It was a bit of an uneven start, but Yamada-kun to Lv999 no Koi o Suru has to all intents and purposes won me over at this point.  However busy a season is, when you’re feeling it you’re feeling it.  Once the main plot kicked in here Yamda-kun really started to click with me.  Having a really snappy director like Asaka Morio absolutely helps. a lot.  But I do think we have an interesting setup here, and the characters (well, apart from one) all strike me as pretty relatable.

The meetup which started last week is indeed quite the awkward affair, though less so since the other four present all know each other.  That being the case – they were RL friends before joining up in FOS – certainly lessens the coincidence factor of their proximity.  The older gent we met is Kamota Takezou, a mild-mannered strawberry farmer who just wants everyone to get along.  Eita (aged nineteen) is indeed Rurihime, and the girl Akane assumed to be is Eita’s younger sister Runa.  She’s the one Eita based the character on (which I do agree is sort of creepy).

Eita being a nekama (person who plays an opposite-gender character online) is an interesting twist.  Akane feels a bit violated but I don’t really think she has any right to – MMO’s are places where people can express sides of themselves they can’t in their daily lives.  Admittedly Eita’s attitude towards this is “method acting” enough to be a bit weird, but if there’s any blame to placed here, it’s on Akane for making assumptions she couldn’t verify.  As for Runa, she’s immediately resentful of Akane’s presence – most obviously would be if she sees her as a threat for Yamada-kun.  But she’s also possessive and cliquish in the way teens are, and doesn’t like the idea of an older girl crashing her private club.

Runa annoys me, frankly, and I think that invitation she extends at the end of the episode is clearly part of a scheme.  But I’m happy to let that play out as it will, and I liked everything else that went down here.  Akane blurting out “I’m glad” when it became clear Yamada didn’t have a girlfriend was obviously a critical moment (which set Runa off).  Akane is so frazzled that she drops a glass, and Yamada has to slap her hand away before she can try and pick up the pieces.  That touch frazzles the hell out of her, and Yamada – clever boy – reads the room for a change an excuses himself to give her a chance to go off the boil.

The conversation between Akito and Eita (his former sempai) is interesting.  Eita means well, but someone in his position judging his friend the way he does for his “indifference” about getting a girlfriend strikes me as pretty hypocritical.  It’s another case of a person being adjudged to be broken for not being consumed by romance.  Akito is a good kid, but clearly for whatever reason has virtually no emotional radar.  As for girls if and when he gets there he gets there, and that should be perfectly fine.  That said, it’s pretty clear that he’s become interested in Akane in ways and for reasons he doesn’t really grasp yet.

Akane inviting him to go home together is certainly a tell, even if they do share a station.  When she finds out he eats nothing but konbini food and pudding is a normal dinner, the temptation to meddle is overpowering – she is technically an adult.  But she does it in an indirect way, parking Yamada on a bench (notably not inviting him up) and bringing him a bunch of food from her place.  It’s sweet as hell, but also a reminder that these two are at an age where a couple years difference is not to be dismissed too easily.  That matters, and even if she is a bit (well, almost totally) a mess, she’s still at quite a different place in life than he is.

Yamada’s smile when Akane got all jazzed over Runa asking her out was another sweet moment – that smile has been a very rare sight.  But that invite was for a day when he was scheduled to tutor Runa, all the more evidence that she has a double-cross planned to drive the “bitch” away from her little clique.  I’m not that worried for Akane – if anything I think this could blow up spectacularly in Runa’s face, and the others (certainly Akito) will have Akane’s back.  But how the series handles the aftermath is actually sort of critical – I think this is a bit of a banana peel, and it may tell us a lot about what sort of series Yamada-kun to Lv999 no Koi o Suru is.