The de facto star of this episode is Shu Iura (Daiki Yamashita), a goofball who is a part of Hori and Miyamura’s circle of friends. I never mentioned Iura before because truth be told, he hasn’t had much bearing on the plot. In fact, I don’t think the show ever formally introduced the guy. Before this episode, he was kind of just there. I suppose it’s better late than ever to give the guy his due and it’s not like I hate him or anything. However, I don’t get giving him the spotlight this late into the cour. With barely any correlation with the core of the show, I also wonder why it’s included in a production that had to cut stuff out.
So while hanging out, the boys notice that Yanagi still talks to everyone informally. The only exceptions are Yoshikawa (for obvious reasons) and Remi (because Remi is that persistent). It’s kind of strange that this bothers anyone as Miyamura is still a bit formal with everyone but whatever. Iura successfully leads the group in getting Yanagi to address some of them by their first name. Funnily enough, this gets Miyamura worried though Yanagi promises not to take his bros away from him and the two start quipping in the next scene. Careful Miyamura, Hori might get jealous of your bromances again. I think this segment is fine but I don’t find it terribly funny and it frankly makes me think that the show has no idea what to do with Yanagi now that he’s served his purpose with the Yoshikawa x Ishikawa subplot.
After that, we see Miyamura helping Sawada overcome her discomfort towards boys. I guess the rivalry between these two has fizzled out at this point. Sawada still feels like a superfluous character to me but I’ll admit that it’s cool how she went from antagonizing Miyamura to seeing him as someone trustworthy. Funnily enough, Sawada has a tier list of which guys she’s most comfortable around, with Miyamura at the top and Iura hilariously at the bottom. Sawada apparently can’t stand how loud and energetic Iura is and Iura fails to pick that up so he continues to act the same way. Some time later, Iura contracts the deadliest disease in anime so for once, he actually keeps quiet. This results in a funny bit where Iura quietly helps Sawada with an errand and without context, Sawada assumes he’s mad at her. The next day however, Iura recovers and reverts to his usual self, making Sawada too annoyed to stay worried. I can’t help but wonder if Sawada and Iura will end up as a couple. It’d be a classic case of opposites attract.
The last segment focuses on Iura’s younger sister Motoko (Emi Lo). Motoko is studying hard to apply for a prestigious high school but she gets discouraged when her teacher says it’s unlikely she’ll get her school of choice. To help his sister, Iura asks Hori to tutor her and he buys a good luck charm while hanging out with Ishikawa. I’ll admit that this segment has Iura at his most interesting. Normally, the dude is a loudmouth but when it comes to his sister, he’s actually very quiet and mature. For someone who mostly goofs around, he conducts himself very well as a responsible and supportive older brother. It also makes it funny when Motoko talks about him as she obviously has a much different perception of Iura than all of his friends.
As for Hori, she actually starts tutoring by not tutoring at all. Instead, she chats with Motoko to break the ice. This does make sense in the long run as the more comfortable Motoko is around Hori, the easier it is for her to learn. Since this episode only shows the first session, this subplot is kind of put on a cliffhanger. I think it’s strange to establish this subplot when there’s only two episodes left but since the staff bothered to include it, it would be asinine not to follow it up.
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