Uta no☆Prince-sama♪ Maji Love 2000% Episode 7--I Was Jekyll Jekyll Hyde

I wonder how long I can keep up the silly song references in the titles.

 
Now that we're past the halfway point, the show has nailed down its episodic structure: harem member gets a job offer, then has a problem that has to be resolved because of said job offer, and after said problem is resolved, we get a cheesy character song and everyone is happy. I think that this sequence of events has been working pretty well for this season so far, since despite knowing exactly how things are going to progress, there's still plenty of room for each guy to create a unique episode. And that's certainly the case for Natsuki, since this episode gave me the biggest fit of giggles since I first saw the new ED sequence.

 
Natsuki's job offer is a gravure photo shoot for a lipstick brand called...Lipstick (they had to sit up all night to think of that name, I'm sure), and my first reaction was "hahaha, are you kidding" even before the other guys pointed out that the "image" they were going for in the photo shoot was the complete opposite of Natsuki's personality. Making things worse, apparently he was given the job in the first place because the photographer saw his alternate personality, Satsuki, at that concert from last season, and from there the episode revolves around that.

 
In keeping with the last few episodes having sad childhood reveals (with the exception of Otoya, who does not care about his soap-opera-worthy origins), it turns out that Satsuki was "created" after a teacher betrayed Natsuki and stole his song. Since then, he's been taking care of the stuff that Natsuki can't deal with. In light of this, Natsuki giving Haruka his lyrics at the beginning of the episode was a really sweet gesture of trust, and I wish that they'd focused on that a bit more. Instead, we get a ridiculous chase sequence on the roof where the boys try to put his glasses back on.

FOR SPARTAAAAAAA

 
While I did get a good laugh out of that, it was nothing compared to what was coming. The dilemma with Satsuki was resolved pretty easily ("He wrote this song for you!" "Oh, ok, nevermind then.") and with no transition whatsoever, we go straight to the character song. The editing on this had me in stitches. It didn't help that a lot of the fadeaways could be easily taken out of context as well. The first season of UtaPri made me literally fall out of my chair laughing more than once, and I'm surprised that last week's episode didn't accomplish that. But now the current count is 1 literal ROFL. Let's see how much higher that can go.

 
On Cecil's plot contribution this week: Is he going to keep walking in at a random point with the Plot Item of the Week until his episode rolls around? At least last week there was more of an excuse. This time he's just like, "Hey! I learned how to be incognito! Wait, why are you taking my sunglasses?" Anyway, it seems like he's still going through the slow realization that being an idol isn't such a bad idea after all, since we see him thinking about dem abs how hard Ren and Natsuki have worked to overcome their weaknesses. Although in Natsuki's case, I think that the question asked towards the end--"Did he really change at all?"--had a good point. I don't think we'll be able to use the adjectives "mature, strong, and manly" to describe him anytime soon.

And as for the title I chose, I can't be the only one who thought of this:


Images from Crunchyroll.com.