©Nare Nare Project/Nanare Hana Nare Production Committee
Okay, before we get into that, I need to make one more small correction. I said last time that Mary doesn’t really make an appearance in the show other than a flashback in the first episode, but we actually see her during a trip to the hot springs. It’s worth noting that this is a conversation between her and Megumi asking how she’s dealing with her condition, which does provide at least a little foreshadowing of what we’re going to learn about Mary in this episode, so we at least get some hints of this. Weeks of twists and turns. That being said, this is still the only time we really see her in any meaningful way before last week’s big reveal, and the fact that we never see her interact with Kanata still means the show is trying to hint at the two of them. A once-close relationship still wasn’t working the way it needed to. Presumably this lack of interaction is to better preserve the twist, but if that’s the intention, it certainly doesn’t work because a lot of what we learn here isn’t about feeling sorry for her, but ends up inadvertently giving the other side After a negative impact thanks to a series of increasingly awkward writing decisions, the light shines brightly.
After learning the truth about Mari, Kanata decided to relay the situation to the other PomPom members. Things are already starting to get weird here, and even before Kanata actually names the culprit behind the internet post, others are reacting like they know exactly who it is, even though they’ve never actually interacted with Mari before. The only one shocked is Megumi, who doesn’t seem to know that Mari is the same person she was talking to in the hot springs, and doesn’t seem to know the history between her and Kanata, even though the two of them have been friends for the longest time. This is also where Kanata reveals that she hurt Mary in the accident we saw in the first episode, but there isn’t even much of a reaction from the other girls except for Anna, who is mostly upset by the online drama caused by Mary’s post. It’s weird to say the least, and while I don’t expect the girls to outright betray Kanata or anything, it feels awkward that none of them seem to let her keep this secret, despite the fact that she remains silent, even when That article led them into her personal problems.
When we delve into things from Marie’s perspective, we see how she’s been struggling to recover from her injuries, just like Emi did with hers, and how much of a psychological toll it’s taken on her. Because of this, a part of her wasn’t happy with Kanata’s return to cheer via PomPoms, which led her to publish the post online and then delete it when things started to get out of hand. Taken on its own, this would make for some of the best drama we’ve seen on the show, but the problem here is that it really needs to tie into what we’ve seen of Kanata’s character, and frankly, it really doesn’t. For most of the show, Kanata gives the impression that she doesn’t really know what’s causing her to scream, but if we’re just taking it all at face value, it makes sense to think that she does when she does. It’s so ridiculous that she couldn’t connect the dots that she accidentally hurt someone. If anything, she unintentionally gave the impression that she was deliberately avoiding the subject because she was afraid her friends would judge her for it, even though Megumi seemed completely unaware of the truth. The facts don’t help alleviate this either. Heck, you could even argue that Kanata not talking to her, or bringing it up before, means Mary’s resentment is somewhat justified, since it certainly doesn’t make Kanata look like a very considerate friend. What makes this all the weirder is that it’s somehow more about how Mary made Kanata feel bad about the article than anything that led up to it, even after going through some of the show’s other After the shaky writing choices, I’m confused as to why this was all considered a good idea.
But somehow we haven’t reached the end of this journey yet, because after we know all this, the worst will come. Even if I were to address all the new problems this creates for Kanata’s character, I’m at least looking forward to seeing her and Mari try to talk things out and rekindle their friendship, since there are pretty clear differences between the two of them. Instead, Marie apologized and decided to make amends for what she had done to the PomPoms channel by offering to be their newest member. I literally gasped at the screen when this came up because I was shocked at how bad the resolution was. I could understand doing this if it happened after Kanata and Mary talked things out, but in the end any kind of confrontation was completely skipped. To make matters worse, although Kanata should probably be the most embarrassed by the suggestion, she is excited about the idea of Mary joining the group, and the two start hanging out as if nothing happened. The only character willing to point out how crazy this all is is Anna, and even that’s mostly from the perspective of her being annoyed by Mary’s past cybercrime (which is still the most realistic reaction we’ve gotten from these events) of all role during it all).
The closest thing to an actual conversation between Kanata and Mari occurs near the end of the episode, when Mari looks back on her past as a cheerleader, but even that ultimately fails. She recounts how she used to compete in competitive cheerleading but never found much enjoyment in it, until she saw the genuine cheers from the other side, not feeling that it was connected to anything else in the episode, but as a talking point The way cheerleading goes. The show doesn’t even do a good job of tying the “spirit” of cheerleading to any of its drama to support this argument. All really accomplished in this scene is to further ensure that Kanata is absolved of any guilt she needs to feel about Mari being hurt since she turned out to be her inspiration, and while that may not have been the intention, it’s certainly how it felt in the end.
I’ll give the show the benefit of the doubt, assuming that much of this is the result of it failing to properly connect Kanata’s character arc rather than being done on purpose, but ultimately the lack of any confirmation or fallout from Kanata’s mistakes just makes me A real objection to her character, and further to the show as a whole. It does seem like there’s going to be more to this story, as the episode ends with Mary suddenly disappearing from the group, but the show’s diminishing returns keep building up and I have no real reason to think anything will actually happen. How much conflict is completely avoided here, and there’s no telling what we’ll end up with, but whatever we end up with, I doubt it’s enough to make up for how much of a confusing episode this is.
grade:
Narenare – Cheers for you! Currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
