With only 6 more episodes to go, we’ve reached the halfway point! In a nutshell, this episode was about character designs, weekend activities, and sleepovers.
The episode opens with Yagami giving Aoba a new assignment. Aoba’s moved up from designing NPCs to designing characters! It turns out Yun and Hajime also had to design characters last year, but it was treated as a company-wide contest.
After the OP plays, Aoba is shown struggling with this new assignment.
When Yagami comes to check up on Aoba, the newbie has resorted to using the almighty search engine!
Aoba then asks if Yagami also had to participate in a character design contest. Yagami reveals that she became the main character design of Fairies Story through winning such a contest.
When Rin chimes in by saying that their senpai bullied Yagami out of envy, Aoba confesses that she, too, would feel bitter if she had to watch a new hire demonstrate her superior talent. Yagami convinces Aoba that such feelings just mean that Aoba loves her job.
After Aoba tries to downplay the significance of her own NPC models, Yagami has Aoba see said models within the game server. Yagami then claims this is a group effort and everyone needs to work together to produce a wonderful game, which cheers Aoba up.
The scene then jumps to Aoba finishing and showing her character design to Yagami. Aoba finally realizes that the character, Sophia, is intentionally meant to resemble Aoba herself.
The next scene shows how the office ladies spend their weekends. Hajime is showing enjoying a kamen rider hero live performance show (think Power Rangers, I guess).
Yun is playing on her portable gaming device until her younger brother and sister start crying. Once she promises to take them to a nice place if they stop crying, the two siblings immediately oblige.
Rin stops by Yagami’s place and makes her food. What a great housewife!
Meanwhile, Aoba and her childhood friend, Nene, go to the movies in order to watch Magical Girl Moon Ranger. Right away we’re shown that Nene is rather childish, as seen by her high pitched voice (which we knew from her phone calls with Aoba), her desire for toys (the movie staff were handing out free stuff), and her lack of foresight (banana caramel popcorn just sounds disgustingly sweet, Nene! You should have known better).
But Nene is also a good friend since she felt bad that Aoba had to pay more for her ticket since Aoba is now a working adult instead of a student. Amusingly, the two childhood friends are both older than they look.
After the movie, Aoba confesses that the film was rather good. A bit of dramatic irony occurs when it’s revealed that her co-workers, Hajime and Yun, were also in that same movie theater watching Moon Ranger.
The next scene jumps back to the office. After Yagami tells Aoba to make Sophia flashier than normal NPCs, she and Rin run off to attend a meeting. Aoba, Hajime, and Yun try to imagine what a meeting between the team leads and the directors would be like. When Hifumi is asked to play along, she gives the play-pretend a realistic twist by claiming the character design team is behind schedule.
To everyone’s surprise, the actual meeting had the attendees arriving at that exact conclusion. The character design team is in a pinch! Consequently, Aoba decides to work overnight and work during the weekend. The girl gets really fired up over bringing a new sleeping bag and a chance of clothes. Aoba’s too cute!
After Aoba dresses down to more comfortable clothes, Yagami is quick to play with the young maiden’s heart.
After 4 hours of work, Aoba decides to sleep. As such, she pulls out her (huge) bear sleeping bag. However, she can’t fall asleep with Yun’s and Hajime’s figures staring at her, so Aoba decides to ask Yagami about other potential sleeping locations.
After Yagami says Aoba can choose between sleeping with her or sleeping in the meeting room, Aoba chooses the weaker option and heads off to the meeting room. What a shame.
The next episode is called, “Please Treat the New Hires Properly.” See you next week!
The Lily Garden 