Ibuki only got screentime during the second half of the episode, but I found the chat between her and the Kazuma at the end of the episode to be extremely well done. This made for one of the better episodes of this anime because of it.
I'll start more chronologically with the events, though. The little brother has friends of his own? IMPOSSIBLE!! Harem characters are not to allowed to hang around with anyone but the harem. One thing I noticed, though, was that the clothing hasn't changed from the last episode. When all of the girls arrived, they were wearing the same thing that they were wearing in this episode. Generally, you would wanna take every chance you get to impress your harem leader by changing clothes. The only person that had any change was his best friend, Daigo, and it wasn't even a big change, just from black to white.
I don't know how DDR is played in other places around the world, but it surely doesn't "light up" when you need to step on it. When you step on it, it lights up. Also, watching the screen, both girls step on the arrows at the wrong time. Kasane somehow is able to play on both of them at once, which was pretty WTF too. I wouldn't want her teaching me how to play DDR; you're quite clearly doing it wrong.
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| Oh, Ibuki, even you see how amazing the little brother is. |
Finally, it was the big archery meet with another character that finally changed outfits. It makes me think this set is their only out-of-school-uniform outfit. You would think that they would have more of a wardrobe... I guess coming up with a second design of clothes was too difficult and costly; it makes me very sad.
Onto the heartwarming speech with Ibuki. I don't read/watch any sports anime so I'm not sure how often something like this is done. With a sport like archery, much like many other sports, your mental game is probably more important than your actual skill. I only know 'cause I've experienced it, too; having everyone staring at you puts you under extreme pressure. I, like many others, cracked under this immense pressure and lost because of it. It is very common when you are inexperienced with the tournament setting. I just found that watching her lose the match because she wasn't ready for the pressure much more realistic. It really does hit like a truck, knowing that you lost not because of your skill but because of pressure. It's more of something I can relate to. It takes a bit of experience and practice before you can get passed this giant hurdle
It was a very fun episode, like always. Kazuma went around interacting with each character for a minute or two, so they all got screen time. At least he treated his harem equally. I still eagerly await the climax of who he might end up picking, although I am pretty sure at this point that it will be none of them. The climax will probably revolve around resolving Madoka's past. It will be a beach episode next week, which is really obligatory in every visual novel anime.
~Pearz
