First thoughts after watching I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class Episode 5
This note includes a spoiler.
I watched I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class episode 5. 9/10.
- Story and characters: 5/5
- Design and animation: 3/5
- Voices and audios: 3/5
The earlier part of this episode was that Umi started talking about her past and the reactions there, and then Umi and Maki talked in a classroom. The later part was that Umi talked with Amami on the roof with Maki again, and then they hung out in Maki's room before they called it a day. I didn't expect this episode was still on the school festival day, and I thought it had finished in the previous episode, but I was wrong.
I like the overall story in the episode. This episode showed how Umi really felt about Amami, and it wasn't very simple. It was love and hate. I also wondered why she talked with the other 2 girls, but her past explained it well, and that was also sad but at the same time a pretty natural thing, too, because human relationships can change over time. And that explained why Umi and Amami at least went to that high school, instead of moving up to the high school attached to their middle school, which they could have entered without taking an exam. Although, I wasn't sure why other girls also followed them and entered the same school. They were at least really friends with Amami, supposedly.
Also, when Maki found Umi alone in a classroom after she left the roof, she cried but didn't cry aloud and kept talking with him. I thought she might've cried a lot as characters in other anime often do, but she didn't, and that was good, and more genuine. Moreover, she still cared about Amami at that time, so she really was kind to her.
I wondered why Amami asked those 2 things of Umi and Maki, but then I think she wanted Maki to be the one who never left Umi, perhaps? Maybe she also had a complex feeling at that time because she wanted to be the best friend of Umi. I didn't fully understand what she was trying to do when she was playing a ghost, but maybe she wanted to see how Umi talked with him and wanted to feel the difference, and just got her head around it.
Umi showed her more decisiveness and initiative than Maki at the end of this episode. He wasn't familiar with being around people, so he wasn't very brave, and the episode showed these things well even at the end. And she also still was a little playful. Anyhow, overall, episode 5 wrapped up one arc of the plot so far. Maybe this was the first volume of the original light novel, I guess. It was a clean, well-organized, convincing story that brought the characters to life.
For animations, I felt like when Umi and Amami were at the 3rd year grade, their heads were too big as a character design. Then when they became 1st years in middle school, they were almost identical to how they look in high school. Also, Umi's eye color is red, and nothing was said about it, though the color of Amami's eyes was mentioned and some kids stayed away from Amami because of her eye color. Which one is weirder. Well, that's anime world.
What's going to come? Well, I was glad that Amami also started liking Maki like regular rom-coms do, but it seemed that she cared about him because she perhaps started noticing that Umi was hanging out with him. So, that won't come, I suppose. But there will be rumors about Umi and Maki because they walked around the school during the festival, so probably more people will talk about them and start a new story. If it's an ordinary rom-com anime, then another person who falls in love with Umi or Maki will appear and a few of them will start doing something. Amami definitely had the position, but it seemed she didn't play that role, so I guessed there would be a new guy who got along with them from the next episode.