When Will Ayumu Make His Move?

Episode 8

I had a sneaking suspicion that adding Rin to the cast of When Will Ayumu Make His Move? would be a positive change for the show overall, and I was right! The girl may be a little one-note with her intensity, but the other characters are so low-key most of the time that I actually welcome the energy that the overbearing little dork brings to the table. Plus, the show utilizes her in a way that wisely sidesteps a lot of the genre clichés and elevates the manner in which Ayumu handles its central romantic storyline.

Given Rin's obsession with kendo and her senpai's former prowess, it would have been easy to make Rin the typically clingy underclassmen who serves as a foil for the leading lady's romantic affections. Thankfully, Ayumu tosses out that possibility almost immediately when Ayumu's suckiness at strategy board games causes Rin to immediately shift her allegiances to her Shiny New Shogi Senpai. It's funny to see Rin get so wildly invested in becoming Urushi's errand girl, and Urushi's episode-long quest to feel validated as the mature lead member of a bona-fide school club is cute.

The one downside of this week's focus on relatively dramatic shogi games is that the show continues to do absolutely nothing special when it comes to depicting the matches. I'm not expecting Ayumu to become Yu-Gi-Oh! all of a sudden, but just a little pizzazz would have been nice. Instead, all we get is a few shots of a shogi board that are all completely meaningless to a neophyte like me, plus a bunch of very boring shots of characters moving shogi pieces just off screen from where we can see them.

The show makes up for the lame shogi bouts with how Rin plays into this week's romantic shenanigans. The little kendo goblin might actually have ascended to the ranks of Best Girl simply by way of her immediately clocking Urushi's meager attempt to compliment Ayumu and sussing out the pair's feelings for each other. Moreover, she reacts furiously, but not because she is jealous or petty; rather, Rin is pissed that the senpai she once admired so much can't so much as get the ball rolling on his incredibly obvious crush. That's a cute as heck dynamic, and one I'm hoping to see more of.

Speaking of cute as heck, I couldn't help but be won over by the welcoming picnic that Urushi throws for the Club's newest member, and it isn't even because she and Ayumu continue to be awkward and terrible at romance. I simply appreciate the same thing that Urushi does: The shogi club is actually starting to feel like a real club. These characters still might not exactly be wowing me, and the overall bland direction of the show still does its story no favors, but even I am not immune to the sweet and simple charm of watching a bunch of friends come together and build a little community that they can relish with one another. We may be grading on a curve now, but that's fine. A win is win, either way, and When Will Ayumu Make His Move? did well enough this week to earn some minor accolades. Now if only it could be bothered to actually give a damn about shogi…

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When Will Ayumu Make His Move? is currently streaming on HIDIVE.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.