Selection Project – Episode 3 - Suzune and the Aloof Rena

It’s obvious that Suzune and Rena are going to be an interesting relationship.

With Suzune taking the second chance, Rena acts cold towards Suzune after meeting her. I wonder why as the first round begins.

At the new dorms, the girls start their day off with breakfast. The lady who owns the villa is nice and her name is Sunny. She is happy to serve the girls delicious food and ensure they eat their meals. Yep, Rena is not going to be able to leave food on her dish. More on that later.

With that, Suzune suggests the girls introduce themselves. What is interesting is that there is that the number of high and middle school students are evenly split. When it comes to Rena, she tells Suzune to read her profile online since they are rivals.

As expected, we find out that they are the same grade and probably the same age. Then again, the way how Rena treats Suzune is very similar to Yachiyo and Iroha. It seems that the dark hair girls come off cold, and Rena is no exception. It makes me wonder when she will defrost.

Sumipanda looks very different compared to her usual form.

With that, the contestants head to the stage. The MC, Sumipanda appears in a different form and not as cute compared to her chibi form. In fact, it looks like man dressed up in girly clothing with a panda head mask on. With that, each girls’ action can affect the score of each girl since the cameras might be on, even off stage.

Somehow, Suzune and Rena finds themselves on the same team.

Of course, Sumipanda presents the girls three cards. They are song, dance, and musical instruments. Depending on what cards each girl raises will determine what team they will be for the first round. The units need to come up with a name, a song from a list and perform it. They need to receive 100,000 yells to make it to the next round, or they get disqualified.

It looks like Suzune will have a hard time defrosting Rena.

The funny thing is that Suzune finds herself with Rena. Kind of expected this given what she said about Suzune last episode. Apparently, Rena is not getting along with Suzune for the past that she got in thanks to someone quitting. Not to mention, Suzune’s friendly personality probably doesn’t help matters either.

It seems that Sumipanda peeked in at Rena and Suzune bickering with each other.

Sunny is not letting Rena leave without eating dinner.

As expected, Sumipanda observes their bickering and warns them that at this rate, they won’t make pass the first round. Thankfully, it didn’t get recorded. Either way, Suzune needs to figure out how to get along with her before it’s too late. After all, there got to be common ground as Rena’s refusal to work with Suzune and seeing her as a rival hinder their progress. Rena was about to walk out of the cafeteria before Sunny stopped her since she didn’t finish her food. It’s obvious that she wants to get away from Suzune.

Surprisingly, Rena is Akari’s little sister.

As Suzune contemplates her next move to resolve her disagreements, she checks her phone. She finds out that her team already have 51,000 yells, which surprises her. This is when the girls find out that Rena is Akari’s little sister. I am already sensing plot armor not because Suzune is the main character, but Rena is an important character.

Eventually, Suzune finds Rena at the beach and talk with her. Rena recalls the moment when she saw her older sister win the first Selection Project. However, Rena finds out that her sister is too busy with her idol activities. That moment when Akari hugs Rena for getting a perfect score on the kanji test was heartwarming.

As expected, when Rena finds out her older sister died in a car accident, she was heartbroken. Not to mention, she doesn’t know much about her older sister’s idol activities. Suzune eventually asks Rena about it and comes clean about it.

Obviously, Rena didn’t tell anyone about this since she wanted to win on her own talent. She didn’t want to rely on her older sister’s fame and sympathy votes. Not to mention, she didn’t know how her older sister felt when she competed or worked as an idol.

Suzune uses this chance to get closer with Rena while resolving her differences.

Of course, Suzune finds some common ground as she undoes her ponytail. She eventually shares how much influence Akari’s songs had on her, which saved her life. Suzune wants to become like her and she is not going to lose either. As expected, Rena started to loosen up a little bit, but still distant. At least they are working together as they pick one of Akari’s songs and practiced.

Yep, Suzune and Rena managed to pull it off.

I guess Suzune haven’t defrosted Rena enough to give her a high five.

Out of nowhere, Rena and Suzune decides to do their performance early. Yes, this surprises the rest of the girls becomes worried about them failing. Believe it or not, Rena and Suzune pulls off a flawless performance. Not too surprising since Suzune would have made it on the first try if it wasn’t for that freak accident caused by her health condition. It’s obvious that Suzune and Rena are probably going to work hard to make it to the final round, just like with Suzune and Seira.

Sumipanda taunts the remaining groups as tensions raises high.

With Suzune’s and Rena’s flawless performance, this only puts more pressure on the other two groups. Yes, Sumipanda taunts them that she never had a show that every single girl made it past the first round. If either group don’t make it to 100,000 yells, I think the competition could be over before it started, unless both girls can pull it off and disprove that curse. We’ll see next time as the remaining groups performs.