Tae tells the others in Poppin’Party that she’s now booked for both the culture festival and Raise A Suilen’s debut concert. In spite of the complication, Tae intends on performing for both events. Tae’s first idea to solve the issue is cloning herself. Obviously, that’s Tae being Tae but then again, PoPiPa could ask Kokoro and there’s a 50-50 chance that her family’s conglomerate might have a cloning machine lying around. In all seriousness, Kasumi decides to have PoPiPa perform at the very end of the culture festival’s concert, which should give Tae just enough time to make it back to school after RAS’ concert. Fortunately for PoPiPa, Arisa is able to make the arrangement with Hina and Rinko’s help.
The two-day culture festival soon kicks off in earnest. You of course have the typical run through all the different booths happening in the festival. The booths are lot sillier compared to the ones in Season 1’s festival episode. Kokoro is running a cozy haunted house cafe. Yukina begrudgingly works as a cat girl in a cat-themed cafe that lacks actual cats. The list goes on. Thanks to the larger cast this season, the festival feels a lot livelier this time around. The festival also features the return of Glitter☆Green, with the band paying Hanasakigawa a visit while they’re on break. It’s pretty much just a cameo appearance but it is neat that the show hasn’t completely written them off. One nitpick I do have with Glitter☆Green’s return, though maybe my eyes are deceiving me on this, is that they appear to be animated in 2D as opposed to 3D like everyone else. It can get pretty jarring when the scene cuts to them and back to PoPiPa or when Rimi is standing in the same frame as Yuri (Suzuko Mimori). To be fair, Glitter☆Green’s screentime is so limited that it probably makes more sense to draw them like in Season 1 than render and rig new CGI models of them from scratch.
Things start to go south once we get to actual concert part of the episode. Due to Chiyu performing some last minute checks on the stage, RAS starts their concert 15 minutes than they originally plan. The concert goes without a hitch but it lasts much longer due to the audience pulling the band back for a three song encore. By the time RAS is actually done, Tae is running very late and it’s almost time for PoPiPa to go onstage. Unwilling to perform without Tae, Kasumi runs off to find Tae while everyone else scrambles to buy some time. Hina and Rinko have Aya do some emceeing, which is hilarious and it goes about as well as you expected. Rokka and Roselia then step in to play some music to keep the audience entertained. Rokka hasn’t gotten the chance to play her guitar up until now and the show has largely presented her as very shy so imagine my surprise when she absolutely kills that solo of hers. Seriously, this girl can’t form her own band? With how good she is, she better be in one by the end of Season 2. Roselia’s insert song is great too. I swear, Roselia shows up, acts like they’re the main band of the show, and they get away with it every single time. I’m not done with Season 2 and it’s already made up for the lack of screentime Roselia had in Season 1. I also kind of love how the song is about determination, which is fitting given Tae rushing back to campus and ironic what ultimately happens after the song ends.
Probably the most surprising but also the most interesting event in the episode is Tae actually failing to make it in time. By the time she gets to the auditorium, everyone who’s still there is cleaning up shop. I love that the scene briefly cuts to the traditional bonfire that closes off the culture festival. Like, it does cap off Rinko’s arc in becoming a capable student council president really, its main purpose is to twist the figurative knife in PoPiPa’s new wound. Everyone else is out having fun while our main characters are left cleaning up off after a show they didn’t get to do in the end. Another thing that hits hard is Arisa’s reaction. We see Arisa annoyed all the time but this is the first time in a while where she’s legitimately mad. I’m a little curious what she would say to Tae when she’s about to blow a gasket but I appreciate that the scene has her leave before she gets that emotional.
In hindsight, this blunder was set up quite well. Everyone in PoPiPa played some role that led them to this moment. Kasumi was too way too lenient on Tae, Arisa and Rimi kept going with the flow, and Sāya should’ve raised her concerns when she had the chance. Of course, the biggest factor is none other than Tae herself. There’s no denying that she’s bitten more than she can chew. Playing for two bands is simply too much for her and that was obvious even before the double booking. Having this all occur during the culture festival is very fitting. The festival concert is meant to commemorate the first anniversary of the band’s complete formation. Everyone in PoPiPa should’ve been present for that so for Tae to arrive too late for it, it really hammers how detrimental her situation is. It’s also worth noting that Tae fails her band weeks before they have their self-sponsored live show at Galaxy. Something like this absolutely can’t happen during the live show. It’s going to be imperative that Tae and the others sort things out before then.
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