Flower and Asura – Episode 08

Episode Synopsys:

The club goes to watch a Sainoji reading live.  Anne and Hana both feel intimidated, frustrated, and ultimately fired up to try harder to improve their speaking skills.  Later, Shudai isn’t fully happy with the background music for the club’s video production.  The rest of the club is against trying to change it so close to the deadline, but ultimately go along with him on a walk to find inspiration.  Eventually, Shudai improvises a piano piece on a nearby outdoor piano that everyone agrees suits the video better.

Episode Review:

For the first time this show, I felt like I really heard what the characters hear when someone is doing a high quality reading.  Perhaps it’s because the reading had a strong emotional component, perhaps the visuals used were extra effective, but I was truly impressed with the quality of Sainoji’s reading.

It’s been a hard thing for the show to get across to me, that people are or are not particularly good at reading a line, but this one clicked.  Kudos to the show for that.  Also, bad news for our club – surpassing her talent seems frankly impossible given the time remaining before the competition.

The second half of the episode is equal parts relatable and decidedly the opposite of that.  Shudai has decided the production needs a new soundtrack one day before the deadline, and the rest of the club, including the advisor, pushes back.  That makes perfect sense, and it’s nice to see the advisor taking on a Kanamori role.  He has a line that’s basically “You may be under the false impression that you’re here to make the best video ever, but this isn’t your personal passion project, it’s a competition with hard deadlines.”

Even so, the club eventually reaches a compromise – if Shudai can find a new soundtrack, today, and also finish editing the video by the deadline, then they’ll go with it.  It’s during the hunt for a new sound that things start to strain belief.  Somehow, Shudai is not only good at making sound effects, making original musical compositions, sound recording, and video editing, he’s also an extremely talented piano player who can create and play a brand new piece of music on the spot on the first try, despite not having played in years.  And there happens to be a free-to-use outdoor piano set up where the club is walking.

AND the piece he plays perfectly suits the scene for the video and everyone in the club agrees. It’s a weird kind of over-the-top skill that you’d normally reserve for sports anime where the main character has a tragic backstory involving the sport that he just needs to overcome –

Wow, he even has that too.  Vocaloid was so cool that he dropped piano for being lame, and only now with the help of his friends has he discovered the love and talent he had for it all along.  I’m starting to wonder why this show isn’t just called something like Don’t Hold Shudai Toga Back!