After listening to some demo music provided to her by Rei, Tae feels that playing for her friend’s band will give her the experience she’s looking for so she decides to join the band. The next day, Tae tells the rest of Poppin’Party about her decision at Arisa’s place. Under the impression that Tae would be filling as a support guitarist, the others accept her decision. I love that Sāya is the most reluctant to give Tae her blessing. She’s worried that Tae’s new commitment will result in her spending less time with PoPiPa, kind of like how her concern for her family resulted in her drifting away from CHiSPA (funnily enough, that arc also coincided with the culture festival). As the episode progresses, Tae is noticeably away from PoPiPa in a lot of scenes so I think Sāya is ultimately right to be skeptical. I kind of wish Sāya spoke up on it to the others but I can understand if she stays quiet to avoid complicating the matter even further.
Since Tae will be busy with the new band, Kasumi volunteers to handle writing PoPiPa’s next song. Mind you, this is Kasumi we’re talking about here. Even if the gears in her head are turning, it can only do so much and Kasumi quickly finds herself struggling with her songwriting. She first tries to acting like Tae does when she’s brainstorming to get the juices flowing. When that doesn’t work, she joins Hina’s makeshift band during a meeting to ask for some pointers, which also works to no avail. There’s also some fun banter between Kasumi and Arisa during this scene, with Arisa serving as the straight man. It’s all played more for laughs and less an actual predicament for Kasumi to overcome but for what it’s worth, it’s one of the episode’s most entertaining moments.
Regarding Hina’s band, they have the aforementioned meeting and they get to perform at the end of the episode but that’s unfortunately all you get from them this episode. It’s a bit of a shame. I thought the arrangement could be a good excuse for the show to give more attention to some of the more neglected members of the cast. Although their banter is pretty good, I don’t think I got to know most of these characters any more than I did before they teamed up. For what it’s worth, Hina is growing on me some more. There’s a fun bit in the meeting scene where she gives the band a potential theme for their song and that’s all it takes for them to bond with one another and get the creative ball rolling. I often can’t tell if Hina actually knows what she’s doing or if she’s just winging it but at the same time, I think that’s what makes her so entertaining.
The band’s performance scene is framed as a live rehearsal before the culture festival actually begins. The timing is actually pretty clever on the show’s part. It’s a good excuse to have Hina’s band perform now. That way, their performance during the festival can be abridged with little issue and the next episode can dedicate more time towards more important events. The scene itself is pretty entertaining. The song’s catchy and while I don’t know these characters that well, it is fun seeing Lisa, Moca, and Tsugumi perform something that’s more in PasuPare and HaruHapi’s wheelhouse. I also dig the reactions of all the other characters, like Ran pouting at seeing her friends perform outside of Afterglow and Kaoru posing because I guess that’s just how she shows her support.
While all this is going on, we see Tae become acquainted with the members of her new band, RAISE A SUILEN (RAS for short). Let’s get the roll call out of the way. Chiyu, aka CHU², is of course the band’s leader and DJ. Rei is the bassist and singer of the band; her stage name is LAYER. The blue and pink haired girl is the band’s keyboardist, Reona Nyubara/PAREO (Reo Kurachi). The blonde girl is the band’s drummer Masuki Satou/MASKING (Natsume). After Tae manages to win the band over with her guitar skills, Chiyu announces to everyone that she wants the band ready in time for their debut concert, which happens to be on the same day as the Hanasakigawa and Haneoka’s culture festival. Unless there’s zero overlap in the schedule, Tae will likely have to pick one event over the other. I expect Tae will ultimately choose to perform with PoPiPa though there is no denying that doing so will burn bridges with RAS, namely Chiyu.
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