User blog:Staraptor Kwan/Aikatsu Stars! Episode 17 Review: The Misguided Adventures of Saotome "Subaru-kyun" Ako



Going into Episode 17, I felt both a sense of excitment about how it could possibly turn out; the idea of having Yume and co fully interact with the M4 lads at long last felt like a shipper's dream come true. In addition, with the return of the adorable if Subaru-obsessed (see picture above) Saotome Ako, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone; you get to have (some) romance and new character development all in one neat package! Sounds good, right?

Yeah, sort of. Episode 17, plain and simple, turned out to be a egg carton that had only one good egg among all the rotten ones. If you don't get what I mean, just read the rest of the review and you will soon find out why.



The episode begins with our heroines watching a commerical featuring-you guessed it, the M4 themselves, who have their own show equivalent to that of their female (S4) counterparts. Turns out they, along with a certain person, have been invited along to participate in that show. Gee, I wonder who could that person be? "Glances around and notices a nekocchi looking at a screenshot of Subaru while giggling by herself".

Oh. That's who it is.

The scene then shifts from Yume and co's discussion to Ako's room and-horrors of horrors-we find out that it is filled to the brim (literally) with all sorts of Subaru-themed merchandise including posters, plushies, etc. And here I thought that Koharu's obsession with the Kasumi's was bad enough, but Ako literally makes the former's look tame by comparision. Oh, and just in case Ako's fangirl tendencies weren't blalantly obvious enough for the average viewer, she lists out every single favourite thing that Subaru likes. That said, she also plans on not losing out to Yume (read: clawing at her at the slightest opportunity). Kind of reminds us of those K-Pop fangirls who literally get into catfights (no pun intended) with each other just to get up close and personal to their favourite idol, eh?





DEM FACIAL EXPRESSIONS THO LOL XD



After a short scene showing Ako choosing her own coord for the show, we find her in the make up room with a banana (oh boy, this girl seriously needs some help) when Yume and co enter. True to her word, Ako takes the opportunity to swipe at Yume with her paw-sorry, hand and gives her the usual akiramenai pep talk. Anyway, Mr Jumbo Ribbon shows up again along with...the M4! All of them! In the flesh! Hip-hip hooray! Both Koharu and Laura instantly blush upon seeing them in the flesh (and why wouldn't they?), and this writer couldn't help but smile when both Subaru and Yume have another one of their usual tomato teasing segments, which as always never fails to entertain, not to mention that it's cute and fluffy as usual.

That is, until Ako interjects (not that Yume was in the mood for any tomato jokes anyway) and shoves her away in order to get close to Subaru, and as expected she's in extreme fangirl mode. We find out that it's their first time interacting face-to-face, and judging from the smug looks from Laura (and Koharu!), they're obviously enjoying this scenario. That said, regarding Ako's interruption, don't let initial appearances fool you, as what might seem funny at first might gradually turn out to be way too annoying afterwards. Repetitively. So, after a montage of scenes featuring Ako and co working with the M4 lads to prepare for the show (along with the usual tomato jokes and Ako's death glares at Yume), the first segment begins, which turns out to be quite the spectacular show...not.



By "spectacular", I mean when Ako constantly interrupts each and every time someone else was having a conversation in order to get Subaru's attention. Jeez, does this cat have any manners at all? Anyway, remember what this author wrote in the previous paragraph about her fangirl tendencies rapidly becoming repetitive and annoying? Well, not only did the prediction come true, but what was even worse that she took up the majority of the time alloted for the talk segment and in the process ruined a potential Laura x Nozomu moment. Thankfully, she got flustered when Asahi probed her "suspicious" amount of knowledge regarding Subaru, which gives Yume enough time to strike up a far more interesting conversation about volleyball (and get teased by Subaru again).

After the talk segment ends, a frustrated Ako gets cornered by a huge tree. No, not to say that a tree grew out of nowhere, it's just the man himself, Mr Tree-kun aka Kira Kanata, the fourth and final M4 dude to be properly introduced. Kanata lectures Ako on the virtues on keeping her fangirl tendencies in check since she's already a idol herself; which makes total sense. Unfortunately, Ako is not the most sensible of cats out there so she-in a very familar sounding tone-brushes off his advice and leaves him behind.

That said, Ako's interaction with Kanata is pretty much a double edged sword situation: I'm actually glad that the anime is attempting to canonize another shipping couple for the (shippers) fanbase to enjoy rather than just constantly milking Yume x Subaru. Kanata's character also deserves some worthy mention; he is portrayed as a person who seems stotic but is able to hand out useful advice at crucial moments, and as far as initial impressions go, that's quite an excellent decision on the writer's part. The only problem I had with this scene was how out of the blue it was; it really seemed weird that Kanata would just appear out of nowhere just to lecture Ako, almost as if their interaction was staged so the writers could come up with a excuse to ship them both together.



With the second segment aka cooking time coming up, a lottery is held, in which Yume is paired up with Laura, leaving Koharu to cook alongside Ako (although it would had been very interesting if Ako had got paired up with Yume). Ako decides to take the initiative by running a full scan of her brain data (Doujima Nina style) and-wait for it- decides to cook egg dishes, which Subaru likes. "Sighs." However, while in the midst of cooking the meal, Koharu accidentally burns her eggs. This is where Ako's brain scan comes in handy, as she turns the burnt eggs into a scrambled state to be put into sandwiches.

With the cooking segment done, the M4 lads then judge the girl's cooking skills by tasting their dishes (is it any coincidence that Subaru and Nozomu chose to indulge in sushi made by Yume and Laura while the others had Koharu's and Ako's egg dishes XD). A tie is then declared, but poor Ako gets infuriated because her "beloved" chose to eat Yume's sushi. Then we get to another lecture scene courtesy of Kanata and the girl herself. I found it to be very amusing; it's almost as if the writers realized the mistakes they made earlier during this episode and decided to fix it by having Kanata basically tell Ako: "Screw up in the next segment and everyone's gonna hate your character." Which by this point should be enough evidence to conclude that there's going to be a customary situation where the protaganist goes through some Heroic BSOD plot twist and comes out of it a stronger and more capable person.



Said situation manfiests itself in the form of Yume's script; after reading through it and noting how diligent the former had been in preparing for the show while she herself had only focused on getting Subaru's attention, Ako finally realises how clueless she had been, which brings me to my next point.

Regarding Ako's character development so far, it's quite refreshing considering that we finally get to see more of Ako's positive traits in this episode such as her willingness to reassure Koharu that it wasn't her fault for messing things up and her unique ability to analyze and make the best out of any situation, as we witnessed earlier. Moreover, the fact that Ako was willing to put aside her jealousy aside due to gaining some newfound respect for Yume shows that she does possess some degree of maturity. However, I didn't like the fact that Ako got serious only when the situation called for it, as it made her 180-degree U-turn seem rather forced and artificial.

With most of the episode having run its course, it's finally time for Ako to make her stage debut with a new song in tow: Marina of August. From the moment this song started to play, this writer was instantly struck with a case of deja vu. It took a quick search to find out that Ako's singing voice was provided by Miki, who also voiced Hinaki from the original series, which suits the tropical background quite fine while fitting in perfectly with Ako's personality. Needless to say, these reasons are why Marina of August is essential for the average summer-loving music fan.

Having ended her performance with style, Ako decides to get a drink-only for Subaru to show up and hand her a water bottle as recognition of her impressive display. Naturally, Ako reverts back into her fangirl mode and acts all tsundere-like torwards Yume, with her declaring to the latter that they are still rivals. She then chases after Subaru, only to bump into Kanata, who complements her on acting on his advice. Once again, Ako brushes him off, although this time it is without malice and continues on her way while Kanata looks on after her again.

Conclusion

Episode 17: Serious Switch marks a rare occurrence where the story finds itself unable to successfully intregrate certain sequences and plot points together. Despite having some decent characterization and a equally impressive new song to make up for its shortcomings, Episode 17 gives off the impression of being somewhat incomplete, which is a shame considering how much potential it had.

Afterword

So, what went wrong? To sum it all up in one context, Episode 17 was a experiment that went awry; there was so much potential to have had from giving Ako more screentime and intregrating said screentime with the M4 lads to add some shipping spice to the mix. Unfortunately, the writers had no idea on how to make the best out of both: this might have been Ako's focus episode, but surely they could have given the M4 lads a bigger role in the spotlight. Well, Kanata did make a good first impression, but for the most part his companions didn't really stand out that much.

Regarding Ako however,  I'm slightly disappointed; back in her debut episode, Ako's cat-like mannerisms were a great source of comedic value. However, those traits were nearly non-existent in this episode; instead we had Ako switch on her annoying mode and constantly interrupt the conversations of other people, which didn't appeal to me at all. At the very least, the writers did stay true to the main point of this episode, that of Ako forgetting her role as an idol and going through some soul-searching to retain it.

Also, I'm pretty sure that the anti-hetero faction on this wiki is going to take the events of this episode and say that Aikatsu Stars! is better off without the M4-but I tend to disagree, mainly because Aikatsu Stars! is still undergoing a period of transition after taking over from the original series, and while today's episode might not have been the best, here's hope that the writers can take note of all positives and negatives and use them to build a far more acceptable story for both the M4 and Ako in the future.

Rating: 6.5/10