Mayonaka Heart Tune Ep.07 - They're all suspects! What happened to the animation?

Episode 7 of Mayonaka Heart Tune (真夜中ハートチューン), as expected, focuses on the issues of the final heroine, the aspiring singer Rikka Inohana. It seems that due to some past trauma, she stopped writing original songs and took the safe route of performing covers of popular music instead. This change caused her to lose a friendship she had in middle school.

The episode does not go into detail about the trauma, only showing a brief flashback of someone, likely a trainer or mentor, being disappointed in her. She initially expected Yamabuki to react the same way, but he surprised her by only inviting her friends to the concert to give her time to adapt.

Seriously though Uzuki, do you really think there's anyone who wouldn't like these?

Date with four girls at the same time? Come on Yamabuki, I know you can do it!

I am sure her past will be explored further, but I do not know if that will happen in the next episode or later in the series. The final date scene with all four girls began to reveal connections between them and Apollo, so the story might focus on that mystery first before going back to the heroines personal story.

During the date, Yamabuki discovers that all the girls share specific traits with Apollo, such as a taste for takoyaki, a preference for sleeping with items that have their own scent, or even a liking for the same obscure band. This only reinforces my theory that all four of them are actually Apollo and that no singular Apollo exists. This outcome would be fine with me, but I wonder how Yamabuki will handle it.

He is desperate in his search for Apollo, but if all four end up being her, who will he choose to date? We all know the story will eventually turn toward romance one way or another, yet the four girls are essentially a "single package" considering how close they are to each other. Harem route anyone?

I am not sure what happened in this episode, but the animation quality took an absurd nosedive. I had trouble following the story because the poor animation was so distracting and genuinely annoying. It wasn't just small issues, such as low-quality characters in the background.

I'll be honest, that choice is pretty bad. Like I would be hard pressed to eat that thing with that topping...

I love how Iko switches in and out of cat form in various scenes. She's adorable.

I am talking about stiff and unnatural faces during animation, such as in Rikka's dance routine (see the attached video), as well as the extreme use of panning still shots in various other scenes. This series was never the best in terms of animation this season, but it wasn't previously this bad either.

Hopefully it's just a one-off and we'll be back to the normal level of quality we've got used until now next week...