Score: A

I might truly be all in on this one! This was a great second episode that threw some nice twists at me. But the episode also did a great job at handling the Alya and Kuze moments to near perfection. Even with Yuki getting quite the focus in this episode it never lost track of the main pair. It leaves me excited to see the next episode and where things are going with those two. If they can keep this up it will definitely be one of my personal hits of the summer season! Just one of those shows and episodes where it is easy to just write what’s on my mind!

Bring on the cute EDs!

Are they seriously going to have unique EDs for every episode!? Is this some crazy effort to spoil me with pure greatness every week!? There isn’t that much for me to say about this ED specifically. It was just a very cute ending. More opportunities to just see Alya looking super cute and providing some lovely music to go along with that. As if the episode didn’t highlight how cute Alya was anyways! There’s something comforting as well about seeing Alya be able to enjoy some relaxing sweets after nearly killing herself with that spicy food in the episode proper!

Great surprise here!

I’ve gotta start with the obvious here. Holy smokes they utterly got me with Yuki! Yuki being a troll was pretty easy to get a read on just in the first episode. But I absolutely didn’t see this coming! When she was just there when Kuze got home it took my brain a couple of seconds to kick into gear! Even though we saw/heard the text between these two in the first episode when Kuze’s leg/foot fetish was activated it still didn’t prepare me for this! It’s all the crazier when seeing her personality utterly flip when they are alone. The respectable student council member with a bit of a teasing streak turned into the over-the-top otaku younger sister that is totally into anime/manga incest!

Calling Yuki his childhood friend actually feels appropriate here. They truly have a vibe that is a mix of being siblings and just being close friends. They both seem to have similar tastes in their fiction too. No surprise that they are going out to see films together and getting some shopping in. And I’m not too surprised about Kuze helping Yuki with her run for student council back in middle school. Plenty of reasons to help a friend and sibling out for something like that. And probably easier for Yuki to do that kind of job while working alongside someone that has the complete picture of what kind of person she is.

I’m curious about the family situation

The interesting question coming out of this is why are their last names different and what’s up with hiding that they are siblings? The safest assumption is that there was a divorce at play here. Considering Yuki is his sister it is a bit strange for him to be surprised to see her at his home. That would imply that normally she stays somewhere else. If their parents split up and each took one sibling (as if they were fighting over toys) then it would click. Trouble at home would explain why they’d be happy to keep their relationship as that of childhood friends. No need to invite people looking at them with pity. But it’s also possible that at troll like Yuki loves the game of tricking everyone like that.

A bit of trauma here

I like what this episode revealed about Kuze as well. It’s not simply that he’s staying away from the student council because he’s lazy or doesn’t feel like helping out. You can clearly see that he’s not over something that almost certainly happened during that middle school election. He probably did a great job of building up his sister and getting her in a position to win. But one person winning means crushing someone else. It might even be that he ended up making the other side look bad somehow and that further left him uncomfortable. I wouldn’t be shocked if Yuki actually wants to pull him back into this (ideally as her running mate) to help him get over it to some degree. Seems a given that he’ll step back into that ring to support Alya though.

The face of regret!

But let’s get back to the dazzling Alya for a bit! I do feel for her in this episode. She has no idea of course about what is going on between Kuze and Yuki. It’s not a surprise that she sees this girl as a serious rival and that’s only more an intense feeling after all the teasing here. Yuki really leaned in hard with the comments about ending up in Kuze’s bed and wearing his shirt! What else is Alya really supposed to think? Honestly, I hope that the sibling thing is revealed to her sooner than later since otherwise it makes Yuki feel almost overwhelming.

But I think the worst of the teasing she took was during the meal. The girl was able to handle moderate amounts of spicy, but there was no way even the mildest dish on that menu would be to her taste. But with Yuki goading her so much…Alya walked right into it!

Critical hit!

At least it wasn’t all bad though! She did get a brief shopping date with Kuze. And thankfully she got to ease her poor taste buds with some ice cream! It was pretty cute that she went all in with the triple stack as well. But the absolute best part was the scene of her trying out outfits. It had a serious side with the nod of Alya not appearing to have a lot of friends that she can do this sort of thing with. And of course, there’s only one guy out there that she’d want to show off like this for!

The first outfit was the highlight for me. The reactions from both sides was truly perfect. With this sort of thing there’s a variety of ways to have it play out, but this was the ideal. Alya was caught up in being worried that Kuze just wouldn’t care, so she was hit hard by some legitimate praise! But they avoided making it just about Alya’s response by having Kuze mirror her to a degree. Both of them were down on the ground just shaken by the whole thing! Giving honest compliments to a girl as lovely as Alya isn’t that easy and there’s a certain degree of embarrassment implicit in that situation! He was struggling and she was just smacking the ground from how good it felt to have him compliment her like that! This followed up by the fashion show after was truly a win/win.

I give full praise to this episode!

This episode was both a great feel-good episode and also had some great twists. Yuki completely caught me by surprise and it honestly makes her an even better character. It also sets up an interesting student council battle at some point between Alya and Yuki. But it won’t just be about them. Kuze’s got his own struggles regarding this sort of thing so if he does honestly step in to support Alya then it will be because he’s choosing to face all of that. I’m sure Yuki would have fun with that situation regardless. This episode made a strong case to add this to my coverage for the season!