It's not easy to forget someone you've fallen in love with.
What They Say:
Yuma, a high school second-year, is enjoying every day now that she has her first boyfriend. After she asks for relationship advice from Hotaru, her beautiful long-time friend who has had many boyfriends, Hotaru teases her for her inexperience and playfully does things to her that even her boyfriend doesn't do. Yuma and Hotaru's secret relationship continues to escalate, and Yuma finds herself unable to deny how it makes her feel. This school drama tells the story of the interwoven lives of these two girls with boyfriends.
The Review:
Content: (Please note that the content portion of the review may contain spoilers)
So within the weeklong gap between this episode and last week's, Yuma has decided to become a yandere. Set off by the fact that her best friend may be purposely avoiding her, Yuma has gone as far as skipping cram school and borderline making out with her best friend in front of a group of middle-aged dudes. Of course, the writers wanted to see their orange-haired protagonist reprise her role as a maid, so Yuma has returned the cafe (As if that wasn't already given away by the featured image of this post). Unfortunately, she's only there for a day or two more as she gets sick from overworking herself. In addition to that, her mother catches wind of her skipping cram school (With a little help from Hotaru) and gives her a bit of an offscreen earful. It's made apparent later on that Hotaru sort of planted the seed for this, clearly set off by Yuma's sudden infatuation (If you can even call it that) with dressing risque in public.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this episode comes when Yuma decides to make the first move on Hotaru for once. I'm not talking about a cutesy peck or anything like that, either. Yuma straight-up grabs the back of her best friends head and pretty much mouth-rapes her. Being totally into non-consensual make out sessions, Hotaru obliges and, what do you know, Takeda shows up. And while it isn't apparent whether or not he actually witnessed them locking lips, he's definitely caught onto things for the first time (Only took him 75% of the series). Even though this will most likely be dispelled within the first few minutes of next week's episode (As is customary for NTR), it's actually interesting seeing things heat up for once. Yuma has strayed from her typical static tendencies and finally experienced some...growth as a character? I'm not sure if growth is the correct word or not, but she's finally graduated from being a passive, run-of-the-mill yuri protagonist. Hotaru, on the other hand, has been sort of stopped in her tracks. Finally, as soon as she's starting to drift away, she's reeled back in and has taken on a new role -- that of the submissive type? It's unclear how things will play out from this point on, but it's great that the series has finally given us something different.
In Summary:
NTR finally breaks away from its plotless tendencies and greets us with a new look at Yuma and a conflict that may wind up lasting more than half an episode. Takeda finally catches on to the relationship between the girls and Yuma has finally learned how to have feelings, even if they're borderline yandere ones. For the first time in over two months, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next. However, I'd advise against getting your hopes up considering just how much of a letdown the rest of the series has been up to this point. Regardless, this fresh take on the main characters and the darker sides of this series goes on to reinvigorate it, even if only temporarily.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
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