Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun 2nd Stage – 13 (Fin) – Stage Clear

Most of this finale is given over to Fuuka’s play, which serves as a proxy for how Fuuka has wrestled with who she is, who she wants or thinks she should be, and what she wants. Tama plays the isolated, pure Kris; Misuzawa plays the awkward yet curious Libra, and Aoi plays the clever but empty Alucia.

The play is a big hit with the audience, but Tomozaki himself is thrown for a loop when the ending on the stage turns out to be different than the one Fuuka showed him. In this ending, Kris doesn’t return to the garden to hang out with Libra and Alucia. Instead, she writes to them reporting that she’s well on her own, and congratulating them on their impending nuptials.

When the play ends, Tomozaki doesn’t go to Fuuka. He simply leaves the school, feeling that he gave things his best shot but lost, while convinced once and for all that life, while cruel, is no “garbage game.” He’s convinced Fuuka’s new ending was a rejection of him, and he’s not alone. Mimimi chases after him and tells him it’s not right how things ended, and that he shouldn’t merely take the play as the last word.

She could have just as easily said “then pick me”, but that’s not who Mimimi is. Instead, she gives him the push he needs to return to the library to ask Fuuka why she made the choice she did. And it all comes down to her not feeling right about letting her emotions overwhelm her ideals. She believes Libra could only be with Alucia, and only her selfishness would artificially keep them apart.

Tomozaki digs deep in his defense of him and Fuuka, telling her that while she came from a place of ideals and discovered emotions, he went in the opposite direction, starting without any ideals and only emotion and thanks to Aoi, finding a balance between the two.

And even when Fuuka the Writer still isn’t able to twist the ending of the play, Tomozaki presents her with the reality: he likes her, and wants them to be a couple. Libra was a locksmith in the play, and Tomozaki is able to unlock the solution for Fuuka.

And there you have it! I’ve gone on record being okay with Tomozaki ending up with Mimimi or Fuuka, but if I’m honest, he and Fuuka have already been an item for some time now. They just work, and that comfort and coziness continues even after they start dating, with Fuuka becoming just a little more demanding of him, which he doesn’t mind one bit.

Aoi couldn’t be happier with Tomozaki’s progress, because it proves that she was right to push him to change, and right about the offline game of life being worth playing. She still has a lot to teach him, and Tomozaki is looking forward to the challenges. But for now, he accepts her congratulations and reads Fuuka’s new ending to her novel that she wrote just for her.

It’s an ending in which Libra and Kris live happily ever after, having found their sky together. The only way I’d have been pissed is if Tomozaki chose no one, so I’m perfectly fine with this ending! It also featured some top-notch acting from both Kayano Ai (Fuuka) and Hasegawa Ikumi (Mimimi).

Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun 2nd Stage – 12 – Playing with Firelings

Helping Fuuka break out of her cage she’s built for herself isn’t something Tomozaki thinks he should do, but it is something he wants to do, because he, like me, likes Fuuka just fine the way she is, and she shouldn’t think she has to change just so she can follow in his or Hinami’s footsteps.

He utilizes the misfit Firelings from the Andi story—the only ones who didn’t befriend the Popple—to give Fuuka space to rethink her goals, which she admits she’s not entirely certain about. He also shows her an online forum of Andi fans—a whole mess of “Firelings”, to show her that she doesn’t have to choose between becoming someone else or being lonely.

Fuuka is almost relieved Tomozaki is able to verbalize what he believes to be her quandary, and really comes off as someone who simply needed someone to tell her straight-up that she really is best off being herself and not overthinking things. She even rewrites the ending of the play so Kris pursues a passion rather than fitting herself into a square hole.

Every time Mimimi sees Tomozaki interacting with Fuuka, engaged in easy yet spirited discussion, she looks forlorn and lonely. Tomozaki informs Hinami at their next meeting that he’s made his decision of who he’s going to choose. And Tomozaki tells Fuuka—not Mimimi—that there’s something he needs to talk with her about after the festival.

Mimimi likes Tomozaki enough that even on the day of the festival, when Gumi and her two friends from their festival show up to return the favor for Tomozaki and Mizusawa, she’s performatively scandalized by his flirtatious exploits, but beneath the over-acting she’s likely hiding real resentment and pain.

After all, Mimimi has pretty much come out and told Tomozaki how she feels. Her cards are on the table, and yet he’s refused to respond to her, keeping her in his friendzone. She wants to spend more time with him, but here he is, spending time with the adorable Fuuka and these cuties from another school.

One thing I was certain of was that considering their chemistry and bonhomie, Tomozaki and Mimimi were going to do a decent job with their comedy routine. They start strong, but Tomozaki suddenly freezes, wracked by the pressure of the silence filling the room around him.

Mimimi bails him out by telling a joke explaining their name that gets no laughs, and he’s able to snap out of it and get back on track. I just wish we’d have been able to see more of the routine with the crowd response … I felt shortchanged, much like Mimimi!

After the routine, the two head up to the roof to cool down after those hot lights, and both agree that they were certainly, definitely, probably pretty good up there, for amateurs! If that sounds like a lot of qualifiers, well, we are dealing with two people with inferiority issues.

When Tomozaki’s phone goes off announcing the play is about to start—the play with Fuuka—Mimimi’s smile dissipates. And just when Tomozaki is most likely about to tell her there’s something he needs to talk about after the festival (like he did with Fuuka), Mimimi interrupts him, and tells him she had fun with the comedy routine, and sends him on his way.

Once he leaves, she no longer has to act like she’s in a good mood. It’s over”, she says while stretching, talking about the routine, then looks out at the world below, as her long blue hair cascades in the wind, and says “It’s all over,” not talking about the comedy routine.

Everything this week pointed to Tomozaki asking Fuuka out, and I actually agree that Fuuka might be a slightly better match for Tomozaki, both currently and in the long run. But is that really how it’s going to go down? Who’s to say? All I know is, as long as Tomozaki chooses one of them, and not neither, I’ll be satisfied. The latter would be the ultimate cop-out.

Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun 2nd Stage – 11 – Leaving the Garden

At the first meeting of the cast for Fuuka’s play the mood is a little stiff, but Hinami helps break the ice by acting out a line as Princess Alucia absolutely pitch-perfectly, which gets everyone into it. Dealing with all these people is a big step for Fuuka, but she tells Tomozaki she had fun the first day.

She wants to make sure he makes time for his comedy routine with Mimimi, so she says she’ll handle tomorrow’s rehearsal by herself. It’s also part of her effort to “change” herself, like he and Tama did, by jumping into the deep end.

Mimimi demonstrates how good a comedic duo she and Tomozaki make by simply engaging in their usual repartee, which always has a nice rhythm and structure to it. By comparison, hearing a recording of them following her script doesn’t pop the same way, so she suggest they include more improvisation.

Tomozaki admits in inner monologue that he can see him and Mimimi dating, but isn’t sure how that dynamic would differ from their current status as friends. Instead of talking to her about them more, he brings up Hinami and how he doesn’t get why she tries so hard to be the best at everything. Mimimi just hopes that Hinami isn’t “hollow” like she is after all that work.

When he returns to rehearsal, Tomozaki finds that Fuuka is just barely hanging on, as her effort to speak to everyone directly has led to a general lack of cohesion and inability for everyone to focus. It’s all well and good to try something new, but at the end of the day they do need to put on a show and that requires focus.

When Fuuka presents Tomozaki with the long-awaited ending to her script (and perhaps her novel as well), it’s not what he expects at all. Instead of answering the question of who Libra ends up with, after visiting the town and learning just how little she knows about the outside world, Kris disappears from the garden, gets a job, and starts living alone in the town.

Tomozaki thinks this ending is sad, too sad for the play. It’s the first time he’s seriously pushed back, and it’s when she’s clearly poured her heart into an ending she can accept. It also happens to be a path Fuuka herself wants to follow.

Leaving the “garden” of her isolated life in the library, she seeks to meet the “ideal” represented by people like Tama, Tomozaki, and Hinami. In response to his criticism, Fuuka tells him about one of her favorite Andi books with an outsider protagonist, working hard to change and “fit in” in the world.

At the next rehearsal, Hinami is present (she’d been in and out due to student council business), and Fuuka is very clearly taking cues from her in handling the cast. Mizusawa sidles up to Tomozaki and asks him what’s up with Fuuka.

When he tells him, Mizusawa notes that what Fuuka is doing is actually the opposite of what he and Tama were doing. Tomozaki’s ideal came from within, while Fuuka takes more of a birds-eye-view, wanting to meet the world’s ideals, not her own.

And that right there is why I understand Tomozaki’s concerns with the path Fuuka’s on, and even share some of them. It’s nice to want to change, but they way she’s doing it implies Fuuka believes she is somehow lacking, or deficient.

At what point does her self-improvement kick fundamentally change who Kikuchi Fuuka is? That is, the girl Tomozaki has a lot of affection for as a friend, and never thought of as someone in such dire need of transforming herself.

There’s also the whole matter of Fuuka believing wholeheartedly that Hinami Aoi is “a very ideal person”, when evidence is mounting she may actually a troubled person who either won’t ever reveal her true self to anyone, or doesn’t actually have one. You can’t say that about Fuuka, so if anyone is in need of a change, it’s actually Hinami, not Fuuka!

Tomozaki doesn’t know what exactly is going on in Fuuka’s head, but he wants to try to understand, so he buys the e-book of the Andi story she’s decided to follow stays up all night reading it, and believes he’s found a clue. I’m not saying Fuuka’s in the wrong for wanting to change herself, it’s just a matter of level, and not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Similarly, it’s okay and only natural to code-switch between school life, home life, work life, etc. But Hinami Aoi has taken it to a concerning extreme, and I doubt we’ll be able to scratch the surface of why that is before this season is out.

Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun 2nd Stage – 10 – The Wind Beneath Their Wings

Now that Hinami knows Mimimi told Tomozaki she liked him, she suggests he focus on the event map with Fuuka, since he’s technically reached his goal with Mimimi. That said, he can always work backwards with Mimimi in terms of events. He certainly has no shortage of face time with either girl! Seeing him having a lively chat with Fuuka causes Mimimi to interrupt and give him a friendly reminder that he did agree to do a comedy routine with her.

When they meet up after school, they barely discuss the routine. Instead, Mimimi wants Tomozaki to understand that she does like him, and not just the way she likes Tama. At first she felt that way, but after telling him, she realizes that this was the one person who gave her the opportunity to try to break out of her “always second place” mentality. Tomozaki owns up to not quite knowing what to do, but does insist she’s not being annoying.

I do wish Mimimi had been able to get a little more out of him, but she’s clearly worried about being a bother, even though she’s no such thing. Meanwhile, Mizusawa, Hinami, and Tama are cast as Libra, Alucia, and Kris, and Fuuka adjusts their dialogue and personalities to match. The more Tomozaki learns about the Kris character, who was only able to fly with Libra by her side, the more he realizes the character is based on Fuuka herself, who he introduced to a new world.

The one question mark is Princess Alucia, who Fuuka feels is too perfect and needs a weakness like the other two mains. But while she’s hardly a social butterfly, Fuuka doesn’t fall for Hinami’s pat answers in their interview for one second. She can tell Hinami is hiding something, and perhaps therein lies Alucia’s—and Hinami’s—weakness: an inability to show her true self to others…perhaps even not knowing who her true self is.

Tomozaki’s seen the Hinami Aoi behind the “mask” she wears at school and when hanging out with friends, but that could well be just another mask; masks under masks. He and Fuuka get permission to speak to a classmate from her middle and elementary schools.

They don’t learn much, but they do learn she once dated and dumped a prominent boy in their middle school, and while her grade school friend recalled she had multiple little sisters, her middle school classmate is positive she only has one. My first thought was a macabre one: did she lose a sister, did she blame herself, and did she vow to become perfect at playing the game of life as anyone has ever been to honor her?

That’s a lot of speculation, but it’s fun to speculate! Meanwhile, Fuuka still has an ending to write as rehearsals begin, Tomozaki still owes Mimimi more of a response to her feelings, and should probably get started on those event maps for both Fuuka and Mimimi. He’s got a lot going on!