Now that Mei, the true fan, has saved JELEE from the brink, Kano doesn’t seem angry at Mahiru anymore. However, Mahiru has challenges as her artwork doesn’t meet Yukine’s demands. Is Mahiru discovering what it’s like to work with Yukine, Kano’s mother, firsthand?
Last time, Mei saved Kano from quitting altogether by singing the unfinished song horribly. Of course, Mei is embarrassed, given how horrible her singing is. Kano wondered what the “M” stands for, and apparently, the video got over 2.2 million views. Mei’s poor singing went viral, but surprisingly, the comments are positive as they are rooting her on.
With the view numbers, Kano feels the need to finish the video. Kano has already gotten over being angry at Mahiru just like that. In other words, there is hope. Of course, Mei wonders if Kano is ready to sing as Mei suggests rewriting the lyrics. That is when Kano struggles with finishing the song as she doesn’t know who to sing for. Mei had a similar issue while playing piano for her parents. However, everything changes when she sees Nono-tan/Kano and decides to play for her. While Kano wrote this during Halloween, Mei suggests writing what she wants to now.
Meanwhile, Mahiru is having troubles of her own, and Yukine seems disappointed, as there are a lot of issues with Mahiru’s drawings. She can only point out superficial stuff when she asks what her favorite part of Mahiru’s art is. When her second attempt had a lot of comments, and Yukine said that she was running out of time and planned to have someone else finish it, Mahiru wanted to give up. Of course, Kano warned her this would happen, but Mahiru pushed on. After all, she has a particular motive behind this besides challenging herself.
Mahiru asks Kiui about the jellyfish drawing to get inspiration. It’s in the storage locker, and she found it. She finds out that Kiui is good at drawing. Kiui admits that she is good as she gets the hang of things, but she gets overtaken by people who practice hard or have passion. She decides to give up until they cross the arcade picture. That is when they choose to go to the arcade.
Of course, Mahiru wondered if Kiui was getting messages. She hides the fact from students at her school. Kiui eventually comes clean and says that she gets mean messages from people. She just deletes them, but in a way, she is just running away from the bullies.
In the end, Kiui has to confront them. It happens when Mahiru runs into her childhood friends, who seem amazed by how famous she has gotten. They also mention Kiui and want Mahiru to forget about Kiui since she is a failure.
Still, Mahiru defends her until Kiui decides to confront the bullies and that they don’t understand what she went through with all the bullying. It’s because she likes things that are considered childish by normal people. In short, she created an alternate version of herself as a VTuber so she could learn how to love herself. In a way, she told off her former childhood friends who are bullies who won’t understand, and it took a lot of courage.
Not to mention, those bullies are like those right-wing bullies who talk about how diversity is just a “trend” or a bad thing and complain about “wokeness” in the media. It’s not just a trend. Diversity (e.g., different races, neurodiversity, sexual orientation, gender, religion, etc) is good for society as it brings out the full potential. Moreover, the term “woke” is viewed positively overall.
No matter what gender the person is, they can wear whatever they see fit as clothing that has no gender. Things such as non-binary, genderfluid, and non-gender conforming people exist. Okay, it’s nice to see Kiui finally telling them off, and maybe they won’t mess with her anymore. Not to mention, she is famous after all.
With this, Mahiru gained the push she needed to finish her work. Believe it or not, her work is like the art she makes for JELEE special. Of course, while Yukine notices that Mahiru doesn’t follow her demands, she accepts it anyway, as this is what she is looking for. Of course, Mahiru throws a curveball and tries to negotiate that JELEE also gets featured. In other words, is Mahiru trying to make Yukine make up with her daughter and acknowledge her efforts? Quite a genius plan that might push JELEE, who is more successful than Sunflower Dolls. We’ll see how it goes in the finale.
Reviews from Other Blogs
Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night Episode 11: Call of the VTuber – The Yuri Empire
Agreed, still Mahiru ditching Kano for a bit and going so far to get a performance spot with Kano’s mother help is ehhh. Still, I am hoping they will make up eventually.