World Dai Star Episode 3: Lunar Defrosting

Glad we got this part over with quickly.

We began with what I assume was Part 1 of the Bamboo Forest play. The important thing was seeing Panda’s Sense in action, which was reading minds of the audience members. She used it to read the minds of fans of hers and Chisa’s.

Next was a Kathrina interview. Because she’s the daughter of two renowned German World Dai Stars there were high expectations for her. Noa didn’t need her Sense to tell the tsundere was beyond nervous. During a call with her mom Mama told her to just do her best but Kathrina was consumed by the pressure of living up to her famous parents.

Later that evening Noa went to Kokona, who was getting a pep talk from Shizuka to be the best Misao she could be (Obviously she failed the audition to play Princess Kaguya), to talk about Kathrina’s performance. Kokona said it’s perfect but Noa argued it’s calculated which to her was boring. Think of it like present day arguments against AI created content. Kathrina’s performance felt…”robotic” or “passionless” to put it nicely. Their first big test, the newcomer performance, was coming up. Noa’s advice to Kokona was to find her true self on stage. We talked about this last episode.

To start the quest to find “herself” Kokona first asked Shizuka. In short she described her as a stage otaku genki whose feelings get hurt easily but refuses to give up and is full of passion. The next part was understanding her role, meaning to understand the character of Misao. Kokona knew the gist of her character but needed a little more to truly get her.

Maybe it’s intentional but the story of Princess Kaguya and Misao felt like a metaphor/symbolism of Kokona and Shizuka’s relationship, meaning more another clue about the blue hottie. It was a great duet btw.

During one of their auditions Kokona took Noa and Shizuka’s advice to heart and played Misao her way. However, this upset Kathrina unfairly berating our heroine for not playing Misao the “correct” way. Then she turned irate at the staff for something beyond their control, blaming them for distracting her. More on this in a bit.

Shizuka wondered why Kokona didn’t ask to switch rooms after that. She endured her bitching for the greater good (the greater good), in this case to put on a great performance by working together. Yae sensed something was off with Kathrina and pretty much told Kokona to use her genki passion to “save her from herself”. This led to our main duo following the grumpy German around in hopes of better understanding her.

Unfortunately they cut off the best part of the mission but we got a kabedon at least. After explaining herself she still got more bitching.

Finally it’s go time. Things went well at first but a small electric malfunction completely shattered Kathrina’s concentration. The weakness of her Sense was one small distraction resulted in incredible stress. We even got a Cinderella’s broken glass slipper metaphor of her shattered confidence.

The next HUGE clue about Shizuka’s identity.

Kokona and Shizuka saved the show after that. Words cannot do their awesomeness justice. It’s so powerful Kathrina went from “bitchy tsundere” to “It’s not like I hate you, baka” tsundere. Thank goodness. We got that out of the way quick. To her credit she’s motivated by badass Kokona to stop being a burden and finish the play.

Afterward it’s confirmed Noa and Yamabuki could “sense” Shizuka’s presence. To be precise they had a gut feeling about our lovely pink heroine’s power. Next time looks like our questions will be answered. Is Shizuka Kokona’s ghost girlfriend, her Sense or are they bound together by a shared Sense? We know she’s not imaginary.