Finally, the shocking conclusion to “unleashing personal desires.”
Compared to the last arc, I felt that the drama at the end of this arc did not have the same heartbreaking impact from the first. Of course, this is contributed to the fact that nobody jumped off a bridge and got seriously injured. Instead, we saw the conflict inside Inaba about sacrificing her romantic feelings for Taichi for the sake of preserving the friendship inside the club. Inaba’s position felt very familiar to what Fujibayashi Kyou felt when she had her younger sister become Tomoya’s girlfriend while having romantic feelings for him. While the reasons to keep their feelings inside are different, this only proves that it’s not possible to keep this kind in this feeling forever.
On the other hand, I felt that the argument between Iori and Inaba was inevitable. Besides avoiding the clubroom, it’s very apparent that Inaba has feelings for Taichi even though she won’t admit it as seen with her desire to make a move on him. Still, the excuse of her pushing Iori and Taichi into a relationship just because romance will cause friends to fight is nonsense. Unless a person finds a member with an attribute so desirable that he/she wants to date them, her argument is just weak. If she feels lonely or thinks there is a problem, she could just talk to her friends to resolve it. That is what friends are for.
Aside from that, it’s nice to see Inaba resolve her feelings for Taichi and eventually giving him another kiss. As they say, the fight isn’t over since the two girls have to win over his heart. Even so, I wonder what plans Heartseed has up his sleeves to provide his next round of “entertainment.” His trolling was just lame this time around as he said that Taichi got seriously injured when in fact, he fell a few feet and didn’t break anything.
Inaba smiling at the end was quite a great scene, it felt like Inaba finally had some real character development out of this cruel story. 🙂
Not as cruel compared to jumping off the bridge scene… but it seems that Inaba always seems to have some troubles, although Iori using her body to kiss Taichi is somewhat an indication that Inaba might have some romantic feeling.