As much as I was super hyped for this episode and how Kana’s moment goes, I won’t deny that I was left a little unsatisfied. At my core, I am so happy that Kana was able to really show her stuff and remind the world that she is HERE. However, the build up in this episode didn’t quite hit for me. It didn’t reach the same levels of hype and pride I felt for Melt during his episode. I think a part of it had to do that Aqua stole the show halfway through the episode and felt like it made more of an impact than Kana. While Melt essentially had the entire episode dedicated to him, Kana ended up only having maybe half. While she did get some time to break my heart in the previous episode, she still shared it with Akane. Not to mention that the turnaround happened a bit too fast for my taste. Another part of it had to be that I wish we got to see more of Kana’s acting. While she was very vibrant once she got the okay to go all out, I felt like we didn’t see enough of it. Too brief for me to really enjoy what she was doing and convince me that THIS was her best acting.
Despite me being a little underwhelmed with how things wrapped up for Kana, we do get a few more pieces of why she acts the way that she does. Though I will admit that the information we were given about Kana’s parents did feel not as deep as the other facets of her character. I felt like it both explained some things about Kana, but it also didn’t feel like I resonated with that bit of her story. I don’t even fully know how to explain it. Though looking back on it, it could be because of how the information was presented. The flashback was mainly still frames without actually hearing the mom speak all that much. So that might be the root of the disconnect as it felt like a slideshow of stuff that happened to Kana rather than it showing us the extent of it. To me, it felt very surface level. While there is a lot of information to garner from the narration, I feel like it would have been more impactful to see just what the mom did and the tone that she used in some of those instances.
It’s honestly heartbreaking seeing that Kana’s mom essentially used her to get into the industry and once she wasn’t able to do it anymore, she just dipped on her. I honestly can’t believe that her mom did so much to force her into the spotlight, only to leave her to her own devices when her popularity went down. It’s downright disgusting. Kana’s childhood just ends up more and more tragic. Poor girl was never given a chance to just be a child. It also explains why Kana is so hung up on wanting to be useful. Because of what happened with her parents, it felt as if she had to strive to always be successful if she wanted praise and validation. To which, I’m honestly shocked that she still have such a passion for it since it was forced on her. She was essentially at her lowest when met Akane for the first time, so it makes sense why she lashed out the way that she did. But man, I can’t even imagine how it must have been for her to be burdened by all of these things at such a young age. It feels so unfair to her. Affection and validation has been so deeply rooted in her success that it makes sense why she is so scared of doing something that could affect the project that she’s in. And because her attitude caused her decline, she’s terrified that if she does as she pleases, she’ll lose favor again. Which links back to her beliefs of success = acceptance. So many people have let her down that it’s no wonder that she ends up latching on to the people who express unconditional support towards her.
Being selfless is not wrong. However, there definitely needs to be a balance of being selfless and thinking about yourself. In Kana’s case, while her acting helps so many people around her, it also just feels like she’s dying on the inside. She’s hurting herself because she also wants to be the main focus and be in the spotlight. It hurt watching her just walking down the steps to leave Akane in the spotlight. And then proceeded to hurt more when it showed her smiling up at her. Only to shift to her reflection on the floor and show a more solemn side where she seems absolutely miserable. Reflecting her true feelings on the matter. Devoting herself to being a prop to help others look good falls in line with her desire to be needed. And OF COURSE Aqua would be the one to help her out. Even though he said that both him and Akane were going to work together to pull her out… only for Akane to not really do anything for Kana in the end lol.
Also I can’t help but snort over the fact that Himekawa’s ad lib probably made the Toki x Tsurugi shippers very happy lololol. The noise she makes when he grabs her face just tickles me XD.
I always love the symbolism of the light and shadows with how Kana is constantly portrayed as always shining the light on someone else while she’s cast in shadows. Only for Aqua to shine another light on her, essentially telling her it’s okay to act the way she wants to. Be free, Kana. BE FREE. And free she became. Though I do love the detail of hesitancy about completely stepping out into the spotlight as half of her face was still shadowed, only to completely light up when she accepts it. Once she was completely reassured that people WANT to see her go all out, she really just went crazy. I feel like it’s hard to gauge what good/okay/great acting looks like in anime. So I can assume that what Kana did was remarkable since it caught quite a few people off guard. Namely Gotanda and Kaburagi. Kana definitely proved herself to be a force to be reckoned with in the acting industry this day, even if I can’t really tell if her acting was spectacular compared to others oop. Gurl doesn’t have just one star in each eye… SHE HAS THE FREAKING MILKY WAY. It’s hard to know exactly what that means compared to everyone else, but if I were to garner a guess, it could mean that Kana has endless possibilities if she puts herself out there.
I feel like Aqua makes me go back and forth between shipping him with Kana, to this man cannot function in a healthy relationship and desperately needs therapy. One moment he’s just showing how supportive he is of Kana and allowing her to not worry about her fears because he’s there to back her up. And then the next he is exhibiting very concerning behaviors that would not do well in a relationship. His moment with Kana was very adorable, even if their montage of their time together did drag on a little too long for my liking. Especially since it feels like he’s constantly bringing the best out of her. But due to his extreme survivor’s guilt and his hellbent lust for revenge, it’s hard to allow myself to fully ship them because of how messed up he is. Everyone is trying to work through their inner-demons, but Aqua’s is so deeply rooted in his soul that he can’t allow himself any form or happiness. He has so much emotional baggage and is putting all his effort into the wrong places. Not gonna lie, but the aspect of him viewing acting as “not fun” and “painful” felt a tad silly to me. On a fundamental level, I get it since it contrasts with how fun acting is with the others. But in concept it breaks my suspension of disbelief a little. Though it’s definitely tragic. Especially since we just had an episode with Melt expressing how much fun acting is to Aqua.
With this new perspective, he’s cursing everyone in his way and that in itself is really sad to me. I’m a little disappointed that Gotanda is enabling him to carry out his revenge and is giving him advice on how to do it through acting. He doesn’t seem happy about it, but isn’t doing much to try and stop it. Gotanda is the closest thing to a father figure Aqua has and I’m sure that seeing Aqua like this isn’t pleasant to him. He even put together that he’s Ai’s child just from watching him. While he doesn’t like where Aqua is headed, he probably believes that nothing he says will deter him.
As much as I loved Kana in this episode, I feel like her time to shine got cut short as it dove straight into Aqua’s situation. The emotional whiplash of going from hope to despair was probably another factor why I didn’t enjoy this episode as much as I’d like and hoped to. Aqua is going down a terrifying path and I hope that someone can snap him out of this because doing something you hate will just wear you down over time. I’ll just have to see where this all goes because how Aqua is acting is quite scary. Especially with how he ended up biting Himekawa. Not sure if that was in the script…
