The following contains spoilers for Episode 6 of When Will Ayumu Make His Move?, "I Want to Get It From You, Senpai," now streaming on HIDIVE.
When Will Ayumu Make His Move? is a charming rom-com anime series of the Summer 2022 anime season, and in many ways, it's like a Kaguya-Sama-lite, with a lovestruck male and female pair unable to confess their true feelings without playing mind games first, often based on the strategic game of shogi. Love never comes easy at this school.
At first, the Ayumu anime set up the romantic battle of wits as a one-way affair, with Yaotome Urushi trying to prod Tanede Ayumu into formally confessing his love for her. However, by Episode 6, this love war has become a two-way street, and Urushi learns for herself how tough it can be to declare her true love to someone.
In Episode 6, Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and in Japan, that means love-struck girls like Urushi are encouraged to give chocolate gifts to someone they like. That means the romantic ball is now in Urushi's court -- a total reversal of the dynamic she had with Ayumu in Episode 1. Her siege on Ayumu's heart has long since become a back-and-forth duel, and right now, it's Urushi alone who can move this romantic battle forward. She often acts cool and confident around Ayumu as the stronger shogi player, but when it's time to deliver that romantic chocolate, she falters. Now she's getting a taste of what it's like to be the shy kuudere Ayumu.
It's too much to say that Urushi has become a full-blown dandere or even a stubborn tsundere about it, but even so, she shows a vulnerable side to herself as she struggles to complete her Valentine's Day challenge. Urushi is simply too bashful to give Ayumu her chocolate gift even in the privacy of their tiny shogi club, and she gets even more bashful when her friend Maki teases her about the whole affair.
Even more amusingly, Urushi leans close to Ayumu during a library study session, only to compare herself to her friend Sakurako and realize how romantic this scene is. The bashful Urushi scoots far away from Ayumu, unable to make her move. In the end though, Urushi finally delivers her Valentine's Day gift to Ayumu, acting like a defensive tsundere the entire time. Now she can appreciate how tough it is for awkward, love-struck high schoolers like her and Ayumu to actually make a move.
Episode 6's Valentine's Day and White Day antics help prove that by now, When Will Ayumu Make His Move? has already tweaked its own formula so that it doesn't become too repetitive in nature. As the title suggests, the overall premise is that Ayumu is being too stubborn about confessing his love to Urushi, and that Urushi will use Kaguya-style tricks to get him to confess. However, that would make for a one-note show, so episodes like this one help mix things up and make the situation more like When Will Urushi Make Her Move?. It's gratifying to see the tables get turned like this so Ayumu and Urushi get a chance to be on both the offensive and defensive. Their roles in the anime don't have to be set in stone.
That said, the anime must take care to not take this too far and end up becoming another generic high school rom-com. Plenty of other anime titles begin with a unique premise or storyline, only to gradually dilute it with conventional episodes and narrative styles and thus lose their charm. In this case, the Ayumu anime can and should shake things up sometimes as Episode 6 does, but not too often. The anime must remember its core premise of Ayumu being stubborn about love and using shogi as a way to prove himself to Urushi, and episodes like this one should be the exception, not the rule. Ideally, the anime will soon put shogi back to the fore and give Urushi new ideas to break down those walls surrounding Ayumu's heart. She had her fun being in Ayumu's shoes -- now it's time to resume the original love war.