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Last episode was a bit slower after the chaos of episode 5. We got back on track, put all this love business aside, and started working on a visual novel to help Tsurayuki get out of debt. Hashiba thinks it’s a great plan, but considering he’s the only one who knows visual novels, I think he has his work cut out for him. Also, Tsurayuki has a fiancee or something, I guess.

First impressions

Our art students are hard at work, and I don’t mean with a visual novel. Sayuri decided to eat dinner with everyone, but really that was just a ploy to try and feed Tsurayuki. Shino decides she won’t be outdone and attempts to feed Hashiba which then leads to Nanako stepping in with vegetables. Putting the fact that Shino’s the best girl aside, vegetables is about the last thing I’d want anyone to feed me.

Now they actually get to work. Tsurayuki finally gets a script Hashiba likes and Nanako finishes up her music. Kind of. Really she’s just hard on herself, and Hashiba continues to baby her, which really doesn’t help the situation at all.

Shino is also getting things done, but it is at this moment that Hashiba has a brain blast and figured out that Nanako may like him. But his hardwired protagonist failsafe kicks in and knocks the thought away. Also, Shino assaults him. Take that as you will. I’m not incorrect.

The drama doesn’t stop there, however. Nanako is going full force at trying to get Hashiba to the point he just can’t ignore it anymore and immediately runs to Kawasegawa for advice.

She takes the emotions of all romance anime fans and chews him out for being too wishy-washy and causing this situation. But the protagonist failsafe comes in, and she tells him to pretend not to notice it about either of them. Apparently, Hashiba doesn’t like Shino that way either or is actually smarter than I thought in this post.

Regardless, for the sake of making the visual novel a success, they put love on hold. Except Sayuri missed the memo and constantly makes moves on Tsurayuki while the man’s trying to work. But eventually, she pushes too far and leaves everyone alone until she kidnaps Hashiba a week later.

Thankfully, it wasn’t to break his kneecaps, but just to clear up a few things, like if Hashiba is in a physical relationship with Tsurayuki. What she doesn’t realize is Hashiba doesn’t even have that with two people he could, let alone someone who would probably punch him. Still, Hashiba agrees to bring Tsurayuki happiness. The end. Oh, yeah, who is Sayuri again? She’s Tsurayuki’s childhood friend, and their parents decided they should get married for them. Why did I tack that on right at the end? Because they explained their relationship in about 5 seconds, so I figured this was more appropriate

My thoughts

To play devil’s advocate here, this episode felt like a step backward. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it didn’t feel as good as the series has been up to this point. I thought it was pretty much settled that Shino was with Hashiba, but now they’re suddenly not? What was that in episode 6 where Hashiba alluded to them being together and almost kissed her?

I don’t mind Nanako trying to fight for Hashiba. It makes things more interesting. What I do mind is Hashiba suddenly becoming a passive moron. He went from a fairly good, intelligent protagonist to pretty generic fast. He went from someone who actually made up their damn mind to this guy jumping between girls now. I’m pretty disappointed in him, but I think we’ll get back on track soon enough.

I suppose I should talk about Sayuri, her being the most important character of the episode. She really wasn’t, though. Last episode definitely tried hard for a cliffhanger, but nothing really changed. All Sayuri did was mess with the production of the visual novel a bit, but even then, things still carried on.

I’m not entirely sure whether she’ll play a bigger role. I hope she does. She seems like an interesting character and is giving Tsurayuki some much-needed focus and development, but she’s leaving already. My guess is that he’ll stop her from leaving and confess or something. Tsurayuki may say he doesn’t like her that way, but he probably does. Men in anime don’t know what they want, not even Hashiba anymore. And yes, I will keep giving him crap for that.

But if anything good came from his antics, it made me realize how much I like him and Kawasegawa together. I’m not jumping ship yet, but I think it’s really cute how they both sit down and have drinks with each other when they need to talk. She’s also the one Hashiba seems to trust the most, which is pretty fitting considering their past…future… whatever they had before with each other pre-time travel. That’s a confusing sentence. 

Really, Nanako’s in last, I hate to say. Not because she’s bad, just that most of Hashiba’s suitors (wait, they’re called suitresses?) are good, even Tsurayuki. Well, he counts as a suitor. What’s surprising to me is that he does like Hashiba as much as he does. And that he talks to Sayuri about him so much. Tsurayuki kept getting mad at him before and doesn’t really seem close. He even almost punched him last episode. Wait, he’s the tsundere of the group, isn’t he? Ok, now it makes sense!

This episode wasn’t that busy, all things considered. It was pretty much entirely visual novel, and Hashiba suddenly being indecisive. For as neat as I think the VN arc is, there’s not a whole lot to talk about. Most of it goes on in the background. We don’t see Tsurayuki write the script. We see Hashiba critique it. We don’t see Nanako write the music. We see Hashiba listen to it. It’s like that.

Initially, I did not like this at all. It made it seem like the projects were skipped over. I do feel like that was a much worse problem early on around episode 2, but I don’t mind it as much now. And I think that’s because I realize that was never the point. It’s less about everyone doing the projects and more about Hashiba directing them. It’s not the act of doing it. It’s Hashiba fixing problems that arise. It’s this whole concept of him being reliable.

You look back even all the way to episode 1, and that was his whole schtick. He can do anything because of all of his experience, and the projects are a way to show that off, and also make everyone else feel inadequate, but it happens. Nobody said time travel was perfect. That’s why Kawasegawa is really the actual best fit for him since they have mutual respect and are on the same level, but people don’t always go for the healthy option.

What’s making me the most curious is where the story will go from here. I know that Nanako and Shino are going to blow up at each other at some point unless Hashiba ends things, and I’m also curious how the visual novel will turn out. Frankly, I feel like it will be a flop. I think it’s more interesting for everything to blow up in Hashiba’s face and have the next and probably last arc be him solving it. That’s how I’d write it, but I’m no writer. Yet.

Thank you very much for reading