Wow. This episode was horrible. Like, really bad.
What the hell was this? Did we skip a bunch of stuff? Since when did Kawasegawa become friendly enough to totally talk shit to Nanako about her singing as if she knew everything about her? I’m just…so confused. I felt absolutely nothing this episode other than confusion. There’s so much wrong here and I’m just wondering if the anime team messed up the order of things or something because nothing makes sense.
We know that Kawasegawa was the join Team Kitayama but we never even got to see her integrate with the group. We just start off the episode with her arguing with Tsurayuki, akin to how friends fight over petty things. The group film their second project on the beach but we don’t even get to see any of it, and Kawasegawa and Kyoya are all buddy-buddy even though they’ve barely interacted so far. Oh, and of course we get a cringey unfunny fanservice scene. Just…what?
And again I repeat, this also makes the forced drama with Nanako’s singing come off as so strange because Kawasegawa came out of nowhere with her confrontation. Supposedly these characters barely know each other, why would she care so much that Nanako’s talent is half assed. You barely know her, why do you care so much? The whole scene just didn’t feel right at all, and while Kawasegawa was kinda right it was still kinda shitty. But again, this whole argument didn’t feel warranted anyway with how the episode set everything up. And what’s worse about the whole Nanako acting vs singing debate is why should WE care when we haven’t even seen Nanako’s acting?! We didn’t get to see the other group’s second project, but worse is that we didn’t even get to see Team Kitayama’s second project! We don’t know what the theme was this time, and we haven’t seen Nanako act once. Not even once. We have no idea if she’s good or not so all of this means nothing at all. Are we supposed to believe what the characters are saying? None of the drama makes sense, and there’s nothing for us to base anything on when the show doesn’t show us a single thing. It’s laughable, but also a pain in the ass to sit through.
And I am so sick of everyone praising Kyoya for literally everything. Again, we barely have seen anything on his side. Sure, he’s directed the first project and did edits and stuff, but we didn’t spend much time on that. But he can give Nanako a speech and she bounces back, and then we get this random pink girl that wants to recruit him to work on her game because she heard he’s great or something? Since when and what the hell has he done for everyone to kiss the ground he walks on? Kyoya’s character hasn’t exactly gotten more interesting so it’s getting more and more pathetic with what they’re trying to do.
Also this episode was fast. Extremely fast. We jumped from one scene to the next at breakneck speed, and I even noticed the characters spoke unusually faster this time without taking a breath. It was pretty easy to notice when the subtitles were faster than usual and it got really exhausting. The transitions were bad, too much quick dialogue, we had scenes that weren’t funny like with the club, and nothing felt smooth. Also the push to make scenes dramatic were so bad and also kind of hilarious in a terrible way. Like at the very end when we kept getting shots into Nanako’s room. The whole black and white thing was just too much and it made the so-called “emotional” scene cringy with how over the top they made it with that filter.
Also this is an anime that deals with adults and college students but this very much feels like a high school anime with the terrible tropes and Kyoya acting like a horny teenager. With the fanservice, the club dude wanting a maid cafe, and Tomioka being the loli senpai, this just feels like your run of the mill trash high school anime. The maturity that the show had in the first episode isn’t here anymore, it’s just silly anime bullshit that I’ve really gotten sick of.
What is even happening anymore? The show’s quality has diminished really quickly really badly. I’ve been a lot pickier with anime lately and have been craving certain type of stories, and I was hoping this would be a good one but it’s proving to be the exact opposite. My patience has been running thin, so if this anime doesn’t improve in the next episode I might just have to give it the boot. This is disappointing.
Yeah, Berry. This episode literally had a time skip and expected us to believe that Kawasegawa had integrated into the group. Given that we the viewers haven’t seen that, it made it seem jarring and unnatural. I feel that the show tried to cram too much into one episode, and this episode would have been better as a two-parter where we see Kawasegawa’s introduction into the group with the episode concluding with Nanako being criticized for her acting at the end of the episode. That way, they wouldn’t have had to speed through things to fit in everything they wanted, and who knows why those involved were even satisfied with this episode as a final product because it really sucked. Yeah, the fanservice was annoying, but at least Kawasegawa slapped Tsurayuki, who had taken her swimsuit off instead of Kyoya like when Nanako slapped Kyoya for pointing out that she wasn’t fully dressed when Tsurayuki had been staring at her just as much. That part was basically the only improvement compared to previous episodes, but the rest of the episode was so bad. The show is leaning very hard into “telling” and not “showing”, which is not good writing.
It’s too bad you didn’t call dibs on Kageki Shoujo!!, Berry, as Quietcupcake really won out by covering what I believe to be the anime of the season.
You’re right, it’s very much pure telling and zero showing. It’s not good writing at all. And I totally agree that this should have been a two parter. I wouldn’t be so angry if they had actually shown us Kawasegawa meeting with the group. It would have been nice to see how the group would have bonded and to see their brainstorming for their next project would have went. Why they skipped over this, I have no idea. I’m just very disappointed.
Ugh I know!! I haven’t had much time or energy to watch much shows this season, but Kageki Shoujo is absolutely at the top of my list and I want to catch up to it soon! It definitely looks like my type of show. But I know QC is doing a great job with her reviews. c:
NOTE: I’ve decided that I’m going to be dropping my coverage of Bokutachi no Remake. I don’t have much to say about the newest episode as it was really uneventful and the story also will probably go in a direction I don’t care for, so it cemented me not sticking with the show.
Also Nanako (Aimi) singing God Knows was a cute touch I guess. The Poppin’Party version of the cover is fantastic.
On the other hand, Kageki Shoujo!! continues to deliver every week. I think it’s a contender for Anime of the Year.