Another episode featuring the arrogant rookie VA… the walking fountain of memefaces… Karasuma Chitose! Is the anime that’s been on shaky ground from the very start beginning to fall apart already? (Spoilers in this review)
Well, not quite yet. Despite the focus on the key visuals (which are basically the anime studio’s character designs) during the last few minutes of episode two, the majority of this episode centered around the voice actor and the voice actresses.
There were, however, a few scenes demonstrating the meekness of the light novel’s author. Since he has so much trouble speaking up, his opinions keep getting ignored which guarantees the anime to diverge from the original source material. This is definitely going to be a ticking time bomb that will explode further down the road. The impending trainwreck will not be stopped!
We get to see Chitose’s voice acting skills, or the lack thereof, firsthand this episode, too. However, she finally realizes that she sucks, so she gets off her high horse and begs Momoka for some advice.
Following Momoka’s advice, Chitose watches other anime shows with similiar character archetypes in order to learn how to imitate the voice actresses’ voices. She improves greatly compared to how she was before, but I want to bring up three things that caught my attention.
Firstly, as she was begging Momoka, Chitose mentioned Momoka’s mother as being very talented. There’s a shot of Momoka’s face at that point, which leads me to believe that she didn’t like hearing that.
Perhaps it’s because everyone kisses up to her while praising her mother so she’s tired of hearing it. Maybe she actually considers Chitose to be a friend and found it unpleasant to hear her say the same things as everyone else. Personally, I think Momoka may have a bit of an inferiority complex towards good ol’ Mom. This remains to be determined.
Secondly, Gojou notes that Chitose is only mimicking others and that her actual performance is dull. It’s also revealed that he actually knows what he talks about. Are you going to be okay just following generic character templates over and over, Chitose?
While Kazuha acknowledges that Chitose has improved, she claims, just like Gojou, that her performance is dull. To her, a professional must act in a certain way and has standards that must be reached. With such an inflexible mindset, I suppose she comes across as stuck-up.
However, Momoka mutters that Chitose’s performance, while dull, is fine since she managed to give the people what they want to hear. In other words, Momoka puts the preferences of the viewers (and the recording staff) as a priority; she caters to the audience first and foremost.
If I were to hazard a guess, Momoka probably feels like she can’t live up to her mom’s talent, so she just gives what the audience wants and claims that’s what a professional should do. She’s scared to go against the wave and try her hardest since it’ll become very apparent she can’t measure up to her mother. In that sense, Kazuha is more like Momoka’s mother compared to Momoka. Of course, this is all speculation. We shall see later.
Next week’s episode is titled, “イケイケ千歳とゆかいな仲間たち.” I ain’t going to try to bungle the translation for this one, either. See you next week!
The Lily Garden 