Rating: B+
After four episodes focusing primarily on Ruby, the series finally remembers that Kana is a core part of the cast rather than just a bit player and gives her some love. Almost too much of it, in fact, and plenty enough to set up the franchise’s next major crisis.
Kana is, understandably, at an emotional low point. Though she’s being successful as part of B Komachi, she’s fully aware that being an idol is more her current role than her nature, and like MEM-cho, she’s now being thoroughly outshone by Ruby despite being the group’s center. She much more desperately wants to be an actor, but her B Komachi and Tokyo Blade successes have not panned out into more acting roles. She also still can’t get over Aqua or the distance he’s keeping from her, and now she think he hates her, too, after misunderstanding what was going on during their encounter in the rain. That’s left her desperate and, thus, vulnerable.
That’s not to say that Kana is entirely unaware of the risky situation she’s putting herself in with this director. She’s been around in the business plenty long enough to have seen and heard things, and so she’s fully aware of all the red flags she’s seeing in this scenario even if she plays it off. Her problem is that she’s her own worst enemy here. The director, while being a bit pushy, isn’t actually forcing anything here. He offered her drinks but didn’t actually try to get her drunk and gives her the option to decline. (Cynically, this could certainly be his way to cover his rear against any potential accusations that he took advantage of her, or it could just be that he’s only partial scum instead of complete scum.) Kana is thus left in the position to decide on the spot how far she’s willing to go to get more acting work. Ironically, it’s ultimately Aqua (or at least the Aqua still firmly lodged in her head) who keeps her from agreeing to something that she almost surely would have regretted later. And, somewhat surprisingly, the director’s actually a decent guy about it. He clearly wanted to get Kana in bed, but he may have also been genuine about wanting to use her as an actor, too.
The problem here is that Kana only defended herself against one part of the pitfall before her. While she did take precautions going into the director’s office (the hat and glasses are hardly a foolproof disguise but should deflect at least casual looks), she didn’t coming out, and that leaves her more vulnerable to a paparazzi who’s just a bit too conveniently waiting for her outside. Frankly, it very much looks like Mako, the actress Kana had gone out to meet, deliberately set her up, too. Why Mako would do this isn’t even hinted at, but she clearly pushed Kana into connecting up with a director with a certain reputation, then deliberately isolated Kana with him. Kana’s cooked, and even (truthfully) asserting that nothing happened isn’t going to be convincing. Perhaps next episode will get into Mako’s motive, but I’m not holding my breath; the series has thrown in things without much explanation before (see the final scene of s2).
That’s not the only big thing going on this episode. At the end of last episode, Akane identified Aqua’s probable father, and now she’s determined to do whatever’s necessary to keep him and Aqua from meeting. Very curious to see how far that goes, especially considering that she didn’t seem to be joking or exaggerating last season when she told Aqua that she’d help him kill someone if that’s what it took. The possibility of B Komachi getting a fourth member has also now arisen, and this episode’s installment of “Behind the Scenes in the Entertainment Industry” involves how agencies for idols handle their idols’ social media accounts. There are also some neat little artistic touches, too, like the bags under Kana’s eyes as she leaves at the end of the episode, and we can see that Ruby hasn’t entirely abandoned her ditzy, immature side on the path to becoming an evil mastermind. But all of that’s just a prelude to the bomb that will assuredly drop next episode.
USA Anime 