Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Kobuku, the bullying in Hina’s class has ceased. The ringleader Takagi Megumi and her five co-conspirators were exposed for all to see and made to apologize to the class for their actions. Yet Kobuku remains unconvinced that Takagi in particular shows any remorse for what she’s done.
In an interrogation-style scene, he tries to get past Takagi’s limp excuses (“it’s society’s fault”) to get to the root of her troubles. Takagi, we learn, is deeply frustrated with always being told to study and work hard by people who won’t take responsibility if all that studying and working amounts to nothing.
That’s a valid frustration! More importantly, as all those people were dishing out those platitudes, they never made any real effort to ask Takagi how she feels and what she wants. But now that she has Mr. Koboku’s undivided attention, she no longer has any excuses.
Whether Takagi’s apology was hollow or not, Hina is happy the darkness in her class has been excised, even if she remains terribly hurt by the actions of Takagi and her henchwomen. That especially applies where poor Sakura Chiho is concerned, which is why Hina is so overjoyed when she finally receives a letter from her.
In it, Chiho tells Hina that after initially being a bit lonely, she’s made friends and found peace at the remote farm surrounded by mountains and forests and full of animals and kind people. Tears well up in Hina’s eyes as she reads, tears of both enduring heartbreak over what went down in their class, and relief that Chiho is okay and wants Hina to visit sometime.
Rei, perhaps feeling like Hina is slowly stealing his show (he’s not wrong!), arrives at the Kawamoto residence to find Hina lying supine and fast asleep in the sun. She has an ethereal, almost angelic aura about her that makes him feel extra self-conscious about entering the room. So he waits in the genkan, only to be woken up by Hina when he nods off.
Hina tells him, simply, that “it’s over”, and eagerly describes the day her classmates cried and apologized to her, then invited her over to make cookies. These were the same classmates who, with the threat of retribution from Takagi and her ilk removed, finally felt safe enough to tell the teacher what happened and talk to and hang out with Hina again.
Later, Hina opens her mouth wide to show Rei the minor burn caused by a freshly baked cookie bitten into too quickly, Rei lamely decides to make this about himself: Woe is he, who wasn’t able to do anything to help Hina in her time of need. Oh wait, he didn’t do “nothing” during that time…he did a lot!
Hina sets him straight on this point by listing everything he’s done for her, then adorably doles out punishment in the form of several love bites. Then she starts to dance and twirl under his arm as they walk briskly beside the river, happy as you please. Which begs the question: Is Hina merely the Best Girl in the galaxy, or the entire universe? I’m gonna go with the latter.
RABUJOI - An Anime Blog 