Narenare -Cheer for you!-

Episode 4

Given how much emphasis the first three episodes placed on Kanata and her mental state, I was expecting some follow-up following last week's cheer routine and whether or not that cured her. While I'm not too surprised that the subject seems to have been more or less put on the back burner for the time being, I am surprised that it wasn't really mentioned at all. Heck, Kanata herself barely even speaks for this entire episode. Instead, the focus completely shifts to our favorite kiss-happy Brazilian, Anna, as we learn more about her, and while this certainly doesn't make for a bad episode, I'm also not quite sure how to feel about it.

Since we didn't know much about Anna beyond her desire for internet stardom and tendency to smooch any new girl who comes within a 10-meter radius of her presence, this episode gives a bit more insight into her personal life. We learn that she's pretty close to Nodoka and her family (though I couldn't quite tell if she was actively living with them or just used to showing up at their place unannounced) and that she works a part-time job at a record shop where a lot of foreigners visit. The shop means a lot to her, and she's pretty close to its owner, YJ, which is why it comes as such a shock to her when she learns that he's decided to close the shop and give away his records. Anna doesn't take this very well, and we discover that she's so attached to the shop and YJ because he helped her to come out of her shell when she was younger.

In those days, she was dealing with the loss of her father, and other people had difficulty approaching her as they were usually too scared of her, either because she always seemed angry or more likely, because when the other kids started talking behind her back, her solution for getting them to talk to her was kicking them in the face using capoeira (and hey in fairness, being on the receiving end of capoeira is an experience that probably would strike fear into the hearts of most people, let alone children). However, after Anna stumbled into YJ's shop one day and became a regular, he encouraged her to try talking to people more, and this eventually helped her to make friends with Nodoka, so she's none too happy about seeing him give up on the shop after doing so much for her. As Anna struggles to figure out a solution, the rest of the girls do their best to support her, and Kanata suggests that they should make supporting the shop the focus of their next cheer video.

I'm honestly pretty torn on all this. On the one hand, it's a pretty solid character drama, and I like how much it fleshes out Anna as a character and changes her from being a bit one-note in her quirkiness into a more believable teenager. The focus on her even benefits Nodoka's characterization a little bit. We see that when it's just the two of them, she's a lot snarkier and more visibly exhausted by Anna's general enthusiasm. It suggests that she might be putting on at least a little bit of an act in front of the other girls for anything that doesn't involve keeping Anna reigned in, and I am curious to see if that gets touched on at all later on. The downside to all this is that as solid as it is in isolation, it feels a little weird to have everything about Kanata's story completely dropped for the time being, and it makes me a lot more worried about how that'll wrap up. It doesn't help that it seems like we won't be getting a resolution to Anna's story until next week's episode, so it's hard to know if it'll end up being satisfying enough to be worth the total shift in focus. I certainly didn't dislike this episode, but getting a change in perspective this drastic does make me a little more worried about how well the entire story will end up coming together, so I'm hoping that next week's events will give us a little something that might help to assuage those fears.

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