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The unavoidable Cultural Festival has arrived, along with the usual gimmicks and relationship issues, not to mention some letdowns in the cat-suit department.
I'm pretty adamant in saying that it was probably a mistake to cast Matsuoka as Kirito in Sword Art Online, because his performance there was pretty lackluster, whereas his role as Sorata is much more satisfying. He may not be a particularly awe-inspiring seiyuu, but his quick and seamless transitions into tsukkomi mode are a huge reason for why Sakurasou's humor works as well as it does. His banter with Mashiro is always fun to watch, but it's moments like his "kyaaa!" at her being naked beneath the cat suit and the resulting argument about panties ("I believe in panties") that really make you laugh, even if it's tried material in this type of series. It's all in the delivery, and Matsuoka gets it right as Sorata far more often than he delivers as Kirito.
Cultural Festivals are an inevitable event in romantic comedies, regardless of shoujo or shounen affiliations, and I had no illusions about what the bulk of this episode would consist of. The mad dash to finish Nyaboron aside, we got the maid outfits for Nanami and Ryuunosuke (who interestingly prefers crossdressing to dealing with Rita terrorizing his room), the cat-suit for Mashiro (though refreshingly cute instead of the sexy Sorata was expecting), the cafe (albeit a rather whimsical one without a real sense of purpose), and some heartbreak (?) for the Jin-Misaki relationship, as well as some realization of Sorata's feelings for Mashiro.
It's during the final touchups for Nyaboron that Sorata overhears a conversation Rita is having over the phone with Mashiro's father, and it seems she's still adamant in returning Mashiro to England where "there are people waiting for her." Lost in his own feelings about the matter, Sorata begins to realize that he doesn't want Mashiro to leave after all, but he's unsure how to approach the matter. What snaps him into action is the introduction of Misaki's older sister, Fuuka-chan, into the Jin-Misaki problem, and she's certainly not there to help matters, as she's Jin's ex-girlfriend and the closest replacement for Misaki he could get. Instead of getting depressed, Misaki is happy to find out that Jin isn't in love with Fuuka and won't be getting back together with her, and she's not bothered a bit by the fact that Jin is moving to Osaka for college. "I want to make the best memories," she runs off saying, but Sorata isn't satisfied with just memories, and he comes up with a vehicle for his confession in as outlandish a manner as possible.
He proposes a modification to the Nyaboron program, where the audience must shout out what's on their minds and utilize the "power of love" in order to win the game. This is convenient for his purposes, of course, but honestly the entire Nyaboron project is too convenient; Sorata should realistically fail at being a director for such a complicated game, but instead we see him doing an admirable job despite it being his first such project. Regardless, the stage is set for a confession, and if the series does go in that direction, it seems the second cour of Sakurasou may just be one of those rare series where the focus is on the couple rather than on the declaration of love.
With Nyaboron finally finished, the dorm-mates are all off to get some well deserved rest (I would be too panicked to sleep at this point; what if I overslept?!), but Mashiro texts Sorata ("aitai" or "I want to see you", one of my favorite Japanese expressions, best delivery of which Eureka Seven episode 25 is responsible, just saying) and asks to stay with him until she falls asleep. We've seen plenty of Mashiro's provocative comments fall short though, and I have little expectations for this one being more than her actually sleeping rather than the innuendo, but she can be pretty blunt (as in episode 2), so that possibility is still there.
It will be interesting to see where this goes next week, or rather what that indicates about the second cour, because I think this series has good potential to try and break out of the box it's currently in, even though it's only been half-trying as of yet.
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