Shichisei no Subaru – 09

「巡り合う星々」 (Meguriau hoshiboshi)
“The Chance Meeting of the Stars”

I guess we were overdue for the episode of love (read: 100% unsponsored, uncensored, triple distilled teenage drama) in SnS at some point, but right as the story gets (somewhat) moving? Now that’s a surprise. To be fair though a little fun (and fun it was) is not unwarranted right now, particularly when we can guess how the last little bit of this season is going to play out. Rescuing Asahi from her digital prison? Right after the customary tentacle clown assault of course.

Given SnS’s overall predilection for romantic escapades it shouldn’t probably be surprising our party of seven has more than one love triangle in play, but I cannot help being disappointed it didn’t involve a bit of sweet wholesome love. Don’t deny, you know damn well Satsuki and Nozomi would make a fine couple of cuteness too. Nevertheless Nozomi’s lingering crush on Takanori at least broadens the base of character interactions to work with, for no matter the hilarity of watching Takanori destructively white knight over Asahi, eventually you want some different coloured sprinkles to go with that ever growing sundae. Nozomi’s appearance and Haruto’s stated commitment to Asahi effectively solidifies SnS’s burgeoning pairings (once Takanori realizes the obvious), ensuring the romantic drama and all its fixings is now largely relegated to the usual plot-based machinations—i.e. rescuing the damsel to secure the kiss—instead of the free-for-all gracing us before. Not any good news for best girl mind you (my heart, it weeps), but as we all know when it comes to childhood friends, there’s never a true winner.

How SnS makes up for this streamlining though is intriguing considering the next likely course of events. If it wasn’t obvious already the way to rescue Asahi from her Gnosis captors is to awaken all seven Subaru Senses and likely utilize them in some combined fashion (*cough* Spirit Bomb), which assuming Haruto and Satsuki are the only ones who’ve awoke leaves five peeps to go. This awakening too seems dependent on both the red crystal fragments and Subaru items being randomly collected, suggesting for better or worse that our remaining time is going to be spent playing treasure hunt with the local monsters. Arguably no better way to describe Nozomi’s current predicament after all, because barring a surprise appearance by everyone else or mystery girl who really needs an explanation already Elicia (which isn’t entirely out of the question), our new cutie pie will have to figure this one out herself. Not a bad thing overall though, because with the new Gnosis cannon fodder enemies being those featured in the OP we can likely expect some more information on Asahi and her ability.

After all if there’s one thing big crazy baddies like doing before their inevitable downfall it’s spilling the beans on everything of consequence. We’ll just have to see if it’s enough to piece the rest of this puzzle together.

Full-length images: 25.

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