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.

Hinamatsuri – 04 – Unfit to be Homeless

“I’m disowning you.” Those are the three words that suddenly upend Hina’s cushy life at the top, after she upends nearly everything Nitta owns. While decent parents sometimes say things like that in moments when they might be nearing their limits, they never mean it.

Only Nitta doesn’t see himself as her parent, merely a caretaker of heretofore bottomless generosity and patience…and now that Hina has exhausted his supply of those qualities, she’s out.

To the show’s credit, he has a well-established good reason not to feel like her parent—she showed up in a metal egg!—but Nitta eventually learns it doesn’t really matter how bizarrely she entered his life, only that entering it changed that life forever.

Surely a part of Nitta buried by his anger in the moment immediately regretted kicking Hina off, because it knew just how useless she’d be in the real world after the cushy life she’s been used to since arriving.

That uselessness is demonstrated when she immediately spends 10,000 yen on junk food and plays video games until her battery runs out, then latches on to a concerned Anzu, whose limits are quickly tested.

Nitta’s lack of thinking his plan through is also exposed when Hitomi comes to his front door with printouts for Hina. And because Utako is such a good person, she works at a soup run in the park and discovers what Nitta has done. None of the people in the bar who judge Nitta know where she really came from, and that she’s no ordinary defenseless kid who you couldn’t dream of kicking out of your house.

When Nitta tries to defend himself and they run him out of the bar like the one kid all the other kids agreed was Bad News, he gets a harsh lesson in how unimportant details like what Hina is and where she comes from really are. By kicking Hina out, Nitta is a bad guy, at least in the world he wants to keep living in—a world of conscience, selflessness, and kindness.

Kicking her out means Nitta not only has his cushy apartment to himself, but his own world; even Sabu is not having it. Meanwhile, Anzu learns what it’s like to be Nitta, only in accelerated form, as Hina reaches her bike gang-coated friend’s limits and is kicked out after just three days.

Mind you, he’s right that Hina isn’t entirely hopeless. She does befriend some buskers and uses her telekinesis to pep up their show, and is able to make money on her own for the first time. Like the homeless people Anzu befriends, Hina is lucky not to end up with bad people who might to weird things, and even if they tried, she’s be more than capable of fighting them off.

Would Hina have been fine with the band indefinitely? In terms of money and food, perhaps, but where would she stay? And what if she hits the band’s limits like she did Nitta’s and Anzu’s? As Anzu tells Nitta when the two cross paths, Hina simply isn’t fit to be homeless, a devastating line to behold, in no small part due to its blinding accuracy.

But the main reason Hina wouldn’t make it out there is because she doesn’t want to. She liked being with Nitta the most, and so waits outside his door with a newly bought 2900-yen vase and a sincere apology. Nitta, having been banned from Utako’s bar until he makes up with Hina, makes up with Hina.

Yes, it’s a really nice bar, but also Nitta had reached a new limit: he’d gone as far as he could go without Hina, and vice versa, and so the two are back together, and he proudly displays her cheap vase beside the pricey ones, because like HIna, it doesn’t matter where it came from.

Hina’s expulsion from and eventual reinstatement in the good life takes up three-quarters of the episode; the balance is made up of another Hitomi portrait, cementing Hitomi’s role as without doubt the Best and most fascinating character on the show.

While Hina needs to learn the hard way the value of hard work, “half-assed” is not and has never been in Hitomi’s category. She knows she’s good at bartending, and continues to perform that job with pride. Not only can she mix drinks like an adult pro, but she’s now able to dispense advice and say just the words her customers need to hear, whether it’s Nitta’s superior or her own homeroom teacher.

Most importantly, her advice comes from her own experiences, which are numerous despite her modest age. She tells the yakuza boss that a bar is where you can come to be your honest self and not worry about their “real life” outside the door because that’s exactly what she’s doing.

And Hitomi won’t stop doing it, not just because she gets paid, but because she enjoys it, even on the weekends when she works through the night.

It’s in that exhausted state after an all-night shift that Hitomi comes upon Anzu in the alley, and learns that she collects cans. Hitomi, going all out in all things, directs Anzu to a windfall of cans (and gently blackmails a fellow bar employee to gain access to them. She learns fast).

Things get “heavy” in a hurry when Hitomi learns the extent of Anzu’s destitution, and feels bad about even eating the 200-yen ramen she’s offered, especially after learning Anzu usually makes 600 yen a day; the same amount Hina can make in a half-hour.

Suddenly confronted with someone living what appears to be a much tougher life with much smaller rewards weighs heavily on a Hitomi already physically taxed by her dual life. And so, during a protracted game of tag through the forest, Hitomi finally reaches her limit, and falls asleep standing up. If Hina is unfit to be homeless, Hitomi is unfit to be idle…or apathetic.