Even Rin can’t stand how extreme Yura has become.
What They Say:
Racing heartbeat and expanding fantasies… After being accepted to her dream school, Stella Girls’ Academy, Yamato Yura is excited to begin her high school life. “Maybe, at this school, I can change!” Then, when she lies down to rest after moving into her dorm, her hopes still high… she finds a Desert Eagle under her pillow! High school girls?! The C³ Club?! A survival game?! A new youth survival story is about to begin!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
In case you thought the previous episode was showing any progress for Yura, this one will be sure to slap that illusion out of your mind. As suddenly as that episode began with her realizing her decision to cheat in the tournament was the wrong one, this one begins with her becoming a member of Rin’s team, which none of the other characters were aware of.
And here we go again. This episode is really about the same thing that the past few have been about, but with a bit of a mirror view. In her attempts to become like Sono-chan, which obviously failed monumentally, Yura has discarded any pretense of trying to take down Rin and instead decided that her new goal is to in fact become the same as the one she considered her greatest enemy immediately before these events. And so what this episode really shows us is not anything about Yura per se (arguably that nothing remains of the sense of loyalty she may have once possessed, but not much else), but about Rin; she does place her own set of principles above victory, and is willing to sacrifice a potential victory in order to teach her newest recruit the lessons she needs to learn. That’s right; with as much as their paths have diverged following the events of their past together, Rin and Sono-chan still aren’t all that different from each other.
So what, Rin is a good person after all? Then who does that leave as our villain? Well obviously a show like this shouldn’t really have a “villain” in the sense that Rin was being painted as, especially in Yura’s mind prior to her lines blurring to the point of losing all morals, and the fact that it’s given a sense of that for much of its run is another example of this show acting a little too grandiose for a story of high school kids playing games with toy guns. But if there is a villain left, then it’s surely Yura, and if there’s one contribution this episode can make to that fact other than just adding another stage to her downward spiral, it’s that, in Yura’s mind Rin really was a villain, and yet she was perfectly fine with joining her anyway. It’s a classic trope of a hero joining the enemy to gain strength, and while again not grounded in realism enough in this case, works as a bit of a cautionary tale for more reality-based stories. But of course this show always makes sure to show us that the perception our “hero” has is always wildly warped, and not only is that “villain” not all that much of a villain at all, but she once again fails to emulate why her methods work for her, leaving her even more hopeless than when she tried the same with Sono-chan.
In Summary:
Yura just keeps getting worse and worse. She starts this episode off by joining Rin’s team without telling any of her former teammates, and she only continues to get worse over the course of the episode. If there’s any hope for her, it sure isn’t coming until the last second. In her attempt to obtain at least approval and ideally praise, she continues to try to copy those around her, and even though Rin was always the cold character that embodied the opposite of Sono-chan, she still has her principles, and is just as ready to dismiss Yura for not seeing out her own tunnel vision. It’s unpleasant to watch, it’s overplayed, and I really hope her redemption isn’t too sudden.
Grade: C
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Toshiba Satellite L655-S5191 PSK2CU-1C301U Notebook PC.