoping it will come across better in the novel. I’ll have to see how it goes once I get to that, but yeah… it’s unfortunate that I ended up feeling that way.
Overall I’d say this season was alright, this season had a rocky start with the infuriating bully arc to kick it off. We got a glimpse of Aoi’s uglier side (that really rubbed many of us the wrong way, myself included), but revealed the fragile part of her that she’s keen to hiding away that involves her sister. The season concluded with the same point Minami drove home a couple episodes back: Aoi’s hollow inside. At the moment, it seems a big part of it has do with the potiential the loss of her sister if she really had committed suicide as it been alluded to. Her superficial relationships and battle to win against this world doesn’t fullfill her in any respect, the only thing it does it gets her closer to whatever she’s chasing. It’ll take a while before she lets someone in, she has many walls up and isn’t about to make herself vulnerable to anyone anytime soon. That said, it was pretty impressive how much we did get out of her all while she’ was not in the center of the spotlight for most part.
Apart from Aoi, it was great to get a good look inside Fuuka’s head, especially when she’s the main outsider of the circle. And Minami just continues to prove she’s best girl, but it sucks that she once again came out on the losing end this season with having to deal with being rejected.
With that, I’m going to give this season a 7/10. It wasn’t particularly memorable, but it was a decent watch.
Final Score 7/10
I agree with you that the last 2 episodes were underwhelming.
And who is Aoi kidding with Fumiya’s ultimate goal being to enjoy offline life as much as she does? He already does since she’s not enjoying herself out there.
Earlier in the reason, I correctly speculated that Aoi was continuing to teach Fumiya to prove that she was right about her methods and to take the sting out of losing to him at TackFam given she said she couldn’t believe that Nanashi was a guy who failed at life, but I wonder if there is more to it than that given Fumiya didn’t completely believe her when she said that, and he is viewed as a reliable narrator.
Maybe since Aoi has molded herself into the perfect heroine she wouldn’t settle for anything less than the perfect hero. That could be a hidden motive to her continuing to teach Fumiya ’cause it’s not just that she wants to make him into a respectable person to make losing to him at TackFam hurt less but that she wants him to be her prince. I still want Fumiya to end up with Fuuka, so even if this ends up being a plot point, I hope there is some way to resolve Aoi’s issues without the author forcing Fumiya to be with Aoi, who he is not a good fit with. I pray the author is not having Fuuka voice her opinion that Aoi and Fumiya should be together as a reflection of what will actually happen.