Girlish Number Episode 9 Review – “Uneasy Chitose and the Scampering Rookie”

Now that Momoka and Kazuha have gotten over their respective hurdles and hang-ups as voice actresses, how will the story progress from here on?

(Spoilers in this review)

Before I continue with this episode review, I have to mention that my screenshots went back to being 1200 x whatever and I’m not really feeling going into every image and desizing each pic to 500 x whatever tonight. I’m sorry if the images take forever to load.

To be honest, Girlish Number had no choice but to return to revolving around Chitose. Yae and Koto are working hard and their lives are going places. But Chitose? She’s standing stock still.

By now, readers are probably tired of hearing my frustrated complaints about Chitose taking one step forwards and one step backwards. Her career is in jeopardy so there’s no time for her to remain as a static character, etc. If only something big would happen to wake her up and make her face reality, I would repeatedly lament.

Well, I do believe the wake-up call has arrived under the guise of a newcomer voice actress. It’s not like the newbie is trying to steal her job; she’s just an enthusiastic voice actress. However, her passion is what stirs everyone else to try hard and what pushes Kazuha to try to talk some sense into Chitose. “A VA now has debuted after you, so you’re a professional now. Try to live up to expectations and work harder,” is basically what Kazuha says.

However, this alone doesn’t faze Chitose. In her mind, she’s on top of the voice actress world…despite being a female lead in a series that didn’t sell all that well. But everything’s fine since she has one role and she has Gojo-kun.

But what if she doesn’t have Gojo-kun anymore?

The company has decided to assign Gojo-kun to the newcomer while Chitose gets a different manager altogether. This has been the biggest blow to Chitose thus far in this series by a long shot. It only makes sense because she’s lost her support (who has been trying to get her to try hard by criticizing her without mercy, but still) and her role model. The details remain vague, but I’m under the impression that Chitose decided to become a voice actress because her brother was a former actor.

In any case, Chitose gets frustrated and lashes out at Gojo-kun by saying it’s possible she’ll quit being a voice actress after securing one lead role, which would be just like him. It’s a touchy subject for the both of them and they part ways for the night (and the episode).

While all of this is happening, we get to see a bit of Kuzu-P’s past. Now, I didn’t mention this last week, but when Kuzu-P, Towada-AP, and Kazuha’s manager were drinking together, Kuzu and Towada ended up talking about Kuzu. Towada called him useless and Kuzu, not realizing that Towada is talking about him, agreed and mentioned something people about drying up.

The thing is, Kuzu-P is also talking about himself. Earlier in the bathhouse, Towada told Kazuha’s manager that Kuzu didn’t always act like this. Before joining this company, Kuzu was known for working really hard. This, coupled along with Kuzu’s cryptic words, is what made me think something happened to him that caused him to become so unmotivated. Towada mentions the same thing about Kuzu in this episode while admitting that he hopes Kuzu will pull through in the end.

While it remains to be seen whether or not Kuzu will get the job done when the chips are down, we do get a peek at Kuzu’s past in this episode. While he’s at a hostess club (blowing off work as usual), Kuzu bumps into an ex-co-worker. Their brief exchange is enough for the audience to get a picture of what happened.

Kuzu’s co-worker and Kuzu both worked at a company in the past, but Kuzu kept getting outdone by him despite trying his best. In the end, he ran away and joined the current company. Perhaps his despair at his own powerlessness is what causes Kuzu to act like how he is now.

Lastly, I wanted to point out what Kuzu’s nemesis said to him. Namely, that Kuzu is as loud as ever and that he hasn’t grown up at all. These words ring true for Kuzu, but they also describe Chitose in a way, too. Now there’s a bit of a parallel between Kuzu and Chitose, in my opinion. The two lost / is in the middle of losing things to their respective rivals as they failed to progress or overcome their shortcomings.

That’s all. I’ll leave the analysis for other bloggers. But I’m guessing that the series is going to continue focusing on Chitose while throwing in some Kuzu-P focus, as well. Maybe he’ll come through in the end and makes the second season of Kusure successful.

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See you next week!