I’ll be jiggered if Runway de Waratte isn’t making fashion design and modeling almost… interesting?  In all honestly it would be hard to imagine a theme about which I have greater ambivalence, and the truth of the matter is that buying into that side of a series isn’t a requirement for buying into the story if the story is good enough.  But I think there’s a certain fascination in watching anyone passionate about a vocation pursue it with full abandon, and if one’s mind is so inclined the minutiae of any topic can be interesting in and of itself.

That said, I did find the B-part of this episode substantially more compelling than the first.  That’s no disrespect to Kokoro, who has a story of her own to be sure, but I think the narrative really misses Chiyuki when she’s totally absent for extended stretches.  And more specifically it misses the interaction between she and Ikuto, which cuts so dramatically against the grain of most male-female teen relationships in anime.

With the Geika fashion show preliminaries about to start, Kokoro and Ikuto do a little bonding, and he’s quite taken with her unusual path to this moment in her life.  Physically she has everything a model needs, but her personality seems all wrong for it.  Uncomfortable as the center of attention and nervous in front of crowds, what struck me is simply that she seemed very unhappy when she was modeling.  I’m not convinced her harridan of a manager is wrong when she says Kokoro is pursuing the dual model/designer fantasy because she actually wants to quit modeling – but I also think there’d be absolutely nothing wrong with that if it were true.

I’m assuming at this point that Kokoro will model the outfit Ikuto designs for the show (though their initial job is to design one for the 1/3 scale model), and maybe rediscover her love for modeling in the process – that would be the standard direction to go, anyway.  Ikuto having to pony up ¥10000 to enter was certainly a hardship for him, and it earned him the derision of the other students in the room.  Surprisingly it was the dour fitter Kizaki Kaoru (Fukuhara Ayaka), who’d already declared that Ikuto “annoys” her, who stood up for him – she wants to hate on him, but on her own terms.

It says something about Ikuto that his first reaction in learning that the entrance fee is actually the materials budget it not to imagine what he might do with 10000 Yen, but relief that he can get away with spending only half and giving the rest to his sister.  But his idea – a patchwork outfit – turns out to be a non-starter.  Of course Ikuto would have been better off thinking bigger in the first place and spending that money in the way his sister absolutely wanted him to, but he’s one of those people who’s going to have to be told a hundred times to be selfish and even then still might not be able to do it.

All that was perfectly fine, but things really blossomed when Ikuto turned to Chiyuki for help in figuring out Sara, the model for whom the outfits are being designed.  Her only instructions were “something to make me look stylish”, which is about as unhelpfully vague as you could ask for.  Chiyuki is such a breath of fresh air here.  She’s completely un-self conscious about her appearance, and doesn’t put on fake outrage at Ikuto for being turned on by it.  Her dedication can be measured by the fact that she walks in heels even indoors (if they never get worn outside, this is socially acceptable) to get more comfortable with the runway.  And her intelligence is clear in the way she’s deconstructed Sara – her appeal, and her approach.  She admires Sara for all of the right reasons, and none of the wrong ones.

It’s obvious that Ikuto and Chiyuki lead very different lives.  ¥5000 is life-changing to Ikuto and Chiyuki can casually decide to jet to Paris for a long weekend.  But there’s already a strong connection between them, even if it’s not a romantic one (her seeing him in the same way his mother did doesn’t speak well to that option, but who cares really), and Chiyuki displays such genuine warmth here that it’s hard not to be swept up in the moment.  I have no idea if in RL there’s room for nice people to get ahead in the modeling business, but I’m certainly rooting for these two to make it here.