Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 12 (Fin) – Going Commando

Chio’s School Road comes to an end with two more stories of situations girls may find themselves in during their high school years. First, when Andou’s sister Chiharu approaches Chio for tutoring help, Chio gets to experience what it’s like to be the knowledgeable, reliable senpai, suggesting Chiharu make her 500 yen  by collecting cans.

The only problem is, none of the advice Chio dispenses is any good. They collected way too few cans, crushed them needlessly, and only collected the hard steel ones when the softer aluminum ones are worth ten times more. When confronted with her failure by Chiharu, Chio devolves into a child and cries.

It’s Manana who ends up inadvertently showing Chiharu what kind of woman her big bro’s girlfriend should be. Chio insists Manana step out of a long line to go to school, but Manana wants to sell her spot and ends up making over 2,500 yen, inspiring Chiharu to try being a “line agent.”

The second half elaborates upon Yuki’s exhibitionism: not only does she love running while wearing as little as possible, but she walks around her house in the nude, as does her whole family! She assumes lots of families do this…but she’d be wrong.

Manana tries to get one over on Chio by professing to also walking around the house while naked, but Yuki suddenly becomes threateningly suspicious. Manana panics and blurts out how she’d love to not be wearing underwear right then.

She gets her wish, as she and Yuki spend the rest of the walk going commando, which needless to say provides quite a few thrills and close calls for the both of them. They frolick about as if they’ve attained another state of being, living on the edge and loving every minute of it.

The only way Chio can be part of their world is to follow suit and go commando, which she does, and she is immediately welcomed warmly into the fold. Unfortunately, the trio comes afoul of Kushitori Madoka, who can pick up the fact that her kohais are even more radiant than usual.

She doesn’t get a chance to confirm why, however, as Chio manages to scoop up Yuki and Manana gives the excuse that the three have to go pee before Kushitori can get an impromptu game of Kabbadi in.

The episode concludes with some faux previews for other segments (who knows if this will get a second season), followed by “outtakes” of key scenes from past episodes, in which the characters either flub their lines or actions, leading to banter between the “cast and crew”; a neat meta way to end.

While neither as weird nor hilarious as last season’s Hinamatsuri, Chio’s School Road is still a smart, solid, cheeky slice-of-life comedy that stays focused on its premise throughout its run while providing a lot of creativity and variety in its scenarios. Oozora Naomi and Omigawa Chiaki do some very nice voice work and exhibited a wonderful fizzy chemistry.

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 11 – Wild Gaming, Wild Game, Cruel Angel

Chio loves gaming in her free time, which is usually nighttime due to school. As such, she loses track of time all too easily. But even when in the midst of her greatest online coup yet, her ears can still discern the slightest sound coming from RL, i.e. her mother coming in to make sure she’s not still up. With a series of quick and precise motions, she’s under her covers “asleep” and cute dog pics are on her desktop…though her lights are still on.

But while she’s “won” against her mom, there’s no fooling her body (which the camera seems particularly obsessed in this week, btw), which needs sleep. The only problem is, she’s too pumped up from victory to sleep. She misreads a clock and half-dresses for school, but it’s only 4:30.

At that late/early hour, she has two choices: try to sleep and risk oversleeping (and standing out in class) or foregoing sleep altogether and show up to class looking exhausted (and also standing out in class). She needs a third way, and determines that it’s sleeping at a shrine with a bag over her head and texting Manana to come wake her up. It pretty much works!…aside from her fatigue headache in the morning.

In the first half we spent a fair amount of time alone in Chio’s room, hearing her thoughts as she figures out how to repress her game otaku and not betray her goal to always come across as below average. When the second half starts in Manana’s room I thought we might spend the majority of the half there, but it’s only the opening moments.

What matters is what Manana watches on the tube before going to bed: a report about B.O. in girls. Manana had never given it much thought, but as she can’t smell herself properly, she has no way of knowing if she stinks or not, and so demands that Chio do so. Chio doesn’t smell anything out of the ordinary, but Manana then insists on smelling her…for science.

What Manana discovers in Chio’s right pit is a smell so offensive she thinks her nose was torn off by a bear. She spins this whole narrative about Chio settling for below average-ness due to her friend-repelling “Wild Game” odor—something Manana never noticed since they spent so much time together.

But Manana turns quickly from pity to resentment when she realizes Chio’s stink rubbed off on her and is the reason a guy she liked went with different, “plain-as-hell” girl. Manana brings in the ever-brutally honest Yuki (whom she tells to hurry…and she does!) as a third nose.

Yuki smels Chio’s other pit, which is fine; turns out her right pit had been licked that morning by her bad-toothed dog Chop. There was never a “Wild Game”, only Manana’s wild imagination run wild. Then Yuki’s honesty turns on Manana when she asks about the boy she liked—if she doesn’t smell, then what was the problem? Well, according to Death Scythe Hosokawa, it’s because he only likes pretty girls.

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 10 – Rumomoshpringa

This week, Momo asks a favor of Chio and Manana: to “assist” her in buying and consuming sweets. They’re a little confused at first, until they invite her to partake in their years-long tradition of sucking the nectar from flowers on their route. Turns out Momo is really into sweets, and gets really enthusiastic and hyper after eating them.

Chio and Manana decide not only to help Momo, but end up joining in the sugary bliss. I’ll point out that I’ve watched shows in which Momo’s behavior wouldn’t be so unusual (Shokugeki no Souma and Dagashi Kashi come to mind), so it’s refreshing to have someone yelling about how “Hokkaido is in her mouth” be regarded as the weirdo they are.

After all that sugar intake, Chio spots the wee ass-finger-poker and decides to follow her. The girl, named Chiharu, leads her right to Andou, who turns out to be her big brother. Chiharu is pissed that a girl from Samejima Academy made him give up the biker gang life, but she’s mistaken about a great many details.

Do Andou and Chio have…something between each other? Sure, but it’s not as if she’s a succubus who has Chiharu’s once-cool, now-lame brother in her thrall. And yet, when he tries to “scare” her into punching him the way she did before by copping a feel, both of them are embarrassed more than anything else.

Enter Manana, whom Chio informed the poking girl was in her sights, and has come for some revenge. She punches Andou out cold simply because he’s in the way of that revenge, but an unconscious Andou still manages to reflexively rise up and protect his little sister, who now pretty much believes Chio when she says she hasn’t made Andou her sex slave.

The final segment is presented without dialogue in a nice change of pace, and chronicles Andou’s attempts to befriend a cat. It highlights both Andou’s basic decency and humanity, as well as his continued interest in Chio.

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 09 – A Need for You Somewhere

Chio was up all night gaming and not studying for the exams, so she resorts to praying at a shrine for divine assistance. Instead, they meet the creepy high school girl-obsessed “Master” whom their Kabbadi nemesis “trained” with in the park. While an unapologetic creeper, you have to respect the man’s commitment to his craft. He remembers his time as a high-rolling salaryman that women were only hired for their looks, not their academic bonafides.

Thus he and Manana try to give Chio a makeover, first with a blonde wig that ends up way too Showa Era, then a more classic old-fashioned wig that, while suiting her “plain face”, looks very odd when combined with her school uniform. Manana and Master’s running commentary is a constant source of laughs, as are Chio’s funny little background sounds.

Manana and Master perhaps praise Chio’s ‘do too much, for she starts to believe she’s “made it”, attractiveness-wise now, and decides to show them her sexy side by, ahem, pole dancing on the shrine grounds. Their reaction says it all. And the fact Chio picked up how to pole dance from a video game (and can pull it off due to her surprising athleticism) made it all the more wonderfully weird.

Speaking of weird, Chio appreciates things few other girls her age appreciate, like a pipe hanging over a waterway that’s made as hard to cross as possible…but for a valve that serves as a “safe zone.” Chio compares it to a strong, strict man who nevertheless has a kind side.

Speaking of such men, Chio and Manana encounter Andou numerous times during their walk to school, and it occurs to Manana that he seems to be trying extremely hard to impress Chio, and it’s working. She suspects (correctly) that he likes Chio and this is his way of courting her: using special moves to get papers in slots, smoking a cigar…you name it.

Then Manana imagines a future in which she’s still too poor to buy a small car, but Chio is living it up in her Porsche 718 Boxster with a very successful Andou by her side (and hilariously, sporting the same Showa hair/overdone makeup from the makeover segment)—with a haughty accent to boot.

Manana cannot allow such a future to occur, but Chio figures out for herself that Andou might like her (revealing to Manana that they have each other’s contact info). But Chio is immediately “proven wrong” when she and Manana spot Andou pressing another guy against a wall with his foot high up in the air.

Andou, wrongly assuming Chio was a hardcore fujoshi, decided to lift a special pickup move from a BL video…but Chio is still just occasionally glancing at the one mag she bought at the konbini. Instead, she assumes Andou is into guys and she and Manana give the men some privacy.

Later, Chio curses herself for ever believing anyone would fall for her, but Manana quietly insists she’s wrong. And she is! Who wouldn’t fall for Chio?!

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 08 – The Rare Item of Friendship

One morning Yuki joins Chio and Manana…in her very tight and revealing new track outfit. She has no problem walking with them to school like this, and Chio quickly comes around…but Manana can’t handle it; it’s just too sexy.

To further test whether Yuki is naive or just an exhibitionist, Manana takes her to a busy konbini, where every guy proceeds to stare at her in a not-at-all stealthy way.

Manana can’t believe Yuki doesn’t notice…and she’s right not to, because Yuki does notice; she just doesn’t mind. After all, she’s used to big crowds at track meets.

When Chio changes into her soft tennis outfit, Manana deduces the reason why: Chio’s visor enables her to keep her face hidden, while the tennis skirt simultaneously serves as a semi-disguise while making Yuki appear less of an exhibitionist, since it’s two students in their club getup rather than one.

Even so, Manana intends to foil Chio’s plan not to stand out, pointing out to Yuki that they’re exactly 1500m from school (her favorite distance) and there’s a nice tailwind. Once she pops a popper from the konbini, Yuki is off and running, and Chio is exposed as the only remaining girl in an eye-catching outfit.

Chio later gets a measure of revenge by recalling the time Manana greeted her in her school swimsuit years ago, a moment Manana would rather everyone forgot.

Another morning, Manana has her head buried in her phone looking at ways to lose weight, while Chio discovers a kind of video game world in the small space betweeen two buildings she can easily scale due to her latent athleticism.

She ends up almost getting discovered by two office workers, while Manana meets the salaryman who ran with Yuki—and is impressed by how much weight he’s lost and asks for some pointers.

Manana is so engrossed she forgets all about Chio…until the man leaves and she spots her just a few vertical feet from the roof. Manana takes the easy way up there (pretending to be the daughter of another worker delivering her dad’s lunch).

Once there, Manana runs and jumps across the gap to scold Chio, but Chio bursts into tears, worried that Manana might’ve fallen down the deceptively high height in the gap between the buildings.

Indeed, when Manana realizes how high up they are, she faints into Chio’s arms. But Chio is just glad she has a friend who would risk her own safety to make sure she was okay.

In the shorter final segment, we learn the story of how Shinozuka Momo joined the Disciplinary Committee: she was always trying to share her abundant knowledge with her classmates and trying to improve their studying methods, but everyone derided her as an annoying Goody-Two-Shoes.

In her moment of greatest frustration, she’s stopped by the student counselor at the school gate…but not because she did anything wrong. He sensed she had something she needed so say, and needed someone to listen. He gives her the idea to join the committee so her words would carry more weight and more easily reach her peers. The rest is history.

We also learn why she has a thing for the counselor: when everyone else simply wanted her to shut up and go away, he told her that they actually needed her. Not someone like her, but Shinozuka Momo herself.

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 07 – Inner Fujoshi

Chio’s preference for Western-style hardcore shooting games puts her in rare company in Japan, such that she often has to pay extra to play them in Japanese. She also knows of only one konbini where a magazine covering those games is sold, until one day, it’s just not there.

Instead, there’s more BL game mags in its place. However, Chio’s lack of experience in the genre left her with the misconception all the L involves scrawny Japanese Bs. What ultimately sells her is the type of hardened assassin she loves to play in her western games.

Chio has discovered an exciting new world, but she has to interact with her old friend Andou in order to purchase it. She tries to make the mag less pervy by sticking chocolates on the shirtless ad guy’s nipples, but that only makes things worse, so she builds a kind of crop tank top.

Andou is initially distracted by the free driving school catalog Chio originally used to cover the BL mag, thanks in part to a coincidental “BL” in Chio’s email address, Andou gets wise to her purchase despite her efforts, though he makes it clear he’s not judging!

I must not have had a very eventful childhood, because me and my friends never played a game in which we tried to stick our fingers up each other’s butts. However, this seems to be a thing in Japan, and it’s explored in a gross but fun segment in which a girl from a rich middle school challenges Chio and Manana to a duel in; a challenge they initially ignore.

The girl forces the issue by zapping Manana, and is then surprised to find Chio has formidable skills (having had a crappy middle school life herself). But it’s ultimately Manana coming from behind to exact payback. Chio ties off her thumbs and holds her captive in the park to try to discern her motives.

As far as they’re concerned, the girl’s goal is to leave no ass unplugged. She slips out of her bind and gets Manana again. Chio is then given a handicap when the two end up in the middle of a busy part of the park, surrounded by adults and kids. Chio has to be careful about what she does to the girl here; the girl has no such compunctions.

This puts Chio on the defensive, and she ultimately proves her own worst enemy when she backs herself right into a broken protruding tree branch. However, the girl isn’t able to deliver the coup-de-grace, as she’s snatched up by Kushitori, who is still training in the park.

She offers her own ample posterior for the girl’s punishment, then delivers a thoughtful lecture on respecting each other’s bodies. The girl is initially charmed by Kushitori, but Chio snaps her out of it and she leaves having learned nothing.

In the final segment, which is just a quickie but says a lot, Manana and Chio spot a lonely-looking old woman sitting by what used to be a hydrangea patch in the forest, but is now built-up with concrete, glass and steel. They lament how modern society has trampled on the memories of previous generations.

Turns out their romantic imagining of it being the spot where she and her love met was nothing but a fiction. In reality, the woman is slumped over playing an addictive game on her phone. She’s in that particular spot because she can steal free wi-fi from the cafe nearby. When a barista comes out to shoo her away, she chews him out in kind, shattering the girls’ romanticized dreams.

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 06 – Game Over IRL

Kabbadi Club captain Kushitori Madoka is missing, but it doesn’t take Chio and Manana long to find her. While she acts as if she’s training “in the mountains”, she’s really just been camping in a city park, and her “master” is just a old creep who used to be successful but gave it all up thanks to his obsession with high school girls’ infectious “energy.” Yikes!

Needless to say, this is a situation in which neither Chio nor Manana want to get involved…so Chio launches Manana into the situation while she continues to hide.

Madoka wanted to rid herself of her “wicked thoughts” but after hearing the creepy dude’s life story she abandons that venture and pursues the “you do you” philosophy instead…which involves groping the butts of Chio (who Manana sells out as revenge) and later Yuki.

With all the groping out of the way, the next segment deals with Chio being influenced by an American combat game she played by treating every blind corner as a potential hazard (a passing mother seems to pity Chio, but the mother’s little boy things she’s hella cool).

When Chio spots Manana on a bridge that looks very much like a part of the game, she decides to try to ambush her from below, utilizing her surprising athleticism. However, things do not go as easily or as well for Chio IRL as they did in the game.

She ends up having to abandon the ambush and call out for help. Manana knows Chio too well, and knows she was trying to pull a prank. Her hesitation to help causes Chio to find untapped well of strength, which she uses not to raise herself up but to pull Manana down.

A lot of awkward positioning ensues, until both girls are so tangled up and exhausted they need a Good Samaritan to assist them. When he asks the students their names (he knows which academy they attend) the two friends give each others names.

Chio and Manana may seem intent on destroying each other most of the time, yet at the end of the day remain the good friends they’ve always been, and no one, be it a gropy upperclassman, uptight disciplinary officer, or former bike gang leader, can come between them.

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 05 – When You Gotta Go…

Both of the two stories that unfold in this week’s episode are focused, polished, and consistently hilarious. Chio faces a dilemma we’ve all faced: having to pee really bad. She fortunately finds a bathroom, but doesn’t realize until after she’s gone in and relieved herself that she went in the Men’s bathroom, near a busy bus stop to boot.

As we’ve learned, Chio is far more proactive, resourceful, and athletic than a below-average high school girl would be, but that’s what makes her so imminently watchable. We’re there with her as she susses out the best way to escape, finally making use of “mysterious bright-colored balls” that one would never find in the ladies’ room (because they’re for urinals).

One of those balls excites the nearby cat, who starts playing with it in the street. Two girls in miniskirts lean over to watch the cat, and two older men lean over to watch the two girls in miniskirts, giving Chio the opening she needs. It’s a brilliant tactic that almost goes terribly wrong when Chio’s momentarily stuck in the window, but manages to get out.

She even explains away her sudden and surprising appearance to the two men and girls by pretending the cat is her pet “George”, who clearly has no idea who she is and runs off again, allowing her to follow and extricate herself from the situation as everyone shrugs it off as a girl really liking cats…which a lot of people do!

The next episode begins from the perspective of Shinozuka Momo, member of the Disciplinary Committee and deep admirer of its faculty advisor Gotou-sensei. In an effort to be “useful” to him, she takes it upon herself to discover what student(s) from their distinguished academy have been chronically misbehaving in the vicinity of the campus.

This leads to her tailing Chio and Manana, who at first appear to be carrying themselves with “calm and grace”…until Chio pulls a long root out of a flower bed and whips Manana in the bum, setting off a good old-fashioned plant duel. The mortified Momo continues shadowing the two girls, and watches as Chio climbs a wall to see if she can beat Manana up a hill.

She can’t, and Manana rubs it in by denying Chio water, instigating another grappling match. Momo can’t hold her tongue anymore, and orders the two girls to stop hanging out, as they’re terrible influences on each other, going on to describe “true friends.” That leads Manana to correctly assert that Momo…has no friends. Poor Momo!

They make a deal where if they can prove their friends, Momo won’t record or report what she’s seen today. And boy, do they ever prove it, performing a thoroughly embarrassing (and long un-practiced) dance of friendship they devised back in grade school. It moves Momo to unironic tears, and the girls get off scot-free.

In fact, Momo asks them for advice on how to get closer to someone they immediately infer to be Gotou-sensei. As we know, Manana isn’t the person to ask about such things as she has no relationship experienced, but Momo doesn’t know that! As a result, next time she’s with Gotou, Momo acts mysterious and attempts to keep her blondie rival in check…with mixed results. That closes the book on a pair of very strong stories.

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 04 – Cigs & Papers

An harmless question about what you want to do before you die turns into trip down Bad Girl Lane, as Chio makes half-good on her dream of grabbing a cigarette that’s been tossed from a car.

Half, because there’s no time to toss it back and wryly say “you dropped something!”—which would have been awesome—and hurts her shoulder. BUT…she holds on to the barely-smoked cigarette, and immediately becomes fascinated by its seductive allure.

Manana, always thinking ahead of ways to advance her social position, snaps some photos of Chio holding the cigarette oh-so-close to her mouth (the creator’s more adult roots are evident here).

But then Chio suggests Manana pose for some shots, and the two get super into it, with Manana snapping an EPIC shot of Chio with some crows taking flight, while Manana does a pretty badass pose herself—were it not for the cat in the background throwing up!

Chio wants to take more pics, but they have to get to school (the interior of which we still have yet to see…and hopefully never will!). That means smuggling the cigarette onto school grounds, and getting past the teacher in pink Crocs who guards the entrance.

She fails—the teach smells the tobacco immediately—but with nothing to lose Chio simply tells the truth, and he pats her on the head for a job well-done. This doesn’t sit well with Chio, who doesn’t like the fact it never occured to him she would actually smoke (particularly that brand), and when she says she’s a bad girl and strikes a pose, the students around her only laugh. Poor Chio!

One person who has always taken Chio seriously is Andou, who still calls her Bloody Butterfly by habit when they encounter each other quite by chance. Manana hates the prospect of ever having to work for a living, and bets Chio the first adult they see will tell them they hate their job.

Unfortunately for Manana, that first adult is Andou, who won’t go so far as to say what Manana wants him to say. Having seen him fall so far, Chio decides to help him out with his newspaper delivery, and she and Manana learn how grouchy Showa-era people get when their paper is late (this is an excellent Japan-o-centric joke an outsider can still appreciate).

It’s looking like, former bike gang leader or no, Andou’s job just plain blows any way you look at it, but Chio remains optimistic throughout, not letting Andou resort to despair. She uses her surprising athleticism to sneakily drop a paper in a particularly prickly customer’s mail slot, relying on Andou to catch her when she has to leap over a second-floor balcony.

Before long, all the papers are delivered, and far from still wanting to hang it up, Andou is inspired enough by Chio’s support to keep the job for a little while longer. The end result of all this is, of course, that Chio wins the bet and vociferously demands her 100 yen from an exasperated Manana who had no idea Chio would take it this far.

But that’s Chio: at the end of the day she’s a very passionate, intense person who will do whatever it takes, whether it’s getting to school on time or convincing a former bike gangster not to quit a delivery gig. She’s not the ordinary, quite, below average girl she always says she wants to be.

Manana proves just as adept at greeting a classmate in the most ambiguous way possible…at least until that classmate worries that Manana is sick, Manana takes the play-acting further, and draws more classmates to her. At least in this, Chio decides to be passive, running away from the increasingly unpleasant spectacle.

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 03 – This Suddenly Turned Troublesome

On one of the instances when Chio is early for school, she likes to walk through the park, but this particular morning she comes afoul of Andou, the biker gang member she managed to defeat through bluffing and luck, and his gang, who is incredulous about their leader’s claims of the “Bloody Butterfly’s” prowess.

After making a suitably ominous entrance, Chio takes Andou aside and tells him it was all a misunderstanding. However, Andou is so tickled pink at the fact he was so completely hoodwinked by a normal high school girl, he actually keeps the game going with his subordinates, making it seem like she beat him up again and forcing them to flee without their bikes.

Chio didn’t ask for any of this…but she also didn’t simply walk away from the situation, because she was worried it would adversely affect her reputation in violation of her “below average philosophy.” That, and using her online handle IRL also backfired.

 

Despite her desire to live a “peaceful life”, word of the “Bloody Butterfly” even comes to her friend Manana (who I just realized this episode was voiced by Soul Eater’s Maka Albarn’s seiyu. The two end up play-fighting but Chio easily wins because she’s actualy very athletically gifted; she just chooses not to exhibit those skills when she can help it.

Of course, the desire for attention and validation leads Chio to exhibiting her athletic skills, darting left and right while chanting “Kabbadi”…but ends up attracting the attention of her school’s Kabbadi club, third-year Kushitori Madoka. Also, her school has a friggin’ Kabbadi club…and no, Kabbadi is not a sport the show made up!

Kushitori explains it to her polite kohai who actually don’t care, but also can’t get out of the hole they’ve dug lest they admit they were just making fun of the sport their senpai loves. This results in a quick lesson and a quick game for good measure.

Because Manana is not particularly athletically gifted, she’s tagged out immediately, but Chio not only hangs in there against two jocks in Madoka and Yuki, but uses the knowledge she attained by carefully observing Madoka’s play to come up with a strategy to defeat her.

Once Madoka grabbed her in a defensive move, Chio used her knowledge that Madoka likes girls to tangle her up with Yuki, making Madoka choose between holding on to Chio or releasing her so she can grope Yuki. It’s a brilliant plan that relies on the perversity of her opponent while at the same time requiring a certain measure of perversity to devise.

One thing is crystal clear three episodes in: Chio is not as below average as she claims or labors to be. She has both the skills and the luck to rise to the top of her school, only she just…doesn’t wanna. And that’s fine!

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 02 – Born to Run

I’m glad there’s an anime that shares the irreverence and absurdity of Hinamatsuri to dig into this Summer. Miyamo Chio is an ideal lens through which to provide all kinds of social commentary, while her insistence she is “below average” in society couldn’t be more wrong.

Consider when she comes afoul of a bike gang member fresh off a ride. She and a salaryman (a grunt she incorrectly pegs for a section chief) must slide through the narrow space between the bike and the wall, and she gets burned by the exhaust. The biker takes offense, grabs Chio by the scruff…and gets knocked out by a lucky Chio elbow.

Chio appeals to her better self by attempting to move the bike out of the way lest others get burned, but ends up knocking it over. Feeling she’s toast either way, she decides to draw from her badass video game world and talk a hell of good game.

Standing over the bike imperiously like it’s trash, “Bloody Butterfly” urges the biker to give up the life, lest she cease “going easy” on him. And he gives in! He only asks that she accompany him on one last ride, which ends up being a schoool run; Chio manages to sufficiently disguise herself from her peers.

As MEH as Chio might consider herself, her actions with the biker were anything but. But while she can fake being a badass, there’s no denying she and her friend Manana have zero romantic experience; though there is an absurd impressiveness to Chio’s diagram of the ideal below-average high school life, which happens to match up perfectly with a diagram of the tastiest part of the tuna!

Chio and Manana scornfully watch couples walk past them left and right, but they become enamored with Hosokawa and the basketball captain as they dart into an alley. Expecting “sexy times” to be afoot, they are surprised to learn the guy only sought a safe place to ask Hosokawa out. She respectfully declines (she’s focusing on running) and they continue being friends like nothing happened.

Chio and Manana are all caught spying, but pretend to be making out while hiding their faces until the other couple leaves. Thus the two love noobs come millimeters from sharing their first kiss…with each other.

The next day, Chio finds Manana already with Hosokawa, both waiting for her. Suddenly Chio finds herself in the perfect society of three, picturing herself as King, Manana as pauper, and Hosokawa as butler. Only Manana only used Chio as a stepping stone to climb the social ladder with Hosokawa. In any relationship between two people on a lower rung, the temptation will always be there for such stone-stepping.

Of course, Manana promptly recieves her comeuppance when she learns Hosokawa will friendily chat up anyone, including a “company president” she met while on a run, and has been informally coaching ever since. She and the old dude leave Manana in the dust, just feet from where she left Chio in the dust.

Chio and Manana may know jack about romance, but they can be keen observers of human behavior. To whit, they realize well before the kind, pure Hosokawa that the old guy obviously exaggerated his importance due to being flustered by a cute girl suddenly approaching him with running advice.

They’re right—they guy is just a grunt and lied about everything—except his love of running. And that’s why Hosokawa immediately forgives him; after all, even she sometimes acts like she’s not feeling well at meets. What’s important is the run. With that, the quartet frolick all the way to school, so joyfully that their joyless teacher can’t bear to stop them…though he does wonder who the hell the old guy is!

Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 01 (First Impressions) – It’s All in the Journey

Sometimes Miyamo Chio is late for school. Sometimes she’s early. The reasons for either are many: staying up late playing video games, for instance. The point is, while on her route to school, something always happens.

That could be something small, like a closed road, that then turns into something much bigger, like a rooftop adventure with old man toothpaste spit, stepping on a rich guy’s alligator suitcase, or walking boldly out of a love hotel parking garage.

Miyamo Chio is, on the outside, a fairly average, unassuming high school girl who doesn’t like standing out. But inside is a seething cauldron of emotions that conspire to create a far more over-the-top dramatic event than one would think. She even has an assassin alter-ego based on her video game chracter.

Be it one, two, or more trips per episode, Chio-Chan no Tsuugakuro isn’t about school. It’s about getting to school, and everything that happens while attempting to do so. And thanks to some diverse and vibrant voice work from Oozora Naomi and nicely animated bursts of action, the journey is probably more fun than the destination anyway.