InoBato surprises us this (or at least me) this week by showing us a flashback of the day Jurai crossed paths with Tomoyo, and we see that there was a precedent to her placing her fist against his heart as she did during the Hatoko crisis. She convinced him in their brief encounter not to give up on Chuuni. To this day he doesn’t know it was Tomoyo.
We go from that flashback to the present and the family vacation. Hatoko has studied her love manuals thoroughly and is making a concerted play for Jurai, determined not to let this perfect chansu slip away.
Unfortunately, she ends up hewing a bit too close to said manuals and overdoes things, resulting in her nearly passing out from sunstroke/exhaustion. The beach scenes are a vivid showcase for the tendency of InoBato’s character design to be both sexy and goofy as conditions dictate. Last week, Sayumi was definitely a knockout, but Hatoko’s no slouch either.
Knowing where Jurai is, who he’s with, and how Hatoko feels, the same day is a bit of an ordeal for Tomoyo. After dreaming about how she first met Jurai, she decides not to waste both tickets and go to Sealand alone; a decision she almost immediately regrets, but goes through with it anyway. Her scenes are steeped with lonelieness and longing; a kind of lost daze.
When Hatoko recovers she gets another golden opportunity to confess her feelings, but decides instead to come at it from another angle, semantically…something InoBato is certainly no stranger to exploring how wording and phrasing affects understanding.
Jurai remains grateful she ‘saved’ him, and considers her ‘more than friends’ and ‘special’. While I would have liked a straight confession out of her, Hatoko’s wistful looks at the stars indicate that his words constitute a sufficient rejection in terms of romantic love.
That assessment looks even more accurate considering Jurai calls Tomoyo and asks her out on a date right after talking with Hatoko. From there, Tomoyo begins her clinic of cute/bashful/happy facial expressions, as she’s not only clearly over the moon that Jurai called, but that he seemed just as in a hurry to see him again as she was.
It’s a cute date too, as Tomoyo, feeling bad about him offering to treat her again, suggest they decide who will pay fair and square with a shooting game. She kicks his ass and he has to pay anyway, but it was a nice gesture, along with a way to impress him with her marksmanship.
When Jurai leads Tomoyo to a secluded spot to talk, Tomoyo gets a little excited, but it turns out Jurai wanted to create a situation in which she was free to talk to him, after he heard how Hatoko said she was ‘mean’ to her. Tomoyo doesn’t get into that, but does tell him about her light novel failure.
Jurai basically says all the right things in response to hearing about that, and leads Tomoyo to bury her face into his chest just as the fireworks launch right above them.
It really couldn’t get any more romantic, and Tomoyo is again reminded of meeting him, along with a quick montage of all the close moments they’ve had. But Tomoyo still doesn’t say “I love you.” She says “I love this”. It would seem Tomoyo remains the frontrunner after all, and while I really wish she’d said the magic words (as I wished Hatoko had), that’s just not InoBato’s style.
That brings us to the abridged final act, which is…a bit maddening. Here we’ve had a show that’s been 99% about characters and relationships, with neary a hint of superpowers or the war going on outside the sphere of the lit club. Then it decided to suddenly dump a steaming load of plot and peril at the very end.
The woman Hajime’s associates caught on camera does something to Mirei (who we haven’t seen in ages); Mirei calls the club to school, pretends her arm is burning, and when Hatoko uses her power to summon water, Mirei steals her superpower, summons flame, and launches it at Hatoko.
Sorry, but hWAAAAH? What the heck am I suppsed to do with that? Is Hatoko going to be incinerated? The preview clearly indicated next week is the final episode. I’m wondering how the heck the show is going to resolve this crisis and give us a satisfying conclusion to the harem plot.
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