Kageki Shoujo!! – 02

OP Sequence

OP: 「星のオーケストラ」 (Hoshi no Orchestra) by (saji)

「銀橋を目指す者」 (Ginkyou o Mezasu Mono)
“Those Who Long to Cross the Silver Bridge”

LOVE AT FIRST SCOLDING

I’m in love. And like the good stereotypical Libra I am, I’m torn between two beauties. Half of my heart belongs to Sugimoto Sawa (Uesaka Sumire) and the other half to Nakayama Risa (Komatsu Mikako). And being entirely honest, there’s a third treacherous part of me that screams “Hoshino Kaoru (Taichii You) is just your type, you scoundrel!”

How great it was to see some attempts at better communication from Ai’s part in comparison from last week? Trying to wake Sarasa was pure gold. The whole standing from behind the curtains, softly calling her name and then throwing a paper ball of all things, genius. Although not ideal for me, I thought there was a possibility that we would deal with girls trying to sabotage Sarasa, but I was glad to see this doesn’t appear to be the case, at least not with her class. Iinchou Sawa-sama is here to make sure everyone’s in line and Sarasa out of bed in time for Kouka life. Godammit, I love an earnest goody-two shoes.

ONEE-SAMA

Each one of our lovely ladies from the centennial Kouka Koukou class are assigned one onee-sama to ‘show them the way’ of cleaning. All jokes aside, these interactions help us immerse further into the school culture. So far our main freshmen girls have been pretty transparent with their reactions (for us viewers), and now with the elder girls and especially with the case of Nojima Hijiri (Hanazawa Kana), Narata Ai’s onee-sama, we get to see a different side of Kouka. The soft spoken, ambitious and slightly mean musume-yako aspirers. Who, according to Risa-sama, are pretty much the norm amongst these pristine walls. 

Because of her past experience with Hijiri, Risa had almost given up on her dreams of pursuing the role of musume-yako. But after being exposed to Sarasa’s will, the elder girl’s fire is ignited once again and the relationship all upperclassmen were dreading to take over–no one wanted to be Sarasa’s onee-sama–might just end up being the most fulfilling of them all. Call it intuition but Risa gives a heads up to Hijiri, who seems confident and lax that Narata will not be a competition to her. Risa has seen a glimpse of how Sarasa can influence those around her by simply being who she is and seems like she won’t make the same mistake twice.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

How often do we find ourselves in situations where we choose to withhold or lie about certain things to avoid conflicts or maintain the ‘quality’ and harmony of our relationships? I know I’ve done this many times, for fearing certain outcomes or simply because I rank a bit higher in agreeableness than I would like. I mention this because the case of Risa was interesting to watch. In her own awkward way she was trying to ground Sarasa, but because she was coming from a place of her own fears, she ended up sounding mean and as a result Sarasa cried. Once faced with the question “why would you say that?” Instead of actually presenting some realities such as “traditionally, the actresses who play Oscar need to be smaller than the male lead, Andre, so statistically speaking you have better chances of playing him than her,” she opts for mentioning the Sakura tree curse. We can see this as an act of kindness and her own way to make it up from the place she was coming from before–a place of hurt that had nothing to do with Sarasa. And I’m not here saying she’s right or wrong, I believe there’s pros and cons to both choices, I just thought it was interesting to think about that. If it were me I’d be more interested in hearing the truth, in Risa’s case it shook her resolve. But in all honesty? This probably wouldn’t change anything to Sarasa.

STAR QUALITY

Not only were we shown more of the backstage of Kouka and the hard work that is put into making the Theater productions a reality, we also got to see more of Sarasa’s past and her relationship with Kabuki. We have yet to understand what kind of role her grandmother played for certain, but it’s clear that she was deeply involved with the art. Through flashbacks we find out that at a young age sarasa was faced with a wall much taller than she could climb. “You will never play Sukeroku!” For those of you who don’t know–I also didn’t–Sukeroku is the name of the main character of its namesake play. This incredible piece is part of the Eighteen Great Plays of Kabuki (Kabuki Juhachiban). Although we catch glimpses of Sarasa performing in Kabuki plays as a child, I wonder if this is possible for female kids but not young girls? Last I knew Kabuki was all-male performers, which would explain her grandmother’s harsh remarks. No matter how talented, gifted or good, if you’re facing the gender barrier, it’s a big fat no.

Our spotlight ending felt like huge foreshadowing and extra fuel for Risa-neesama’s intuition. Ai is growing on me as a character and I can’t wait to meet the other girls better (just be honest, all you want is Hoshino). Oh yeah, and we got a ML? Maybe? A childhood friend and Kabuki actor, we’ll see. I wonder where the author will take his character as well as the suspicious stalker. 

This made my day.

Full-length images: 36.

ED Sequence

ED: 「星の旅人」 (Hoshi no Tabibito) by (Senbongi Sayaka & Hanamori Yumiri)