Score: A-

This episode packed plenty of good moments into it. They of course had to wrap up the karaoke stuff and that was fine. But they managed to nicely fit in Marin getting sick and moving into the next cosplay event. A tidy bit of work that both further developed Marin/Gojou as a pair and introduced a new supporting character. I can’t complain about all the good moments we got in this episode. Even if it does feel like the road is a long one for Gojou to respect himself enough to start considering dating Marin.

Never lacking expressiveness

Full credit to Hina Suguta for some masterful voice acting. There’s always a challenge in making someone sound sick in a way that doesn’t sound too awful, but they nailed it here. Marin sounded sick and miserable. And that led nicely to the small breakdown by her. Marin is a character that is full of energy, passion, and is pretty straight on with her feelings. Minus the issues she has expressing her honest love for Gojou. So it fits that she’d honestly have a cry and express how miserable she’d been. Gojou’s panicked frenzy was fitting since it worked here. Marin didn’t have food, the proper medication, or anyone to help her. So she just suffered in her bed for all that time until Gojou left school early to help.

It’s moments like that which make these two an endearing couple. Gojou may have a hard time giving himself credit, but he’s there when Marin needs him. Her friends did show up after school. But him being there hours earlier (and with more useful stuff) made a huge difference. The sad thing is that Marin didn’t feel his panic over needing to hide either. She maybe hasn’t worked up the nerve to confess openly, but she has no issues with them being seen together. I suppose one of the amusing parts of all this is that no one seems to have any issue with it…besides Gojou. Her friends would have perhaps found it sweet that he did leave early to take care of her, but he wouldn’t have been openly mocked over it.

Nice guy

Amane is perhaps our cosplay side character of this season and seems fine. He’s not Juju, but that’s life for you. What he does do is continue the show’s nice efforts to steadily dip the audience into that cosplay world. There are elements of cosplay that Amane can show off that other characters can’t. I could probably google how cosplayers without large breasts handle that issue, but the next episode will undoubtedly explain it. And Amane does provide a nice look at the other side of the fence. We saw last season a girl cosplaying as a guy and this season we see the opposite. Some people just fit characters of the opposite gender better or simply like those characters and want to make it work. Naturally the only thing that had Gojou’s brain frazzled was what the heck Amane needed a glue stick for! Explanation made sense.

The magic of Gojou’s expressions!

This was just a really nice episode. There’s not that much I actually want to say about this one, but it had me smiling. The Marin and Gojou ship remains super cute. It’s just held up by Gojou’s personal struggles. But that will get resolved in time. This show is just a comfortable one with some really nice main characters. The more visual elements may get a lot of discussion, but it’s the core of the story that keeps people watching. Can’t wait to see what Gojou and Marin get into as this season rolls along.