Aquatope of White Sand (17)

Episode Synopsis:

Kukuru and Fuuka go over their schedules for the month and find a day that they both have off. Together with Udon-chan, they execute Fuuka’s suggestion of opening their apartments for their coworkers to congregate and relax before or after their own shifts.

Episode Review:

I feel like this episode is a marker that we’ve reached the new normal. There’s no particular conflict, just chillin’ – starting off with a sort of “girls’ day in” (to butcher a phrase) with tips from Fuuka’s former professional stylist amidst general lounging, and shifting to a more generic get-together after hours with card games, grilling, and sparklers. Everybody takes the opportunity to just hang out and have cute little interactions, and we learn little things about several cast members.

Apart from Kukuru’s weirdly aggressive “offers” to give a couple of her coworkers aromatherapy massages, I feel like Kuuya gets some of the more memorable moments, starting with Kukuru convincing him to stick around before the other guys show up by offering to let him sit on the balcony with a cooler of plum wine. Drunk Kuuya reaches an aspirational level of awkward when he skips out of the party anyway to locate a proper men’s room. He eventually gets dragged back in by Kai and Eiji, still tipsy but alert enough to bond with young Shizuku over Eiji’s takoyaki-based quiz game.

According to Karin, Kuuya’s aversion to women is getting less intense, and I’d like to think that this is a signal that we’re going to see more substantial progress as the season goes on, but guess I would understand if he’s not the writers’ top priority.

I’m still very curious about what is going to happen next, and I suspect that this episode more-or-less sets us up to get started on whatever the final arc is going to be. I mean, I wouldn’t complain if the rest of the episodes were like this one, but the premise was that it was a rare day of alignment, after all.

Summary:

Just a big, warm, wholesome slice-of-life episode.  Probably the calm before the storm, but it is some high-quality calm.

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