Mayonaka Heart Tune Ep.02 - Nene centered episode! Rikka close-up was ultra cute.
Episode 2 of Mayonaka Heart Tune starts the "training arc," with Yamabuki taking the four girls out for physical training (running, because having stamina is a must) and developing a specific, detailed plan for each of them to improve their chances of becoming professionals.
The plan itself makes sense considering the weaknesses of each girl, even if, honestly, these are somewhat obvious choices that shouldn't require anyone pointing them out. Nene is assigned Kanji drills, Iko's focus is on auditioning for VTuber agencies, Uzuki must complete an "Anchor 101" course, and Rikka is tasked with selling 50 copies of her CD.
Yamabuki's intentions are good, but he comes off as pretentious considering that he is not really an expert in any of these fields. This ticks off Rikka, who leaves after giving him some harsh words. Of course, Yamabuki is not fazed by it (after a bit of recovery) and decides to observe more of her singing.
This is where I was somewhat surprised because Rikka's song was already pretty much perfect. Where is her glaring weakness compared to the others? She is the only one who does not seem to have anything obvious to improve, and she even draws a reasonable audience at school every week.
The second part of the episode focuses instead on Nene, who is trying to enter an audition for a popular manga series adaptation. Yamabuki manages to convince her to let him help, and they start pretending to be lovers for the 21 days leading up to the audition.
It resulted in a series of quite funny scenes. Even though the end result was a failure (the company had already decided on someone they knew), this allowed the two to grow closer. So far, Nene is definitely my favorite heroine of the series, but I still have not seen enough of Uzuki and Iko to make a final decision.
By the way, the episode was even worse than the last one when it comes to animation. I get that this is not a series that requires high-quality animation, but some of the cuts were visibly bad enough to concern even someone like me, even though I usually do not care about these things.
Now, the focus will likely move to another girl to give them more depth. I am guessing either Uzuki or Iko, because Rikka gives off more of a "main heroine" aura compared to the others and would be better saved for later. They will probably do a round for all the girls to get them interested in Yamabuki, and only then will we see more of the Apollo main plot.
I am overall positive about the series so far, and I am looking forward to seeing how the relationships in the club develop in the coming weeks.
