The hype episode is finally here, with hints of Rika from the last episode indicating it’s Merm4id’s turn. They decided to do another collaboration, this time with a famous music producer.
Believe it or not, this was the first time we saw Rika riding on a motorcycle. Yep, it best describes her personality as she rides on her motorcycle back and thinks about RONDO’s performance. That is while a storm is coming down. Yep, she thinks about doing another one after the sky clears up. It gives her an idea for another collaboration.
The next day, Rika shares a potential collaboration after hearing a track there. Yep, it’s a music producer known as Laura Bradley. Yep, Rika flew to the land of the free and met her at a club. It’s interesting how she looks like any stereotypical American woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. Not to mention, Laura has perfect English, and she is voiced by Uchida Shuu, which you might know for voicing Mia Taylor in Love Love.
Either way, Laura is a renounced music producer that is popular now. She is around the same age as the members of Merm4id, and Rika seems to like her music. She is willing to work with Merm4id after Rika showed a video of their performance. Now, it’s Saori’s task to talk to her to help make a song together.
As expected, the pressure is on Saori as Laura only knows English. I find it funny how Saori studies hard from a stack of English learning materials and conversation books. Even in the first meeting, Saori struggled to talk with Laura over Zoom as she noticed that Saori was a bit tense. The language barrier worsened as Laura wanted to listen to a song Merm4id came up with. That is after Saori made a sample track using the file that Laura sent her when she only intended for her to listen.
While Saori’s struggles trying to communicate with someone in English reminds me of Zuikin’s English when the Japanese speaker struggles to communicate with the English one. While it’s funny to see Saori struggle and plaster tons of paper on the wall containing English phases, she becomes more tense. Laura noticed that and just wanted to talk and held up an old vinyl record for a Japanese album.
Eventually, Saori reaches her breaking point as she believes she embarrassed herself in front of Laura. Her friends take notice as Saori sits at a table with a stack of books with bags in her eyes. She eventually takes it out on her friends not only because of the language barrier but because she is talking to someone famous and renowned, and she embarrasses herself. I find it funny how Rika tries to give more English resources. At the same time, Marika wants to clear Saori’s mind by partying.
Eventually, Saori literally explodes and decides to go home. After resting, she cleaned up her room and took a breather with her friends. They ate out and went to a music shop and club. This was helpful enough to clear Saori’s mind, and she managed to have a productive conversation with Laura. She liked the song Saori came up with and eventually gave her version.
In the end, Merm4id performed at Alter Ego as Happy Around came to see their performance. Apparently, Merm4id’s performance was well received. Still, it’s funny to see Rika, Marika, and Dalla see Saori pass out after the performance. Not too surprising since Saori is exhausted from working hard on the conversation. Although Rika apologized, Saori said she had fun doing it. Yep, it’s funny to see Rika hug her after Saori admits this. As much as I like Rika and Tsubaki pairing, Rika and Saori are not bad either.
All well, that ends well, right? So next time, it’s Happy Around’s turn at the plate.
Remember kids. When you have a team, ALWAYS run through plans together and not make decisions without consulting them.
It seems that Saori should have asked help from Rika, she will probably be glad to do so, but still funny to see her frustrations. At least it ended well in the end.
But aside from that, Saori and Rika might not be a bad pairing.