“Ao-chan Can’t Lead Virgins”
What They Say:
Kijima’s startling confession gives Ao-chan quite a shock… and the upper hand over Kijima, too. Mwa-ha-ha!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With Ao-chan seeing what’s happening between Miyabe and Kijima, that puts her in a really rough spot. It’s an amusing confession as it plays out, particularly with Miyabe giving him quite the kick to the shin, and I loved the reaction from Ao-chan as she watches from the street over. All with her father hanging onto the side of her jacket, which totally completes the visual. This is a strange little family to be sure and these kinds of little sight gags reaffirm that in a big way. The whole thing just drives Ao-chan nuts and I love that she times out the whole love hotel running time that she suspects they may have gotten all while wondering if they’re staying the night instead. Doing that from the baths herself all soaped up and thinking of the two of them naked is… conflicting messages?
Everything takes an amusing twist, however, when she ends up fading out from the warm water only to wake up in her bed to Kijima sitting next to her on the floor. You have to laugh at her father basically narrating it in a dirty way, but probably honestly so, but it leads the two of them to finally talk and for her to call him out for what she saw him do. Which, of course, wasn’t what actually happened so it’s standard miscommunication material. But the realization that he has here that Ao-chan may actually like him, contract to what Miyabi told him, is very fun. And seeing how he and Miyabi got booted out of the love hotel because they don’t serve high school kids was priceless. Surely there’s some that are less strict but it’s a good bit of humor to see all the misunderstandings revealed so quickly.
Getting Ao-chan and Kirijima out of the house and talking some definitely helps, though having them study together is a cute way to do it. He’s still intent on trying to clear things up with her but she’s back on her track about not wanting to get involved in any of this stuff completely and being forceful about it (and showing off a dreamy Ao-chan-as-teacher visual). But the reality is that the two are charming together and even something as simple as walking in the rain in the late evening is hauntingly beautiful here. The sound of the rain, the color design, the looks they exchange, it all harkens back to a lot of early anime experiences for me in something that doesn’t mostly overreact to the moment and just lets it all sink in even as Ao-chan does start to panic more and more as she understands what he’s after.
In Summary:
While the show as a whole makes some awkward moves along the way, this episode delivers a lot of very good material between our two leads. We can have all kinds of conversations about how to best approach things with what Kijima does, but the reality is that teenagers just aren’t always up on the best way to do things – and Ao-chan is someone that you get the sense needs a different approach in general from what may be considered the norm. I really liked watching her throughout this as Kijima makes things clearer while also simply loving the way everything worked out at the love hotel and how simple it all was. Add in some great dream-visuals throughout and it’s a very fun episode.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: HIDIVE
