Episode 9: Emotion Relation

Synopsis:

The girls take shelter on the planet. Plans to hold the concert are difficult, but WOTA are investigating. Takamina is injured from the battle and is advised by Tsubasa not to perform and instead selects Kanata to replace her.

Kanata gets rough training from Yuuko in preparation. The 75th & 77th girls plus Megumi go out for some snow fun but call it recon. They stumble across a town and find some young fans watching AKB0048 footage. However the fans recognise them and are happy they are there.

Splat!!!

Inspired by the young fans, Nagisa starts singing. She is eventually joined by the others until they are caught by DES. However, Tsubasa has been spying on them and saves them, telling them that they gave her the idea to hold multiple concerts.

The understudies sing “Heart Gata Virus” in the town, in various positions. This confuses the DES troops making them run all over the place. Meanwhile, AKB0048 get ready with Kanata given Takamina’s uniform to wear. Nagisa and Chieri evade DES troops; by “Namida no Seesaw Game” sung elsewhere.

Takamina appears and demands to perform. Tsubasa agrees and Takamina snatches the uniform off Kanata without as much as a thank you. AKB0048 begin their concert with “River” in the…ahem… river. Kanata and the WOTA defend the concert from the DES forces.

The understudies sing “Sasae” in the town. Meanwhile, AKB0048 gets an encore, but Takamina gets a fever. Yuuko order Kanata to take Takamina to sick bay. On route, Takamina realises that Kanata puts the performance first ahead of herself; therefore Kanata deserves the name Minami Takahashi.

Do something useful and attack Justin Bieber!!!

Analysis:

I felt that Takamina is being a little selfish here, robbing Kanata of her big chance so that she could perform. Well if Little Miss Fussy didn’t go to a certain forbidden place, then she won’t have these feelings of jealousy. She didn’t give as much as a nod and sign of reassurance to Kanata for giving back her uniform. Just a snatch, like “I’ll take that”, surprise that she didn’t ask for her underwear as well. That would have been a great sarcastic comeback from Kanata, if she did.

Seems that Chieri is starting to warm up to Nagisa, as I think now that she has accepted that Nagisa is surpassing her as an idol. Anyway, it was nice to see them both working together. So, more songs introduced in this episode. I took a look at AKB48’s music video of “River” and it has them running through a river\jungle in army attire; there was a little joke I put in the synopsis that they sung “River” in a river. So the anime is about to finish after 13 episodes and there have been none of those cheesy idol gimmicks, which has surpassed my expectations and I am thoroughly enjoying the series. I just hope it keeps this intense and motivating story going.

Insert Songs:

Heart Gata Virus

Namida no Seesaw Game

River

Sasae (ED Theme)