[Summary]
Amu’s new homeroom teacher, Yuu Nikaido, starts putting Amu off with pronouncing her name wrongly. (Himamori Amu instead of Hinamori Amu). When classes end, Kukai bumps into Amu and ask if she’s free, but before she could answer, he rushes off. Nadeshiko then appears and scares Amu, causing her to fall on a flight of stairs. Nadeshiko then asks Amu if she would like to join her to watch Kukai playing soccer. As Kukai arrives at the football field, he swaps with his teammate, Yamada, who is the star of our episode today. The ball got kicked out of the field, and then Ran performs Chara Change on Amu and we see Amu’s amazing soccer skills. After the practice, the coach assigns the players who would be playing against another school, Seifu Academy the next day. Yamada was not chosen, and he feels down. On Amu’s way home, she sees Yamada practicing goal shots under a bridge.
At home, Amu once again got shaken up by Nobuko Saeki on TV like how she did in the first episode.(She dropped a small tomato in the 1st episode. This time she almost toppled her bowl of miso soup over.) She then thinks about one putting in hard work will never be able to be better than a genius. The camera is then focused at Yamada, who is crying while cleaning his soccer boots. His egg then becomes clouded, with Nikaido standing near his apartment saying that he is just wasting his effort training so hard.
The day for the match between Seiyo Academy and Seifu Academy has arrived. As the guardians enjoy their extravagant lunch prepared by Nadeshiko, a blow off a whistle signifies the start of the match. Sitting at the substitute bench, Yamada is affected by his clouded heart, starts telling himself that the outcome of the match doesn’t matter anymore as all his efforts are wasted and he’s just being a fool. This is when Kukai falls from a sliding tackle, which snaps Yamada from his depression. Yamada then leaves the field to take a breather. This is when Amu notices it and follows him, but bumps into Nikaido. He then tells her that many people’s dream cannot be fulfilled and feeling pissed off, Amu excuses herself and chase after Yamada.
Yamada’s X character makes an appearance, saying dribble, dribble, shoot, which sounded like an evil version of Fuko Ibuki’s high 5 actions. The guardians then arrive at the scene after Tadase finds something amiss. After the X character attacks Amu and the guardians, Amu then Chara Transforms with Ran and restored the X character to normal, revealing a soccer loving Chara Guardian, Yamada’s would be self. The coach then calls for a substitution in the final miniute and Yamada scores the winning goal, making the results a draw. Yamada and Kukai then commented on each other’s performance and give each other a handshake. Yamada then asks Kukai to hit him. Despite the fact that Amu tries to ask Kukai not to agree to it, he punches Yamada. Yamada then screams at Kukai for hitting him so hard and the episode ends.
[Impressions]
Finally the X character doesn’t sound as irritating as the previous one. It would be because that this time the X character is male, hence the high pitched distorted voice is missing. And next, I loved the upbeat music that was playing the background before Yamada scored the winning goal; it really brings the tension of a soccer game to the audience. Generally, I am impressed with this episode. I would love to see more of Amu’s adventure!
