WARNING: The following article contains SPOILERS for Wolf Girl and Black Prince Episode 8. If you don’t want to be spoiled, please stop reading. You have been warned.
In the last article I wrote for Wolf Girl and Black Prince, I said that there were not that many love stories that show the couple getting the relationship to work. Most of the time, it ends as soon as the external force keeping them apart dissipates. It turns out my prediction was right on the money, seeing as how this is exactly what this episode deals with.
In the last episode, Kyoya finally came out and said that he loved Erika and wanted her as his actual girlfriend. If this were any other clichéd love story, it would have had the two go back to exactly how things were before. Instead, what happens is the two of them go on an actual date, but Kyoya is hesitant due to him not being good at the whole “going outside and socializing” thing. So the whole time Erika knows that he does not really enjoy it and ends with the two of them in a fight. I should mention that I have seen the “naggy girlfriend drags lazy guy somewhere he doesn’t want to go” done several times before, but have never seen it done well until now.
The main problem that this plot almost always has is that both characters end up looking incredibly shallow and annoying. The guy ends up looking selfish and classless due to him outright stating he doesn’t want to do anything, yet the girl ends up looking incredibly petty because she bases their relationship only on doing special things. However, in this specific episode, both characters end up feeling partially justified and you cannot really dislike any of them. It also turns out that his own response to when Erika talks to him is this…
One could technically see Kyoya as being selfish, and maybe he is to an extent. However he ends up making interesting points as well. The reasons that Erika gives as to why they should be doing these things basically came down to “that is what people normally do,” which makes it sound like it is only being done out of obligation. In fact, Kyoyo makes that exact argument when Erika brings it up. This ends up turning the conflict into a situation where there is no clear right or wrong answer. Erika is right to want to do things with Kyoya and isn’t too pushy, yet at the same time, Kyoya is right that their relationship should not just be based on doing things together. This also ends up showing us that Kyoya is actually taking his relationship seriously. He was not lying when he said he wanted a real relationship and it did not cause things to go back to the way they were before.
Afterwards, Erika apologizes for getting mad at Kyoya, and decides that he was right and that the two of them being together is what matters. Kyoya, however, does show appreciation by… asking Erika to feed him Tokoyaki.
The second half of the episode introduces a new character, Kamiya. Kamiya is basically the typical pick up artist type that has no qualms about leading women on, despite not being interested in a real relationship. He ends up making yet another foil for Kyoya in that he seeks out women but does not actually care about them, as opposed to Kyoya who tries to avoid romance but legitimately cares for Erika. There was not much of a real conflict introduced other than Kamiya hitting on Erika and her revealing that she is in a real relationship with Kyoya. This causes Kamiya to question Kyoya about it and trying to see if he has some type of ulterior motive. Of course he pisses Kyoya off when he assumes it is because Erika is great in bed. Afterwards, it ends hinting that Kamiya thinks he needs to talk Kyoya out of being in a relationship.
This series just continues to get more surprising in its quest to take every clichéd love story plot device and portray them in ways that actually work. In fact, I am almost tempted to say that it is unrealistically deep. Someone as narcissistic as Kyoya would never be this wise and tactful in real life. It almost seems somewhat surreal just how many points this series pins up. I have literally lost count of the amount of times a specific line of dialogue just stopped me in my tracks. What else can I say other than that Wolf Girl and Black Prince is an amazing series and it is unfortunate that there are only 4 more episodes?
Wolf Girl and Black Prince is available to watch on Crunchyroll, with new episodes coming out Sundays at 11:30 AM ET/8:30 AM PT. Non-premium users will be able to watch episodes free one week after they first air.
