Episode 4:
Friendship in Full Bloom! Thousand Year Cherry Blossoms!
In the aftermath of the battle on the Kachidoki Bridge, Hatsuho runs off to Shinonome Shrine. Realizing that Hatsuho is planning to participate in an upcoming cherry blossom festival, Sakura decides to help her.
This episode provides examples of:
- Anything but That!: When Hatsuho tells Klara that Sakura often tripped when she tried to dance, Sakura unsuccessfully tells Hatsuho to stop.
- Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: Although Hatsuho and Sakura had a brief falling out during their childhood when the latter was unable to copy her dance, their reconciliation several years later help make the Thousand Year Cherry Tree bloom once more.
- Call-Back: Hatsuho makes brief references to the time when the Imperial Combat Revue's plays were terrible at the beginning of the 2019 game and how the Shanghai Combat Revue protected Tokyo in their stead.
- Continuity Nod:
- Hatsuho decides to go home after undergoing a Heroic BSoD, just like Sakura back in the fifth chapter of the 2019 game.
- Hatsuho participates in a Japanese festival as a shrine maiden, which was also mentioned in the 2019 game and in her origin story in the Hizakura no Koro light novel.
- Hatsuho and Sakura’s childhood friendship was hinted on in the 2019 game. In this episode, we finally get to see how they first met.
- Exact Eavesdropping: Anastasia, Claris and Azami listen to Sumire's conversation with Kamiyama about the Moscow Combat Revue at the beginning of the episode.
- Festival Episode: Shinonome Shrine has a festival to celebrate the cherry blossoms.
- Flashback: Throughout the episode, there are brief flashbacks to Sakura and Hatsuho's childhood at Shinonome Shrine.
- Heroic BSoD: Hatsuho is not in a good place after her loss in the Flower Division's previous battle.
- Musical Nod:
- The tête-à-tête musical cue can be heard when Sakura gives Klara a tour of Shinonome Shrine.
- The music featured in Claris's date with Kamiyama in chapter 2 is played when Klara unsuccessfully tries to swat away the bats at Shinonome Shrine.
- Tree Cover: Azami watches Shinonome Shrine's spring festival from behind the trees.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: When Sakura left Shinonome Shrine as a child, she inadvertently made the Thousand Year Cherry Tree stopped blooming.
