Recap: Yuuya recalls a tragedy from his days before joining Argos. After speaking with Cryska and Natalie, he feels more determined to move forward. En route to celebrating their Blue Flag victory, Cui confronts Yui about her feelings for Yuuya.

Jel’s Thoughts: This episode is probably the first time we’ve gotten any characterization of Yuuya beyond his nationality. Unfortunately it’s about 10 episodes too late for that. We keep getting told he’s changed so much in his time with Argos, but until now we didn’t really know what that meant. I mean it’s no great shock that he was cocky and arrogant back in his Team USA days, but it would have been nice to have that fleshed out sooner.

Of course any mildly interesting character development was stomped out by Cui and Yui’s little confrontation at the end. For once Cui was actually making sense as it is completely ridiculous the way Yui is not being honest with herself. She said almost nothing the entire time, and if you think about it she’s hardly said or done anything of consequence this entire Blue Flag arc. I’m willing to overlook the fact that Cui is obsessed with Yuuya for NO REASON but I will stay furious at Yui’s transformation into a useless blob of insecurity.

If I may continue to kick the show while it’s down, I’ve noticed a considerably drop in animation quality that started last week and took and even bigger dive this week. Many shots weren’t just off model, they were horrible mutations of whatever character they were supposed to be. I’m pretty sure they’re either out of budget, or the animators have taken the same “let’s just get this over with” stance that anyone still watching has. It’s just another factor in the sad, slow death of a series with wasted potential.