Narenare -Cheer for you!-

Episode 11

All right, so before we dive into this review, I need to make another small correction. I said last time that Mari hadn't made any real appearances in the show beyond the flashback in the first episode, but we actually did see her during the hot springs trip. Notably it was a conversation between her and Megumi, asking her how she's dealing with her condition, which did give at least a little bit of foreshadowing to what we learn about Mari in this episode, so we have gotten at least a couple of hints to this week's twists. That having been said, that was still the only time we'd really seen her in any meaningful way prior to last week's big reveal, and the fact that we've never seen her interact with Kanata in particular still means that the show's attempt to imply that the two of them used to be close still doesn't work the way it needs to. Presumably this lack of interaction was to better preserve the twist, but if that was the intent, then it sure didn't work, because rather than feeling bad for her, a lot of what we learn here ends up inadvertently painting Kanata in a negative light thanks to a series of increasingly awkward writing decisions.

After learning the truth about Mari, Kanata decides to relay the situation to the other PomPom members. Things already start getting weird here, as even before Kanata actually names the culprit behind the internet post, the others all react as though they know exactly who it is, despite having never really interacted with Mari before. The only one who does seem to be shocked is Megumi, who seemed to have no idea that Mari was the same person she talked to at the hot springs, and also doesn't seem to know anything about the history between her and Kanata despite the two of them being friends the longest. This is also where Kanata reveals that she injured Mari during the accident we saw in episode 1, but the other girls don't even have much of a reaction except for Anna, who's mostly upset about the internet drama that Mari's post caused. It's bizarre to say the least, and while I wouldn't expect the girls to outright turn on Kanata or anything, it just feels awkward that none of them seem all that bothered her having kept that secret despite the fact that she kept quiet even when that post caused them to get sucked into her personal problems.

As we delve into things from Mari's perspective, we see that she's been struggling to recover from her injury in much the same way Megumi has with hers, and how much of a psychological toll it's taken on her. Because of that, part of her resented Kanata for getting back into cheer through the PomPoms, and that led her towards making that internet post and then deleting it once things started getting out of hand. In isolation, this would make for some of the best drama we've seen out of the show, but the problem here is that it does need to connect to what we've seen of Kanata's character, and it frankly really doesn't. For most of the show, Kanata has given the impression that she didn't really know what was causing her yips, but if we take all this at face value then it's pretty ridiculous to think she couldn't connect the dots here when she knows she accidentally injured someone. If anything, it inadvertently gives the impression that she's been avoiding the subject on purpose because she's scared how her friends would judge her for it, and the fact that even Megumi seemed to be completely ignorant to the truth doesn't help to alleviate that. Heck, you could even argue that Kanata not talking to her, or bringing this up before now, means that Mari's resentment is fairly justified to some degree, since it certainly doesn't make Kanata look like a very considerate friend. What makes all of this even stranger, is that it's somehow framed as being more about how Mari made Kanata feel bad with that post than any of the things leading up to it, and even having sat through some of the show's other wonky writing choices, I was pretty baffled at how any of this was seen as a good idea.

Somehow, though, we still aren't at the end of this ride, because the worst ends up coming after we learn all of this. Even if I were to handwave all of the new problems this has created for Kanata as a character, I was at least expecting to see her and Mari trying to talk things out and rekindle their friendship since there's a pretty clear divide between the two of them. Instead, Mari is the one who apologizes, and decides to make up for what she did to the PomPoms' channel by offering to become their newest member. I literally gasped at my screen when this came up, because I was appalled at just how bad of a resolution this was. I could kinda understand doing this if it happened after Kanata and Mari had talked things out, but instead it just ends up skipping over any kind of confrontation entirely. What's even worse about this is that despite Kanata being the person who should probably be feeling the most awkward about this suggestion, she's thrilled at the idea of Mari joining the group, and the two start hanging around each other as though nothing happened. The only character willing to point out how insane all this is Anna, and even that's mostly just from the perspective of her being annoyed with Mari for her past internet crimes (which is still somehow the most realistic reaction we've gotten from any of these characters during all of this).

About the closest thing to an actual conversation we get between Kanata and Mari happens near the end of the episode, when Mari goes into her past as a cheerleader, but even that ends up falling flat. She goes into how she used to do competitive cheerleading but never found much joy in it until she saw Kanata's earnest cheering, and rather than feeling like it connects to anything else in this episode, it instead comes off as a way to talk about how cheerleading should be done for the sake of supporting others rather than as a competitive sport because that feels like the only topic this show has any real interest in. However, even putting aside the obvious badness of trying to claim there's something wrong with the idea of competitive cheerleading, the show hasn't even done of good job of connecting the “spirit” of cheerleading to any of its drama in a way that would even support this argument. About all that's really accomplished in this scene is further ensuring that Kanata is absolved of any guilt she'd need to feel over Mari's injury since she turned out to be her source of inspiration, and while that likely wasn't the intent, that's sure what it ended up feeling like.

I'll give the show some benefit of the doubt in assuming that most of this is the result of it failing to properly connect the threads of Kanata's character arc than being done on purpose, but the end result is that the lack of any acknowledgement or consequences for Kanata's mistakes has only really managed to turn me against her as a character, and further against the show in general. It does seem like there'll be a bit more to this story, as the episode ends with Mari's sudden disappearance from the group, but the show's ever increasing diminishing returns, I have no real reason to think that'll actually go anywhere. With how much conflict was outright avoided here, there's no telling what we're actually in for with the finale, but whatever it is we end up getting,I doubt it'll be enough to make up for just how much of a mess this episode was.

Rating:

Narenare -Cheer for you!- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.