Bunny Girl Senpai – 03 – Facing the Atmosphere

Sakuta doesn’t wake up at 6 in the morning, because he never slept in the first place, while Mai sleeps soundly. It starts a string of days Sakuta doesn’t sleep, because as he soon learns upon returning to school, everyone there has forgotten her except his sciency friend Futaba and himself—neither of whom got any sleep last night.

It isn’t murder by Freddy in his nightmares Sakuta fears, but the prospect of forgetting Mai. So he stays up, under the pretense of cramming for exams. The next day, Futaba has slept, and forgets Mai, all but making it official. The bags under his eyes grow larger and darker as he pops stims, chugs “Blue Bull”, but Mai picks up on what’s going on.

One night, during an ostensible study session, Mai slips sleeping pills in his drink, and then strokes his head as he slowly, gradually loses consciousness, tears forming in her eyes as she comes to terms with the fact he may not remember her when he wakes up.

That brings us to the opening moments of the first episode, when Sakuta finds the notebook painstakingly detailing his past self’s experiences with Mai. But when he inspects the book, all of the instances of Mai’s name appear blank, leading him to believe it’s a notebook full of wishful thinking.

While the notebook alone fails to jog his memory, it paves the first stone. He gets another when Futaba shows him the notes her past self wrote to herself, surmising that the collective effort of the school, and indeed the rest of the world, to utterly fail to confirm Mai’s existence, could possibly be overridden by a sufficiently powerful confirmation of her existence…i.e., a confession of love.

The final stimulus that brings the memories of Mai rushing back, like water from an unclogged faucet, is a question in the exam that deals with the characters for “security” and “guarantee”; he remembers Mai’s finger pointing them out, and from them on, he knows what he needs to do…and that is to make a complete and utter fool of himself, by running out into the schoolyard and screaming at the top of his lungs that he loves Sakurajima Mai.

He yells himself hoarse, but it has an effect: the other students begin to remember Mai. Then Mai herself appears to share in the humiliation, but also to slap Sakuta for breaking his promise never to forget her, which he definitely did, if only briefly.

If the school was a box and Mai the cat, Sakuta’s bold actions broke the logical stalemate, declaring once and for all that yes, Sakurajima Mai exists, and he loves her. The “atmosphere” of unconscious ignorance of the collective student body was overcome, and thus the “world regained” Mai. She insists Sakuta continue to tell her he loves her as often as possible so that she knows he’s sincere.

From the emotional lows of Mai willingly saying goodbye to the exhausted Sakuta to the highs of him remembering her again their reunion in the yard, this was a roller coaster of an episode; Bunny Girl Senpai’s best outing yet. Was his public outburst corny? You betcha…but that’s the point!

In order to “bring her back”, he had to step out of the flow and do something no one else did. A stern talking-to from the faculty is well worth it, because Mai will be getting one right beside him. So far BGS is smart, clever, mature, and engaging romantic comedy done right.

Hinamatsuri – 10 – Hitomi Just Can’t Say No

No Hina or Mao this week, which means it’s a Hitomi and Anzu episode, which is by no means a bad thing. Hitomi’s petite mom finally catches her coming home late, and even though Hitomi tells her the truth—she’s moonlighting as a bartender—Mama assumes something depraved is going on.

Hurt by and resentful of her mom’s lack of trust in her (and egged on by Utako), Hitomi decides to leave home. Nitta the cheapest apartment his real estate company offers (normally $2800 a month, but she only has to pay half that), and Utako literally strong-arms her into signing the lease.

Just like that, has her own place, and has to make over $300 per week to afford it. Fortunately (or rather unfortunately) every single person at the bar is so impressed with her bartending work that they have jobs to offer her.

She can’t turn down any of them, and so just like that Hitomi is washing skyscraper windows, waiting tables at fancy restaurants, selling concessions at baseball games, and even dressing up as the evil bear in a live hero show.

Another job she takes basically puts her in the office world of Aggretsuko, and it certainly seems like Hitomi needs someplace to blow off steam. Mostly, she just needs sleep; her classmates are shocked to find her dozing off right next to Hina.

Meanwhile, at the office, her co-workers see her as a suck-up using her babyface as a meal ticket for advancement, but their bullying has little to no effect; Hitomi just keeps working hard, and eventually wins them over.

Hitomi is a girl cursed with such preternatural capability that if she’s not careful, she can slide right into the life of an adult many years before she should. But it’s not an issue of being careful; it’s an issue of saying no; and she’s biologically incapable of doing so, however much she might want to.

She basically hits rock bottom when she passes out on the floor just after coming home, and before tossing the half-off assorted side dishes in the fridge (and let’s be honest, they’re always half-off, amirite?). She wants to be a normal girl again, and thinks she might have a way out when Utako insists she throw a housewarming party at her apartment.

Hitomi invites her mom in hopes she’ll make a huge scene and shut everything down. Naturally, her plan backfires when her mom sees all of the major corporate connections her daughter (whose capable-ness has always scared her a bit)  has already made, and decides she’ll trust her to do as she pleases from now on.

So Hitomi stays put in her classy apartment, her side hustles no longer a secret from her mother, but with no one left to turn to and tell her it’s okay to be a normal girl.

On to Anzu, who receives what she deems a windfall allowance of 5000 yen (about $45). She seeks Hitomi’s aid in spending it properly, but Anzu, a survivor of the streets part-raised by the homeless, considers all of Hitomi’s suggestions superfluous wastes of money, from bowling to karaoke to clothes shopping.

What does pique Anzu’s interest is the idea of buying her new mom and dad a present to express her gratitude. Hitomi privately lauds what a good girl Anzu is, and when Anzu finds a shoulder massage thingy that would be perfect for her folks, Hitomi offers to help pay for it.

Unfortunately, Sabu overhears their conversation, and says there’s a way Anzu can pay for it all by herself: by going to a racetrack and betting on horses. Hitomi laments how she knows not one responsible adult. She can handle that, but Anzu is too guileless to be left alone.

Anzu ends up picking a horse with a 1-in-90 chance of winning, and it wins thanks to a freak fall from the favored winner. With a cool 400 bucks, Sabu urges her to keep going. Her luck runs out and she loses everything. Dejected that she can’t buy any gift for her folks, Hitomi tells her it’s the thought that counts.

To that end, Anzu issues some shoulder massage coupons in order to help some of the pains of old age. As Hitomi assured her, they didn’t need an expensive gift any more than Anzu needed bowling, karaoke, or fancy clothes. As long as her folks are happy, she’s happy.

Mahoutsukai no Yome – 14

In what has become a staple of Mahoutsukai no Yome, a cliffhanger that hints that Chise might be in big trouble this time turns out to be something else entirely, and something far less worrisome. In this case, Ashen Eye threw a hide over Chise that turned her into a werebeast, perhaps as a test to see what “home” is to her.

Both Ruth and Elias (also in Beast-Mode) catch up to Fox-Chise, who is having so much fun running through the forest she isn’t quite sure what’s going on unless they tell her. Elias brings her back by repeating his line about it being too cold without her. (Maybe he should invest in a better HVAC system for that house? I kid, I kid.)

In one of the clunkier transitions in this somewhat episodic show, the beside-herself Leannan Sidhe reappears. Joel is on death’s door, and there’s nothing anyone can do. Well, not nothing; Chise can make a faerie ointment that, when applied to Joel’s eyelids, he’ll be able to see the vampire who has been haunting him all these years. This is something both the Sidhe and Joel very much want.

Elias doesn’t want Chise to do it, but he’s never heard her demand anything before, so he doesn’t stop her. However, neither he nor Ruth can assist in the making of the ointment—a process that requires five sleepless nights—and he urges her not to push herself too hard.

The five days and nights pass, and the ointment is made. A very sleep-deprived Chise delivers a daub of it to Sidhe to do with as she pleases, and…it works! Joel gets to see the Sidhe, and tells her he knew she was there all along and can die and return to his late wife a happy man, not blaming the Sidhe for cursing him.

So, it would seem that Chise did one of her friends a big favor, no big deal, right? The Sidhe is going to continue living at Joel’s house…which should give pause to whomever ends up moving in there. All’s well that ends well!

Oh, wait, making a faerie ointment for such a purpose is a taboo and borderline crime in the faerie world, and Oberon comes to Elias and Chise demanding she hand over the jar. Before she can, she coughs up a good deal of blood. I guess she pushed herself too far after all.