Hearts tremble, the girls fumble and find themselves on a club field trip!

Original Japanese Title: 乙女は森のなか

‘I suppose a thong is very much like a sumo wrestler’s mawashi…’

Some students who are helping plan the upcoming cultural festival have come along to hassle the literature club, making random demands of them without taking the club or its members seriously at all. Despite Rika and Hongo appearing to be at the end of their tether, Rika accepts their request and implores the club to help the other students spread enthusiasm for the festival beyond the school’s walls by coming up with a romantic legend of sorts! ‘Say your crush’s name three times at the bonfire and they’ll fall in love with you’ kind of youthful superstitious bliss…how wonderful…

Hongo collars Yamagishi-sensei on the staircase and attempts to continue the weird little panty-flash game they have going on, but decides against it after seeing his total lack of interest in her shenanigans. She is visibly jealous and steals a long look round the corner of the corridor when Yamagishi is stolen away by an attractive female colleague of his.

Following an awkward incident in the classroom, Rika and her new boyfriend Amagi have an encounter on the rooftop that seems a little make-or-break. Despite everything she still seems unable to express herself and is left looking hopeless at the end of the scene.

Later during a club meeting, the literature girls try their best to come up with some exciting legend-like rumors to encourage students from other schools to chase their romantic endeavors at their cultural festival but are shot down at every opportunity. They decide the only thing for it is a change of pace – and what better than a club field trip? And thus our maidens in the forest…!

Things heat up between Nina and Kazusa during the field trip and Kazusa, in particular, seems to start getting in way over her head – quite literally!

‘Are you still okay with me as your boyfriend?’

Despite the cuteness of the confession and Amagi’s jubilance at their getting together, Rika seems no better at expressing herself at all. It surely can’t be too long before she hurts him and it all ends in tears. I hope before it comes to that she can start to see how she comes across to others, and that being honest to yourself really is the most important thing sometimes.

Nina remains to be the most clued-up character of the series so far. She sees exactly what is going on inside Kazusa’s head even though Kazusa herself truly has no idea, and has already set her own plans in motion for Izumi. Momoko continues to do her best as the mediator between everyone but even for a girl as sweet as her there is only so much you can do! Nina is aware of her good looks and sharpness and has fallen foul to girls in the past who accused her of stealing their crushes away from them even though she wasn’t interested – and even though this experience was painful for her, she wants to use it somehow to help Kazusa. In a really unique way, she is a really good friend. I hope Kazusa can see this in the end and stop seeing herself as so inferior. In my eyes, she’s definitely the cutest! You are cute, Kazusa!

‘That’s no youth, that’s paint thinner!’

Tensions are running high amidst words unspoken and the excitement of the cultural festival, and Kazusa has another outburst at home while watching TV with her parents. But they are still the absolute best and just cheer her on no matter what. I really love Kazusa’s parents and feel their love for their daughter in all the (albeit short) scenes they’ve been in so far.

I don’t know about you, but I feel with a lot of drama and slice of life anime, especially series with a school setting, you can do a checklist while watching of all the things you might expect from the season – cultural festival episode (check), school trip episode (and check!), a beach episode, bath scene, etc… and this episode is checking quite a few boxes! As a girl watching anime, I often struggle with bath and beach scenes as they can be really fanservice-y and sometimes uncomfortable to watch, especially when the characters are all so young. However, this anime, as expected, gave me no need to worry and I could enjoy the bath scene with the girls in their natural cuteness and pay attention to the drama and story at hand rather than be distracted and uncomfortable by any unnecessary fanservice. Kazusa, however, gets totally distracted by something in particular in this scene, but I won’t say too much…

‘I don’t want her to see…’

This week’s episode did make for a change of scene if nothing else, but all loose ends remain untied and Izumi was nowhere to be seen! What will become of Kazusa…! I’m a little late reviewing these episodes, but I hope you all enjoyed this series as much as I am. Let us know and check out some of our other reviews for this season! This series is also part of our weekly anime previews.

NEXT TIME: Jiggling, Then, After (揺れ、の、その先)