I’m still not sure if I’ll pick Sorairo Utility up for episode reviews. It does seem light on plot to me. Then again, I keep blogging about CGDCT anime so who knows.
A good chunk of Episode 2 is dedicated to Minami playing through her first golf course. Naturally, the show does not humor her and she performs about as you’d expect for a complete novice. There’s some good laughs here. I particularly like Minami’s very first attempt to hit the golf club. The direction hypes you up as Minami swings her club, only to then reveal that she barely got the ball off of the tee. It really goes to show that Minami has a long way to go and it sets a precedent for how the rest of the course will go. Another highlight is everyone doing the fun roll call. While Haruka and the elders get to use some fancy titles to denote their skill and/or experience, an embarrassed Minami simply calls herself a rookie.
As funny as it is to see Minami suffer, I do appreciate that the episode balances it out with a wholesome attitude. No one complains or laughs at Minami’s mishaps. They’re all instead a good sport and they try their best to help her familiarize with the sport and have fun. Also, having Minami take so long with the course does give the episode the perfect excuse to educate viewers on golf, be it the rules of the game or fun little trivia such as the glow in the dark golf ball.
After the game, Haruka reveals that she was keeping score and Minami finds out that her total score is 100 points. I don’t play golf so for all I know, this score is probably to be expected with where Minami is currently at with the sport. It is nevertheless a comical number when you compare it to Haruka’s total score of 27. I chuckle when the girls call Minami’s score “perfect” but they do have a point there. Minami certainly gets an A for Effort so in that sense, having exactly 100 points feels perfect.
While mostly cute and fun, there are a couple of odd bits of foreshadowing going on in the episode. Minami notices that the polo Haruka lent her has a logo that says “Japan”. Haruka claims to know just as much as Minami does though at the end of the episode, Izumi wonders if the logo implies that Haruka was a national rep. In another scene, Haruka tells Minami that she’s been playing golf since she was little and she was encouraged by her father to continue practicing the sport. As the episode shows us Haruka’s childhood, there’s one peculiar shot where Haruka has a red glow to her eye, as if to imply an unhealthy obsession with golf. I doubt the show is suggesting anything too dark but it does seem like Haruka’s backstory isn’t entirely sunshine and rainbows.
The next day, Haruka gifts Minami some of her old golfing equipment as a reward for achieving 100 points. Part of me wonders if the equipment secretly implies anything about Haruka’s past but then again, it feels rather normal that she has plenty of old gear to spare. While Minami gawks at her “new” stuff, Haruka messages her friend, Ayaka Hoshimi (Ayasa Goto), who works as a streamer. Ayaka has only made cameos up until this point but as far as I can tell, she is Sorairo Utility‘s third main character. It’ll be interesting to see how she’ll fit in the picture. In her message, Haruka says she’s found a promising talent; presumably, she’s referring to Minami. I’m guessing Haruka thinks streaming Minami’s progress will make for good content.
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