With Yuri’s help, Kasumi is able to find and buy a carrying case for her guitar, allowing her to bring the instrument with her to school. While showing her guitar off to some classmates, Kasumi learns that Tae is also a guitarist. During a home economics class, both Kasumi and Tae come up with the idea to craft bags for their guitar cases, which honestly sounds redundant but whatever, just roll with it. When both girls fail finish their projects in time, their teacher has them finish the assignment after school. The supplementary period soon stretches out across multiple days as the girls become fast friends, with Kasumi giving Tae the nickname “O-Tae” and Tae offering to teach her how to play the guitar.
By the end of Episode 3, Tae is the one main character I’ve gotten to know of the least. Just looking after her character design, I kind of figured that she would be the quiet and serious type. But as it turns out in Episode 4, Tae is actually the weird one. This becomes apparent the second Kasumi and Tae formally meet each other for the first time. Within seconds of meeting Kasumi, Tae randomly calls her a weirdo. Tae later elaborates that this is the stereotype for people who own a Random Star but where she had heard that is not explained and it’s honestly plausible that she made it up herself. As Kasumi denies being a weirdo, Tae asks if she drinks and smokes, which I suppose would prove her point but I have to wonder why she jumped to that criteria. Funnily enough, Kasumi redirects the question to Tae and Tae of course finds that absurd, even though she’s the one who brought it up in the first place.
As we see when Tae gives Kasumi some guitar lessons, she is very knowledgeable when it comes to music. With everything else however, you can almost see her brain buffering and the character has a tendency to say or do some very random things. I was taken aback at how quirky Tae actually is but her character very quickly grew on me. For one, she synergizes perfectly with Kasumi, alternating between giving the latter some valuable pointers and perspective to sharing one single braincell with her. And two, she’s just really darn funny. As demonstrated by the whole “weirdo” discourse she starts, some of the most entertaining moments in this season can be attributed to her.
Since Kasumi is busy with finishing her guitar case bag and hanging out with Tae, she ends up skipping band practice with Rimi and Arisa. On one hand, Kasumi is making a ton of progress with the guitar and that would technically pay off for the band in the long run. But on the other, the band is her idea so her missing out on its very first practice sessions is hardly a good look. Arisa is in particular gets upset with Kasumi, becoming envious of the latter’s friendship with Tae. I like how it’s initially played up for laughs, what with Arisa being a tsundere and all, but as the episode progresses, both you and Kasumi realize that this is a legitimate issue. Arisa wouldn’t necessarily admit it but Kasumi is her first friend either in her whole life or in a very long time. For Kasumi to suddenly pivot towards spending time with Tae, it would understandably make Arisa feel like she’s been replaced.
Fortunately, Kasumi realizes her mistake and she heads over to Arisa’s house to apologize. I have to give Kasumi some credit here. She often follows the beat of her own drum but she’s also quite good at recognizing when she messes up and she tries to address those mistakes however she can. After a little bit of hesitation, Arisa accepts Kasumi’s apology and she lets the latter back into her studio. There, she shows Kasumi and Rimi a new keyboard she had purchased in an earlier scene. While I imagine Arisa recognizes that Kasumi’s apology is genuine, I must admit that it’s funny to instead think that Arisa realizes she dumped a lot of money into her keyboard so she needs Kasumi back to vindicate her purchase. Funnily enough, you then learn that Tae tagged along with Kasumi to the Ichigaya residence and just like Kasumi, she too is mooching off of Arisa’s grandmother’s cooking. I love how annoyed Arisa is here. She got Kasumi back but Tae’s presence alone is giving her second thoughts.
On their way back, Kasumi invites Tae to the band she reveals her plan to have the band perform at their school’s culture festival (having gotten the idea from the student council president last episode). Kasumi then says that she’d like for the band to audition for Space’s live show afterwards but Tae responds that it’d be impossible for them to pass, leaving her recruitment up in the air. It’s a rare moment where Tae is actually serious for once and given her knowledge on music and her acquaintanceship with Space’s owner, you know she’s not messing with Kasumi in any way. She genuinely thinks they have no chance at passing the audition and it’s now up to Kasumi to change her mind.
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