Episode 11 - The Dramatic Confession!

The Dramatic Confession! (告白はドラマチック！) is the eleventh episode of the Aikatsu Friends! anime series. It aired on June 14th, 2018.

Summary
Finally, Mio begins to take action in order to form a Friends unit with Aine. She aspires for a dramatic situation like with Love Me Tear's legendary formation story. While seeking the perfect timing to speak with Aine, for some reason, Aine seems to be intimate with Nako Ebihara, an idol from Nagoya--?

Plot
Ema and Maika have just finished unveiling their official unit name to Mio and Aine. They remark on how befitting it is as the girls mention how excited they were after making it official. As they watch the girls express their opinions of their official pose, Aine brings up how fun it looks, and seeing her desire to form her own Friends unit, Mio appears to come to a decision.

In her bedroom Mio practices asking Aine to become her Friend. But even though everything points out how perfect they are for each other, she can't accept just coming out to ask her. She wants it to be dramatic and meaningful; just like the origin of Love Me Tear. She gets up to read the passage about it once more. Karen and Mirai met shortly after they gained top idol ranking when they started attending Star Harmony Academy. But neither could take the final step to becoming true friends, until one day when Karen got an offer from the world-renowned producer and was to depart for America when Mirai showed up. She refused to let Karen leave, saying they needed each other in order to shine their brightest. Karen agreed and together their bond officially began.

Delightfully Mio decides her own Friends unit must be started this way too. However she has no idea how to do a dramatic confession and attempts to try to figure it out. She calls for Coco and asks her help; but Coco gets flustered and assumed its supposed to be romantic. After being corrected she tries to help her out and suggests Mio go to the movie theater to confess and imagines herself asking Aine with a filmed request, followed by a game involving notes in various locations until Aine can find Mio. However, she deems both of them to be kind of silly and not befitting of what she had in mind. Coco promises to keep trying, then claims she is sure she figured it out, exciting Mio after she shows her.

The next day Mio meets up with Aine and mentions a desire to spend time with her on Saturday. She has the day off- but Aine suddenly informs her of the plans she already made with her new friend, Nako, the girl she met while trying to find a brand a while back. Mio remembers what Aine told her about Nako, but as Aine shows her their recent conversation she can only express shock when the final text says "There's something important I want to talk about...". Aine offers Mio a chance to join them, but she refuses, saying that if it really is important Nako would probably prefer if they were on their own.

On Saturday Aine and Nako meet up with Mio spying on them from a distance. She can't imagine this secret thing being small for her to have traveled all the way from Nagoya. She follows them as they head to Aine's family cafe and watches as they have tea and a snack together. They are joined by Momone, who has come with some cake for Nako, and once again Penne is forced to lead her out of the room -which momentarily upsets Mio-. She continues watching as they go shopping through town and purchase clothes and cute accessories, and they stop through various locations with Mio fearing the worst by this point.

As evening comes along the girls approach the fair, causing Mio to remember that Coco suggested for her- specifically the Ferris Wheel, convinced that Aine would surely agree there. She assumes Aine was aware of this as the girls seat themselves on a bench, with Nako bringing up what she had planned on telling Aine. Mio sits on a nearby bench and tries to avoid being detected, and after hearing the girls bring up being friends despite the distance between their homes, she gets up to leave, sadly wondering if she can really handle knowing this. She thinks about the many times she's spent with Aine until now and realizes that Aine is the only one who can be her Friend, and taking out something, she forces herself to approach them.

Mio asks Aine to get up and forces her towards the ferris wheel. They board it and as soon as they begin to reach the top, Aine curiously wonders what it was Mio wanted to talk about. She hesitates, and in the heat of the moment Aine accidentally causes Mio to drop the cards she had been holding and picks them up curiously. She sees they are a Friend dress she designed, expressing surprise after Mio claims she made them for her. Fed up with this awkwardness, Mio holds out her hand to Aine and requests they become Friends. Aine goes silent and Mio fears the worst until she suddenly gets up and embraces her. Delighted, Aine explains how she wanted to be Mio's Friend too.

Holding hands as the ferris wheel lowers, the girls meet up with Nako again to explain what happened. She is very happy for them, and brings up how hard Aine has been working for Mio's sake. But Mio is confused, she thought Nao wanted to be Aine's Friend. It's then Nako gets a text from her friend, a girl that she really wanted to become Friend's with, which is why she came to Aine for advice. But now that she's gotten ahold of her, she has to leave now.

Mio is relieved to know she's made a big mistake, and the girls return to school in order to start preparing for the official announcement event and performance. In this time they also learned that Nako was able to form her own Friends unit with the girl she went to ask.

Eventually, the girls sit down to try to determine a good name for themselves while Mio designs her own coord to match Aine's for the upcoming performance. Aine admires her dedication and usage of contrasting colors, and over time, they suddenly gain the inspiration for the appropriate name.

On the day of the performance the girls hold their cards and await for the performance to begin. Aine admits that she's nervous, but she's also really excited to begin this brand new stage in their Idol careers. Mio agrees and they run back to the changing area, putting on their brand new unit coords and appearing on stage to perform "Aikatsu Friends!".

Afterwards, Karen and Mirai are shown observing their performance from a waiting room. Mirai remarks on how impressive they are to use a Friends Appeal their first time performing together as an official Friends unit. She recalls how they also did it back when Aine performed for the very first time as well, then notices Karen is reading a book. Karen reveals it's the book about them, and how much she loves reading the story about their own formation, although, Mirai makes a remark on that silly rumor about it and how it got out of hand. But Karen sees no harm in it; lovely lies are okay like this sometimes.

Aine and Mio stand on stage and officially announce their name: Pure Palette.

Characters

 * Mio Minato
 * Aine Yūki
 * Nako Ebihara
 * Maika Chōno
 * Ema Hinata
 * Karen Kamishiro
 * Mirai Asuka
 * Momone Yūki
 * Coco
 * Penne
 * Tamaki Enjōji
 * Chiharu Hachiya
 * Ken Mayuzumi
 * Masamune Yūki
 * Nene Yūki
 * Kazune Yūki
 * Suzune Yūki
 * Yoshitsune Yūki

Trivia

 * The Pink Partner Coord and the Blue Partner Coord make their debut in this episode.
 * The Friends unit Pure Palette is formed in this episode.
 * The fortune telling site that Mio consults upon, The Other Side of the Moon, belongs to Sakuya Shirayuri.