Yura we still love you don’t go towards the light.

Man, growing up can really, really suck. Kinda funny to me that the season with Watamote secretly also contains an actually vivid, empathetic, and development-friendly articulation of crippling social anxiety. Hopefully C3 will get their heads out of their asses and sacrifice a little bit for her sake – they’re all very stable people, and Yura needs to know it’s okay to figure out who she is. Man, I feel for this poor kid. Didn’t think moesoft would ever amount to much, but it’s really built itself into something worthwhile. Let’s see where it goes.

please be nice to Yura C3-bu life is hard let’s just be nice to each other

Episode 11

0:05 – Echoing the first fight . Fuck I just know this episode is gonna be sad

1:38 – Man, this OP’s such a tease. The show would definitely have lost my interest if it had played its cards straight, and been a sports show ending with a climactic battle with Sonora’s old rival. But no, it had to go and become a mean little psychological drama. Nice work, C3-bu, ya really had me going there

2:58 – Fun times with the C3 club 

3:32 – That’s right.  Goddamn C3 gave away the golden goose 

4:14 – You oughta be ashamed of yourself, Yura. Making Rento come to a place like this 

4:20 – I guess this is the airsoft equivalent of a descent into alcoholism.  Actually completely in love with how they’re using the “washed-up ace is brought back for one last big game” trope here

4:29 – Yep.  The “what have you been doing with yourself” moment

4:44 – Jesus, Yura, you’re a wreck 

5:05 – Is there no goodness left in you, Yura? 

5:55 – You mustn’t run away, Yura 

It’s good that it’s Rento here. They never really developed the rest of the squad, and Sonora has frankly never been a particularly sensitive person (in fact, she’s probably responsible for a good bit of Yura’s current damage), but Rento is both more sensitive and has had more scenes of development

7:01 – Yeah, strike that.  Again, these are teenagers, none of them are experts in emotional sensitivity

10:16 – That’s a funny way of saying you savagely belittled an emotionally fragile teenage girl 

11:42 – That’s the stuff.  This show’s use of Rin ended up being much less obvious than I’d expected. But I guess that’s to be expected, considering I figured it would be a GuP “moe show no wait it’s secretly a sports show” clone, and instead ended up being a “moe show no wait secretly it’s a sports show no wait secretly it’s a character drama”

12:41 – I knew she was more sensitive than the rest of them! 

13:44 – Wow, this conversation’s being all kinds of emotionally insightful.  Feels kinda weird to be praising this show this much, but it’s really just killing it at the moment

14:58 – Alright, so the classic move here  would be to have Yura wrestle with her demons, show up unexpectedly, end up beating Sonora to keep her in Japan, and then have a sobbie time coming to terms with the fact that Sonora has to leave either way. Let’s see how they actually play it

15:44 – Hm 

16:35 – You’re beautiful, Joyce. It’s the world that’s ugly 

Jeez, THAT one’s obscure…

17:42 – This is some really satisfying television you guys.  This show has come together so nicely

18:19 – BADUM 

Kinda frustrating that this is a late-night television show, because man, this is some really poignant stuff for the right audience. Well, good work is good work regardless

19:37 – And all I had to do was wait six more episodes 

22:05 – NOT SO FAST 

And Done

Man, another extremely satisfying episode. It’s probably going to play out in classic fashion from here forward, but it’s been extremely and surprisingly sensitive along the way. Turns out all you need to rise above a sports genre shell is a character who’s really, really screwed up! Or just a strong character focus in general, I guess – the Adachischool of sports writing. This show kinda blindsided me in the last act, but I’m certainly not complaining. Bring on the final stretch.