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Kyouko's such a mess. Its good that we're seeing this side of hers. Every scene with her is good. The confrontation b/w her and the sisters was pretty awkward though. Momo's gonna have nightmares of the "witch".
Also, congratulations to Shimada for NOT losing his hair lol. Souya getting hyped asf.
Love how Souya is a representation of what Rei could have become if he had committed himself to shogi and nothing else, or what he could possibly still become in the future. He looks kinda similar except with different hair, Rei seems to imitate him slightly with his coat as well, the scene of them both unintentionally choosing to hang out in the same spot was a great reflection of this.
Great episode, Kyoko was really interesting to see here, once she saw the girls that are so close to Rei and had some great personal character moments afterwards
What is up with all these crazy Japanese people who CLEARLY need therapy but aren't getting any?
Kyoko is even more of a mess than Rei in my honest opinion.
Agh this show is fucking annoying. I've had to start watching at like double speed to get through episodes and now even the darker drama stuff is annoying me. There's not much of a show if Rei has the wherewithal to overcome Kyouko but at the same time, the show where he mopes around all the time and gets bullied by his emotionally damaged asshole older sister is not entertaining anyway.
I think if I had've found this show as a kid I would've enjoyed it more but at this point in my life watching a bunch of, frankly annoying, normal people struggle and fail (and succeed) in normal ways at normal life events is just not doing it for me. If the shogi were more important like the go in Hikaru no Go or mahjong in Akagi then the bland normalcy of the human side wouldn't be so suffocating but the sport aspect of the show doesn't matter at all really. This is like Kimi ni Todoke but instead of a bunch of extremely slow go-nowhere romances its just a bunch of extremely slow friendships and also the occasional fucked up asshole just to show that some people simply suck.
Kyouko's got a lot of issues, but the one person she's reaching out to is also filled with a lot of baggage and not enough experience to understand what she was going through. She is annoying, stubborn, and so very lost she's become pitiful. She has potential, but she needs to stop wallowing in her past failures and find someone who'd give her a new perspective instead of hanging on to someone like Gotou who clearly was just after some tail and not really thinking of leaving his wife.