REVIEW: ‘The Ice Guy And His Cool Female Colleague,’ Episode 5 – “The Fox Girl and the Phoenix Boy”

With the last episode closing with a sequence more focused on the supporting cast than we have seen in the past, The Ice Guy And His Cool Female Colleague Episode 5 continues this trend of bringing the supporting cast into center stage by focusing most of this week’s time on Komori and Kitori.

This week’s pair of stories follow their respective characters with stories that not only give the characters a chance to shine but also set up potential larger storylines for them down the road. But while they are the focus, The Ice Guy And His Cool Female Colleague Episode 5 doesn’t completely forget about its leads, as it utilizes them cleverly to allow the story to smoothly flow from the opening tale to the closing one.

The opening story of this episode focuses on Komori. Her day starts off with a struggle to get to work, but once there, her friends are able to help lift her up. While on break, she discovers a popular snack has a collectible toy series that she becomes fixated on. As she strives to get the whole set, she soon finds someone is leaving toys for her to help her complete the series.

This opening is playful and fun. If you have ever been caught up in collecting random limited-time items, you will instantly relate and possibly feel a few fond memories from Komori’s excitement as her collection grows. While I generally felt like the fun playfulness of The Ice Guy And His Cool Female Colleague Episode 5’s opening landed well, the back half is a little rockier. As the episode momentarily follows Himuro and Fuyutsuki through the halls of their work, they come across a distraught Kitori.

It seems the man is frustrated with the apparent rejection of his advances by his boss, Otonashi. He proceeds to recount his experiences with her, and how he has come to have feelings for her, as well as how he has strived to show his feelings. These attempts amount to little more than his repeatedly proclaiming his undying affection for her, loudly and often.

Kitori’s inability to understand why his advances seem to be falling short is meant to be humorous, but just falls flat. His delivery just makes him come across as whiny and clueless. Even when Fuyutsuki attempts to start him in a new direction, Kitori seems unable to shift his focus to anything beyond a minor adjustment to what has already repeatedly failed him.

The Ice Guy And His Cool Female Colleague Episode 5 ultimately delivers another fine entry that brings some sweet charm, while also being a bit annoying. I like that the show is at least expanding its focus and delivering a bit more variety to its narrative. It feels like it is closer than ever to getting its formula right. It just needs to fine-tune a few more elements to get all the pieces to fit together.

The Ice Guy And His Cool Female Colleague Episode 5 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.