Flower and Asura

Episode 5

In a show that's had nothing but great episodes, I think this is my favorite so far. If you've been reading these reviews, you know I've been saying since she appeared that I love Anne and that I think she's got the most potential of anyone in this entire series. And this episode did nothing if not prove me right.

Hana has never been more relatable than she has been in this episode: I, too, wish for nothing more than Anne's acknowledgement. For real, though: the feeling of wanting to win over a particular person for whatever reason (in Hana's case, it seems to be a combination of how she's impressed by Anne, wants to understand Anne, and she yearns for Anne's respect and approval), haven't we all had this feeling at some point in our lives? Regardless of whether or not friendship was the goal for you, Hana's is nonetheless a super relatable struggle. And such is the energy between the two that in any other series I'd also be thinking, could this be the start of a new ship? And to be fair: I'm not not thinking that. I'm just also not getting my hopes up—even if, more than usual, this episode seemed really unsubtle in its subtext, but at the risk of rekindling the Euphonium queerbaiting discourse, I'll leave it with that.

And then there's Anne herself. What I was expecting was a series that unpacked the difficult balance between doing what you want to do, versus doing what will lead you to victory. What we got was a series that's doing that, but in a way that's not demonizing doing something because you want to win—an exploration into how sometimes, the desire to win supersedes everything else, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to win because you want to win. And I love that. More of this. Delicious, love it, wish more media would take such a nuanced approach.

I seriously can not find the words to convey how fresh it feels to have a piece of media not instantly demonize someone who wants to win because she likes to win. As long as you're not hurting anyone and you're playing fairly, there's nothing wrong with simply liking to win, and playing accordingly. A lot of media in general has a tendency to try to make people who just like to win seem like the bad guys—a villain only meant to contrast a hero who has a specific and justified reason why they want to win (in anime, it's usually something along the lines of the competition being a key step toward achieving a larger goal). So this is a very welcome change of pace.

On a lighter note, as mentioned in this episode, picking material to read for a competition can be hard. First, unless you're doing original oratory (in which you write your speech yourself), you have to find your material, which can be a task in and of itself. I remember back in my forensics (no, not that kind) days, the coach had a bunch of books full of essays, poetry, and scripts that members of the team could look through and use. And people often did! But even then, you weren't limited to the contents of those books. I remember I tried my hands at humorous interpretation one year, for example, and I made an abridged cut of The Bad Beginning from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. I get how if you're not in competitive speech or a related activity, the idea of finding a good script that fits all the criteria of the competition (EX: time limits) might not seem like it should be a difficult task on paper, but it often is.

So this is all to say that this was, for me, easily a five star episode. Not only did we learn more about the best character so far, we also got a wonderful dissection of the idea that sometimes you just want to win more than you want to do things a certain way, and there's nothing wrong with that. Anne really is a queen, and I hope that by the time the series ends, she finally gets her well-earned crown.

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