Well this episode takes a break from life or death battles and puts Narukami into a temporary relationship that probably was more frightening to him. Poor guy gets pushed into the basketball club and then ends up becoming Ai’s temporary boyfriend. While the poor guy does get pushed around he does gain some important bonds from them. And from what we’ve seen from the dangers the characters have faced he is going to need those bonds. The more power he can get the better this group will be.

My god that was hilarious, they actually used the ‘Game Over’ music from Catherine (game made by the Persona team) as Yu’s ringtone when Ai called. Probably wouldn’t know just how hilarious it is if you haven’t played that game though. Once again the little touches from this series just leave me smiling.

Man that Yosuke is great for causing havoc. He read pretty deep into Chie’s complaints about the situation surrounding Ai and Yu and thus made it even more tense. Bringing the girl who is the crush of the guy who Ai is crushing on into the scene is not a great plan. Gives Yuu even more stress than just keeping up this boyfriend thing with Ai.

And it all comes together with the slap fest. Bit worried at the start for Ai since Chie is in good shape. Though guess if she doesn’t kick her it’s fine. They definitely got into it, though feel for Chie since she really doesn’t know why she was walking into such a bad situation. For now it was about sticking up for her friend, though never know where things might go later.

But wow Yu really just takes care of the Moon arcana within an episode. Suppose they have no choice but to have that kind of thing be rushed since there are a lot of arcanas. It was interesting seeing how they handled Ai here. Really it was mostly the same just condensed and some minor cuts. Nothing critical that I can remember, just some extra background on Ai’s family. She was pretty likable in this version though maybe felt a bit unstable. The calendar did show how this took place over several days. Can have a bad first impression with not caring much about the club (episode didn’t really go into how she was forced into it because she skipped classes so much) and made Narukami skip, but a good person deep down.

Ai worked as hard as she could to change from that heavier person that everyone made fun of thinking she’d be loved if she did so. Instead she went so far that it lead to a reputation of being a loose girl that slept around. Though obviously just a girl looking for love. Whether it will work out with Ichijo is hard to say, the guy definitely likes Chie. Still if she puts her full effort into being a manager maybe it will work out. Or maybe she’ll find someone else, who knows. But wow she just ran poor Yu ragged. Hopefully this doesn’t traumatize him from actually going out with someone…wait would they actually do that? Anyways I enjoyed her focus in the episode.

Ichijo is a pretty good guy though his club is hopeless. Barely anyone attends and really they aren’t motivated. Maybe Ai being around more will help, but if she takes the job seriously they’ll probably get tired of being there. Get a peek at his family situation and some of the pressures he has. Don’t think they are done with him yet though. While with Ai it felt like a conclusion it didn’t give that impression with Ichijo. Will have to see if they go back to him since they’d be cutting way too much if that was it.

Anyways all this craziness was good to break off from all the battles we’ve seen the characters in. Yukiko needed time to rest after spending quite some time in the TV. A bit too bad that they cut the whole guys eating the girl’s food bits since it was funny. Just used that scene after the ED to show how Yukiko is joining up with the others to figure out who is behind all this.

Also thought it was nice that we saw a bit of Nanako, Dojima, and Adachi. All that time in the TV and kind of lose focus that Dojima is Yu’s guardian right now. Tied in as well is some proof that the police aren’t on the right track. If they are still focusing on Yukiko being suspicious then it’s not a good sign.

Good episode overall. Narukami just keeps powering up his diligence with those paper cranes. Also good that his expression went up a bit. Now that Narukami has powered up they can focus back on the investigation. Someone pushed the two victims into that TV world after all and Yukiko nearly suffered a similar fate. They’ve got to figure out the truth here.
Score: A