Girlish Number Episode 10 Review – “Chitose Falls Into Darkness and Disappointed Kuzu”

The title summarizes most of the episode.

(Spoilers in this episode)

The bulk of the episode shows Chitose falling into despair as she realizes that she’s not as talented as she keeps telling herself and that Nanami (the newcomer) is much more promising than her.

At least Gojo-kun is still her manager (in-name), but Chitose has received a sub-manager who likes to yell about tennis and hard work. It seems unlikely that she’ll suddenly working hard because of her sub-manager’s attitude, however.

Meanwhile, the company president and Gojo-kun have a talk at the bar. Gojo-kun tries to ask him to give Chitose more chances, but he responds that he’s given the two of them plenty of chances. So the company head isn’t just some empty-headed fool but a cunning planner… And there’s this brief snippet of their conversation.

I wonder if Gojo-kun has something at stake here with Chitose’s career. It might have been touched upon towards the end of the episode since we find out he used to work under Number One as a voice actor, but details remain vague.

Meanwhile, Kuzu is slacking off as usual. He seems to have caught a big fish and is trying to get a sticker for it. However, said fish is less than 40 centimeters long so he has to haggle to get said sticker (and ends up with a sticker that has a red “-2” written on it)

A lot of tension between Chitose, who is still lazing around despite a company event fast approaching, and Gojo-kun, who wants her to try harder after hearing what the president said.

When it’s the day of the company event, Chitose overhears talk of a surprise and thinks everyone is going to surprise her for her bithday.

Pictures of the company (Number One) performance shown below. Very fitting for the season!

However, the surprise was actually Nanami’s CD debut. She gets on-stage and sings while Chitose can only look devastated, jealous, and angry (?)

However, it turns out Koto, Yae, and Nanami were planning on a surprise birthday party for Chitose after all! Yet it only reminded Chitose of how she’s not really that close with any of them and of how she’s still on bad terms with Gojo-kun. He, in turn, has yet to give her the present he bought for her.

On the car ride home, it seems to have sunk in for Chitose that Nanami now has everything she used to have. Nanami has the spotlight, the fans (who said they were switching from supporting Chitose to support Nanami within earshot of Chitose), and her brother (well, he’s managing both, but Chitose is made to walk home on her birthday while Gojo-kun dives Nanami home).

The episode ends with Kuzu getting excited over Towada that Towada (and the company) still needs him. He runs into the distance, claiming he’ll do his best and beat his rival. Well, he seems a lot more motivated now, so let’s hope it sticks.

After the ED, Chitose listens to a recording of her brother’s acting. She says it sucks…but then she admits that she also sucks at voice acting. While claiming that change is impossible while imagining Nanami stealing it all from her, Chitose wonders out loud why Gojo-kun quit being voice actor.

This episode was what fans were expecting for a while: Chitose getting a taste of reality and suffering for her arrogance and laziness. Even though I’ve been rather vocal (in my opinion) about how Chitose is irritating since she seemingly didn’t ever learn her lesson, this episode was painful to watch. Seeing someone fall into despair because she realized that changing herself is vey difficult and that anyone could replace her…is hard. But this episode was needed. I just hope she snaps out of it as easily as Kuzu seemingly did (but that’s unlikely).

---

See you next week.