One more week til we shift gears properly to match chase.
In many ways, I can see why they would move this episode ahead of Kira’s formal introduction. There was only one “arc” that separated Kira’s introduction to his actual encounter with the main crew so having this little love-story in between didn’t keep the tension up. It’s honestly a change for the better since it’s another week I won’t have to wait to get to Sheer Heart Attack. It also helps to have Shigechi’s character sink in so there’s that.
Anyway, let’s get to Cinderella.
Yukako is seen constantly stalking Koichi and with their situation from last time, their predicament is understandable. One change I noticed from the manga here is that Yukako was given information on Cinderella from Joseph when he approached her after seeing her moping at a cafe. In the anime however, we have her running into a lady who was streaming tears of happiness after coming out of Cinderella and its proprietor, Tsuji Aya invites Yukako to try the shop out. Inside, Yukako is convinced through Aya’s “line reading” on how the harder Yukako tries to make someone she loves notice her, he’ll only try to get farther away from her, all of this being read from just noting how her brow might cause this. Somewhat convinced, Yukako decides to give Aya’s shop a chance and closes her eyes as instructed for the procedure. Aya is revealed to be a Stand user whose stand, aptly named Cinderella, swaps out parts of the body.
Yukako walks out of the shop with a new pair of brows and immediately runs into Koichi and her advances are actually reciprocated and the two talk for a while at a cafe before something on Koichi’s end prompts him to leave early. Yukako returns to Cinderella and complains about the 30 minutes of effective time her cosmetics have given her and Aya offers a full course “transformation” on Yukako since even she finds her features worthy of its effects. However, Aya warns her that to maintain this procedure’s effects, Yukako must apply a special lipstick every 30 minutes. Before the operation starts, Yukako utilizes Love Deluxe on Aya to warn her not to do anything funny after confirming her suspicion that she was a Stand user. Either way, Yukako says something along the lines of trusting her to do her job since she had the chance to hurt her if she was a bad person. After the procedure, Yukako encounters Koichi again and he before the two can get anywhere, Rohan, Josuke, and Joseph show up and everyone ends up going to the market together, to Yukako’s dismay. Yukako calls Aya on the payphone where the latter reassures her that luck will be on her side as long as the lipstick is applied.
At the market, Rohan’s flash camera scares Shizuka enough to activate her stand and Joseph and Josuke rush outside, causing a commotion and landing Koichi right into Yukako’s arms where the two end up kissing. The next day, Koichi recounts this with Josuke and Okuyasu and the two are scared at what this might mean but Koichi assures them that he accepts this as a good thing. However, Koichi mentions that Yukako has been avoiding him since the kiss and he wants to know if anything is wrong. Turns out, Yukako had neglected the lipstick application and her cosmetics are physically affecting her appearance. Fearing rejection, Yukako avoided Koichi and returned to Cinderella to demand Aya’s cooperation in restoring her. Koichi walks in on this debacle after figuring out that the person he ran into on the street was Yukako and Aya decides to compromise and have Yukako find her face among the many that Cinderella has worked on. Yukako is given only one chance to restore herself and she ends up giving the choice to Koichi and the face he approves of will be the face she would like to have. Koichi has a hard time finding the correct face but requests for Aya to attack Echoes’ eyes to blind him if he made the wrong choice since Yukako’s pride wouldn’t allow for her compromise to work. Aya is moved by the action and rigs her own game to have Yukako’s correct face returned to her.
Kira Hype.
Lair of the Idle 