Ramen Daisuki Fujiwara-san
What They Say:
“Ai Hayasaka Wants to Get Soaked / Chika Fujiwara Really Wants to Eat It / Miyuki Shirogane Wants to See You / I Can’t Hear the Fireworks, Part 1”
Half a month into their summer vacation, Kaguya spends her days moping around, unable to see Shirogane without the student council to throw them together. However, she does have plans to see a fireworks display with the other members of the student council toward the end of the break. Kaguya has never been able to make summer memories because of her strict upbringing as the daughter of the head of a financial conglomerate, so she is anticipating the day she can have fun with everyone. But the day before the event, Kaguya’s father suddenly summons her home to Kyoto…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After a mostly comedic story that had repercussions spreading across not only multiple vignettes but multiple full episodes, episode 10 of Kaguya-sama ended with the setup for an arc that could take up the final two full episodes of the series, the longest of the series, and bring some legitimate romantic development along with it. While everything in this episode is connected to that overarching storyline in one way or another, though, the first two vignettes are very much the standard Kaguya-sama fare that we could’ve seen at any point in the series, just with a link to the specific event in question.
This could’ve happened anytime, but the fact that Kaguya and Shirogane are apart for an extended period of time because of summer vacation is a good excuse for Hayasaka to inform Kaguya of the exciting cyber-stalking opportunity presented by following Shirogane’s Twitter account. This is another example of the adorably childish side of Kaguya we rarely see, combining both her love for Shirogane that she’s able to be much more openly vulnerable about when only Hayasaka is around and her incredible technological ineptitude. While it’s frustrating to have to deal with this in person, it’s entertaining to watch from a third-person perspective, with sitcom-level contrivances that can be accepted because of how comically exaggerated Kaguya’s character is throughout this piece in the first place. Hayasaka’s machinations are appreciated by the audience as the motivations match, but she is manipulative enough to deserve some amount of comeuppance, so it’s entirely appropriate that it’s due to her own plan that she ends up being constantly interrupted from her relaxation to serve as Kaguya’s IT support.
An interesting component of the summer vacation planning was the news that Chika would be absent from the group. This worked into some gags at the time, but for a long-term reason, I can only imagine the purpose was to ensure Kaguya and Shirogane can be alone at the end. After all, if we get any sort of tender moment between the two of them, that wouldn’t be the time for a signature Chika interruption. At any rate, it would be beyond tragic to leave Chika out of all of these summer vacation antics just because she has frankly much more interesting things to do with her family, and so she gets a starring role in part of the episode. Instead of following her and her sisters (who are surely worth learning more about) through fun adventures around the world, however, we take the perspective of a shell of a salaryman whose only fulfillment in life comes from appreciating the nuances of a subtly masterful bowl of ramen as a chance encounter with the enigma that is Chika changes his life. Similar to how Ishigami’s first appearances shifted the show to more of a horror genre, this becomes a very different kind of show, most reminiscent of a certain ramen-themed series from last year but also in the vein of the finer breed of food-centric anime. Naturally, this isn’t as inherently funny as much of the series, especially featuring Chika, but it nails the tone of the kind of show it pays homage to, with brilliantly directed panache and truly exhilarating music. It’s not what you’d expect this late in the game, but it accomplishes it goal well.
The final segment before the ED starts to move toward a more climactic direction, beginning to shed the comedic skin of the series to dig deeper into its emotional core. It’s a story of Kaguya and Shirogane’s mutual sense of longing that could be so easily overcome if they didn’t share the same debilitating level of pride. The level of dramatic irony is poetic and ultimately painful almost to the point of poignancy. The use of a near-identical shot to one in the ED may even imply a more hopeful resolution that makes the eventual outcome all the more severe.
If that’s all we got this episode, though, it would truly be an episode in which nothing happened, as implied by the opening narration. While that comes close to being true, this series is strong enough that, even in its first cour, it’s not going to let its penultimate episode end so anticlimactically. The true setup for the finale comes in a segment after the ED, which goes a step even further than its predecessor to drop all pretenses of comedy and dig into pure emotional turmoil from a girl who we may see as perfect but has in fact been suffering from a palpable sense of loneliness and distance with regard to those who should be her loved ones for her entire life. This introduces so much about Kaguya’s character that it really hurts to know there’s only one more episode, but with any luck, we’ll have an announcement for a second season soon.
In Summary:
The penultimate episode is an unassuming one for at least its first half, but while the first two segments merely deliver on the standard level of comedic excellent we’ve grown to expect from this series, the remainder is so much more. We’re treated to raw emotion from Shirogane and doubly from Kaguya that prove the skill of the series at being a serious drama as well, and it all builds up to a finale I’m very eagerly anticipating.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
LG Electronics OLED65C7P 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart OLED TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick
