No one in their right mind wears a waist pack on their waist!
What They Say:
“Kei Shirogane Wants to Show Off / About Kaguya Shinomiya, Part 2 / Kaguya Wants to Confess”
Kaguya learns about the romantic legend that giving a heart-shaped gift at the Culture Festival brings eternal love. She wonders if there is a way she can give Shirogane a heart-shaped gift without getting caught. But her plans are full of errors, and she panics. She becomes sick of herself as a cowardly person who can only come up with negative ideas. There, Shirogane, exhausted from preparing for the Culture Festival, shows up. As Kaguya sees Shirogane doing his best for everyone as the student council president, she…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Preparations for the Culture Festival press on, and Shirogane wishes to conduct some field research at the middle school division’s own festival. Since his little sister Kei will be participating, he naturally asks what she’ll be doing and if she wouldn’t mind him stopping by to check it out. Kei isn’t about to let her brother show up in character as the Shuchiin Academy Student Council President, so this calls for a wardrobe change, and for someone like Miyuki Shirogane, that means a full makeover.
Between Shirogane’s commitment to his position as president and his natural obliviousness toward social trends, this is a great opportunity to show off just how unfashionable Shirogane can be when left to his own devices. Kei’s immediate reaction that her brother is dressing like an eight grader (the same “second year” from “chuunibyou”) is not only accurate in that he literally bought these clothes when he was in eighth grade but also speaks to my own experiences in eighth grade fashion. Back then, this would’ve been the classic Hot Topic look, though by some strange twist of irony, Hot Topic clothing is mostly anime merchandise at this point. Regardless, some of these stylistic choices are timeless and universal in their simultaneous popularity and cringiness. An actual anime character being so embarrassingly anime makes it even better. It’s even set to a piece of music that is… definitely “Blue Monday,” right?
Now that we’ve gotten to know Papa Shirogane as such a bizarrely comedic character, it would be disappointing to have an episode at the Shirogane household lacking him, so the bit really comes full circle when he arrives with impossibly precise relevance. He offers his son his most prized possession with great sincerity, but it is of course all in service of undercutting that sincerity for more jokes at the expense of the Shirogane men. The message for Miyuki to reach for the moon does have a nice bit of subtle significance due to Kaguya’s moon motif, though. Surely the elder Shirogane had this in mind.
Speaking of Kaguya, her own preparations for the Culture Festival gives her a taste of a school-specific urban legend that she immediately dismisses until she realizes just how romantic it can be, at which point she is utterly taken by it despite its inherent absurdity. She tries to find loopholes to allow her to present Shirogane with a heart shape without being found out, as if this legend followed such laws of nature that this technicality would achieve the desired results. It’s a scene very much in line with the sillier Kaguya we’ve gotten to know as of late, and it’s a highly enjoyable display of mental gymnastics.
While Kaguya initially treats this dilemma like any other struggle to deny her feelings in some way, this is ultimately the scenario that finally brings her to the point of admitting them, if only to Hayasaka. Still, as honest as they are with each other, with Hayasaka being highly aware of exactly what all of Kaguya’s thinly veiled requests have meant, finally saying this out loud is a major step. In a particularly hilarious moment for the narrator, Kaguya denies the entire premise of the series, which the narrator takes offense to on principle. Kaguya is, in theory, ready to confess if Shirogane doesn’t, just as Shirogane has made the same declaration for the Culture Festival. That both would come to the same decision with the same deadline, after all this time doing anything to avoid confessing for the sake of their mutually fallacious pride, is a beautiful reminder of how in sync the two of them have always been.
So now, as the title says, Kaguya wants to confess. It’s a big moment for her, just as it is for Shirogane. This arc that we’ve been leading up to seems like it should be incredibly climactic no matter what happens. The series certainly wants us to think that, especially as it declares the official beginning of the arc proper. Still, with the manga ongoing well past this point, it’s hard to imagine that this development could go through and have the series remain itself. Perhaps we’ll get some copout – after all, Kaguya herself finds excuses to cower away from her own claims minutes after making them – but hopefully it won’t be completely underwhelming at the very least.
There’s plenty else to love throughout the episode. The moon theme is prevalent more than ever, especially in the serious moments featuring Kaguya at night. These show directorial attention to detail that serve as a trademark to the show’s success and effectiveness. There are also even more interesting references than the “Blue Monday” cameo, including a similar use of a slightly modified “Zenzenzense” from Your Name. The funniest to me was easily the very direct allusion to The Shawshank Redemption to show Ishigami being freed from the prison he imagined himself trapped in.
In Summary:
The Culture Festival proves to be a major turning point in the series, so much so that just the leadup has been a huge arc in its own right. While the laughs continue without fail, there are much more serious developments brewing not far behind. Both protagonists now claim to be ready to confess their feelings, so how will the series navigate what would seemingly destroy its own purpose? It may not turn out as promised, but I’m very excited to see where things go from here.
Grade: A
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
