Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo – 12 (Fin)

Going into the finale it looked like Yamadas still had quite a bit of work to do in order to gather the seven witches for a ceremony before Yamazaki and get his Shiraishi Urara back. So I was surprised by how relatively easy a time he had of resolving things.

Yet it wasn’t surprising in a bad way, because there were still blanks that needed filling for some important players, and in getting filled, they paved the way for ultimate Yamada’s success, which turned out to be good for everyone.

Take Rika: we were never privy to the source of her absolute loyalty to Yamazaki, until now, and it turns out to be pretty clear-cut: Yamazaki was the only one who remembered her and knew she was coming to school and studying at all. With this new info in mind, it makes sense that she wouldn’t do anything to threaten the fortunes of the only person who knows who she is.

But here’s the thing: Yamazaki is no longer the only person. Yamada, Nene, and Tamaki also fill that role, and three people knowing of your existence doubtless feels better than just one.

So Rika agrees to help Yamada, if he can bring Leona back to school so she can wipe her memory. Rika is not only pragmatic, but proud of her position as seventh witch, and takes her duties seriously. Miyamura has no idea what business Yamada has with his shut-in sister, but Leona agrees to come in, and we learn more that drives this story to its resolution: she and Yamazaki were once the entirety of the Supernatural Club.

When he became Student Council president (likely a wish to the seven witches), his memories of Leona were taken away. But like Urara with Yamada, while the memories are gone, the feelings that go with them are not. Thus, when Leona passes Yamazaki in the hall, he tears up, and because he’s a sharp lad, he realizes why, and why Yamada isn’t his enemy any longer.

Nene and Tamaki then manage to capture Asuka-in-Urara’s-body, employing all the other witches in an ambush…

…While Yamada drags Miyamura (a student council member) to Asuka’s to retrieve a very scared and confused Urara who, I’ll restate, still possesses feelings for Yamada, even though she doesn’t remember him.

The seven witches assemble, and though Asuka manages to escape, Yamazaki tells her to stand down, as he intends to observe, not disrupt, Yamada’s ceremony. Yamada stands in the middle, and time stops, or rather slows way down, just for him and Rika.

Before he closes his eyes and prays for his wish, Yamada asks Rika if she’s happy she ended up with a witch power. Rika states that she mostly is, but doesn’t discount the difficulty of bearing such a power, and isn’t looking forward to foisting them on a successor when she graduates.

With that, Yamada makes his wish, and while they prank him a little when he returns to the supernatural club room, everyone’s memory is back. But as they celebrate, he elaborates: he didn’t wish to restore their memories; that was just a by-product of wishing for the witch powers to disappear entirely. After all, thanks to him, the witches no longer had the problems that led to them receiving their powers, and with no more powers, Rika and the others don’t have to worry about burdening successors.

As for Urara, she apologizes for losing her memory and rejecting Yamada, even though she didn’t really have any choice. She also assumes his confession was false, but he sets her straight by repeating that he loves her and wants to go out with her. She, in turn, reveals that the “someone else” she said she liked was really Yamada; she just couldn’t remember him at the time. So there you have it: a tidy happy ending that’s both logical and satisfying.

Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo – 11

With each week comes fresh reveals of more secrets regarding the school witches, and as Yamada learns the Supernatural Club is slowly drifting apart without him, the latest revelation is most important of all: when all seven witches are assembled, a ceremony can be performed that will grant someone any wish they want.

I would imagine the wish Yamada would choose is for Urara to continue to be happy and surrounded by friends…and with him by her side, if it’s possible. But her happiness is paramount.

I said Yamada was down last week, but not out, and now we see why: while many people have had their memories wiped, one of them, Nene, bursts in to protest him copying her own charm power onto her, causing her to love him.

In the act of kissing him, she cancels out the memory loss, and Yamada and Tamaki explain the situation. At the same time, the eyes of both Rika and Yamazaki are constantly on Yamada as he struggles to fix things.

Their threats don’t faze Yamada, however, as he’s on a mission, and his new circle consisting of himself, Tamaki, and Nene makes for an interesting combo. The three agree to gather the seven witches, restore their memories, and convince them to perform the ceremony before their opponents Yamazaki, Rika, and Mikoto can get to them.

In intricate game of chess ensues, full of moves and countermoves and looking several moves ahead, something that without Tamaki and Nene’s counsel, might put Yamada at a disadvantage.

But even though Mikoto keeps him from kissing Urara (who is now at a point where she wants him to kiss her), and Yamazaki proposes a plan that will grant Nene’s wish (to be with Yamada), Yamada’s love for Urara and determination to keep her happy and not alone, conquers all the strategy on display, or so it seems.

 

Just take Tamaki, who saw Nene with Yamazaki and suspects she’s working for him now. But Nene is resigned to the fact no matter what she does, Yamada only has eyes for Urara, so she may as well support and smile with him.

It’s clear beyond doubt now that Nene is in love with Yamada, which is why she suspected she was under her own charm spell despite having no memories of him. The love, unrelated to the witch power, remained, just as Ushio’s love and devotion to her remained even after she lifted her spell from him.

Yamada & Co make progress, restoring Maria, Meiko, and Noa with kisses and explaining to them what’s going on, but Rika remains elusive due to her memory-wiping abilities, which leave no trace of her existence in school records or in the minds of anyone at school. Despite how sad that sounds, Rika has no intention of helping Yamada & Co.

When Mikoto somehow switches bodies with Urara before Yamada can kiss her, Yamada’s at an impasse with the remaining two witches. With little time left, he storms into Yamazaki’s office, grabs him by the scruff (not sure why Mikoto didn’t follow Yamada there to protect her president) warning he’s not going to give up, no matter how much he screws with him. He vows to go to Mikoto’s house, where Urara is in her body, and kiss her—a task characterized by the prez as easier said than done.

Is Nene actually working for Yamazaki after all? What exactly is Rika’s deal? Can only one wish be fulfilled by the ceremony? What other twists and reveals await us in the final episode? I don’t know, but I look forward to finding out. It’s been a great ride: complex and funny and touching in equal measure.

Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo – 10

Thanks to Miyamura’s heretofore unmentioned sister (and scissor enthusiast) Leona, Yamada learns the identity of the seventh witch. Leona tells him because she’s amused he’s doing it for love—specifically to undo the future where Urara is all alone again. But there’s a cost to learning the seventh witch’s identity.

That cost is that Yamada’s memory of the witches—all of them, including Urara—must be wiped, as only President Yamazaki is allowed to know the names of all seven witches. Yamada doesn’t treat it as that big of a deal, especially since his friends and Urara in particular promise to bring him back after his memory wipe. Urara in particular is looking forward to being the first person he kisses, just as she was when they first fell down the steps together.

Yamada takes his leave from Urara, and even though things still don’t seem that serious, there’s an air of wistfulness and even foreboding to their farewell. That’s amplified significantly when the seventh witch, Saionji Rika, appears, boasting about going commando (like Urara made Yamada go when she was in his body) before placing her hands on his face, then walking off, apparently having done the job.

Yamada is confused, then, that even though her instructions indicate it will take 24 hours for his memories to fade…they don’t fade. He enters the supernatural club to announce it didn’t work, but none of them know who he is, or rather, they know he’s Yamada, but have no connection to him.

Turns out Rika couldn’t wipe his memories, due to his immunity to witch powers. Instead, she wiped the memory of all his friends, along with all the witches. In other words, Yamada kept Urara out of that lonely future, only to find himself alone.

Initially, he doesn’t seem all that troubled by this; after all, Yamazaki is honoring his side of the bargain by backing Miyamura, so Urara won’t be alone and sad. But when fellow powers-immune Tamaki keeps asking him to team up with him so they can undo the situation, Yamada kinda snaps and destroys a lectern with his bare hands.

Just as he does so, the person he both saved and exiled himself from, Urara, comes in, wondering if Yamada wanted to join the supernatural club. Yamada refuses, not wanting to cause her trouble, but as she turns away to leave he springs a confession on her, and she rejects him, because she likes someone else.

But even though Yamada gets angry about the prospect of her liking another guy (and the others seem to think she likes Miyamura rather than him), I knew from the get-go that the “other person” she likes is him, but due to Rika’s powers, can’t presently make the connection between the person she likes and Yamada.

It’s a tricky situation to be sure, especially since now that the witches have forgotten Yamada and everything he did to help them, they’re back to stirring up mischief all over school. He agrees with Tamaki that at least playing along Nene’s revitalized plan to gather supporters, her charm power can be put to good use.

The only problem is, Yamada and Nene pick a public place to kiss; a place Urara happens to be walking past and spots them. Now, Urara may not be consciously aware she loves Yamada, and that they both promised she’d be the first one he kissed after Rika did her thing, she’s clearly aware of it on another level, because she gets extremely upset when she sees him kiss Nene.

Yamada is in a deep hole with two episodes remaining. He has a lot of explaining to do, misunderstandings to clear up, relationships to rebuild from scratch, and, if  possible, witch powers to somehow undo, and he won’t have the supernatural club or Urara on his side to help him, because she’s/they’re the ones he’s trying to get back.

But he does seem to have the witch killer Tamaki on his side (who doesn’t want to be alone either), and could yet benefit from the powers of Nene and the other witches besides Urara and Rika. He’s down, but he’s not out.

Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo – 09

What a tangled web Y7 weaves…and yet it all holds together marvelously. As thanks for helping to change her fiery future, Sarushima lets Yamada borrow her powers for their festival booth. Sarushima then asks Yamada to help her erase her power, stating she wants to fall in love and never will if she knows the future of everyone she kisses. As a practical matter, Sarushima has outgrown her power, so it’s not a bad thing for her to want to free it up for another girl.

Unfortunately for Yamada, the “Witch Killer” whose services he seeks on Sarushima’s behalf is Tamaki Shinichi, a bit of an aloof trickster, who has already stolen the invisibility power of a witch, a power that will stay with him until he kisses another witch. Tamaki agrees to take Sarushima’s ability, but only if Yamada gives him valuable intel on whom Yamazaki will be choosing to succeed him as StuCo President.

Yamada first asks Yamazaki upfront for this sensitive information, which Yamazaki predictably declines to surrender, so Yamada decides to try Odagiri’s power—given to him with her blessing, as she wants to help Sarushima too—to charm him. Only his lips can’t get anywhere near Yamazaki’s, because of his secretary and bodyguard Asuka Mikoto stops him with a furious, panstu-revealing kick.

They tie Yamada up, expecting to need torture to get his true intentions out of him, but Yamada is happy to just tell them: Tamaki wants the info. Ironically, Tamaki was atop Yamazaki’s list of successors, but is bumped down when Yamazaki learns of his scheming. We also learn Asuka was the sixth witch, who willingly had her invisibility power taken by Tamaki…though that doesn’t explain her amazing strength!

With the candidates neck-and-neck-and-neck, Yamazaki proposes that the one who discovers the identity of the seventh witch will win the presidency.

There’s suddenly a lot of moving parts in Yamada’s plan to help Sarushima move on, but he never for a second considers backing out of helping her. In fact, he dutifully explains all these moving parts as the cause for the delay (everyone he needs wants something). Sarushima rewards him for his hard work with a kiss, forgetting that it means he’ll see her future.

It’s fun to wonder in the context of their kiss here, that if and when Sarushima does lose her power, whether she’d discover she was in love with Yamada after all.

Anyway, in that future, he sees that Sarushima has lost her powers (which is good), Tamaki has become president (which is fine), Shiraishi is Tamaki’s secretary.

That last bit is concerning to Yamada, especially the way she walks away with Tamaki and looks back at him in the vision. It spurs Yamada to decide to change the future he sees, by helping Miyamura find the seventh instead of Tamaki.

At the bonfire where he and Miyamura keep their distance from their reveling friends and classmates, Yamada admits to him what we’ve known for some time, but he hasn’t been able to verbalize until now: he loves Shiraishi, and doesn’t want to lose her.

Miyamura and Odagiri thus begin separately researching all the troublemakers in the school in their search for the seventh witch. Tamaki seems unmotivated to Odagiri, but by telling Miyamura this, and how it could be a two-horse race between them, Yamada figures out that Miyamura, Tsubaki, Itou and Shiraishi have been kissed by Tamaki, making him invisible to them, which he no doubt used to steal their research.

Rather than simply continue the race to find the seventh, Yamada, who is very much invested in Tamaki not winning, decides to use Shiraishi’s body-swapping ability to get back at him.

That plan will be set into motion with him switching bodies with Shiraishi, but in the light of his realization of his love for her, Yamada finds it more difficult than ever to actually kiss her, worrying about all the variables they never bothered worrying about before. Shiraishi isn’t having it and kisses him.

This upsets him, and when Shiraishi asks why, he tells her: in that future, she wore a look he never wanted to see again; a look of isolation and loneliness; the antithesis to her warm bright smile at the bonfire, surrounded by friends. But Shiraishi responds to his concerns with her own resolution: to never go back to being that lonely person, before asking Yamada to change the future for her.

Perhaps, once he has, Shiraishi may not have further use for her power, nor Yamada for his, and these two can move forward, along with Asuka and Sarushima, to lives defined not by supernatural abilities, but confidence, devotion and love.

Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo – 08

I’ve liked how deftly Y7 has kept things fresh by approaching each new witch intro from a different angle, which is also appropriate considering the unique problems that led to them getting their powers in the first place. Urara was and is Yamada’s primary love interest. Nene was an adversary, while Meiko and Maria needed his help.

With Takigawa Noa, we seem to be dealing with another adversary. Her powers are believed to be the opposite of Maria’s, meaning the Supe Club assumes Noa’s turned three formerly popular students into troublemakers through blackmail or manipulation. But nothing is ever as clear-cut as it seems on this show. In fact, Noa’s turns out to be the most emotionally complex witch cases yet.

She’s also, at first, the toughest nut to crack. Yamada thinks at first he can put on the charm and get a kiss to make things easier, but to his shock, Noa is grossed out by him, having only teased him about liking him.

With Yamada’s pride hurt, he tries again, but only gets a push broom to the face. When he reveals he’s in the Supe Club and knows she’s a witch, Noa pulls attitude 180, and is suddenly keen to kiss him. So keen, Yamada thinks something is fishy, and rebuffs her advances. Now she’s the one with the hurt pride.

Using her knew knowledge of Yamada, she hits him where he lives, having her three troubled friends/minions brutally ransack the clubroom. I’m not sure how they weren’t simply suspended or expelled right then and there, but the adults are all but nonexistent in this school, so whatever.

Pissed off more than ever, Yamada confronts President Yamazaki for the truth about Noa, and he gets it: she wants to make witches out of her three friends, and eradicate all the others. That means Urara, Nene, Meiko and Maria are all in danger.

Rather than panic, Yamada stages a trap for Noa’s crew, using a game, excited Urara as the bait. I appreciate her adventurous spirit throughout this mission, and the fact she trusts Yamada’s judgement more than anyone else. The female friend of Noa kisses Urara, and celebrates the fact she was able to switch bodies, so she can now pesumably do something to get Urara expelled and thus powers revoked.

Only Yamada kissed Urara before, so the girl only ends up switching with him, in Urara’s body. She and the other two are tied up and held captive in the club room while Yamada, still in the girl’s body, opens negotiations with Noa.

Two others (not sure who) accompany Yamada in the bodies of Noa’s friends, but Noa knows who they are immediately. She offers the notebook, then both notebooks in exchange for her people, but Yamada wants more: for the witch-hunting activities to stop, a condition Noa flatly refuses.

The talks break down, and Tsubaki and Itou beat Yamada for failing again, but Yamada insists this is about more than getting the notebooks back: three students’ reputations are at stake, and Noa must be stopped. That’s when Noa’s friends agree to stop their activities of their own volition. They’d rather be together with Noa than for her to be alone.

This awakens Yamada to a key point: Noa hasn’t been manipulating her friends. When he gives them back to her, he asks her if taking over the school with her power was really her goal, and castigates them for causing all those problems that caused them to lose the popularity they already had.

That’s when a frustrated Noa kisses Yamada, and he experiences her power firsthand: in a dream, he relives the most traumatic memory of her past, when her classmates locked her in a storage room for hours until she wet herself. Similarly, her three friends never did anything bad; they were framed.

Noa has wanted to save them for so long, and thought she could do so by getting them witch powers. But when Yamada stopped them, she remembered they were popular from the start, and only their association with her hurt them.

Then the three friends come to Noa’s aid, fighting Yamada and insisting they won’t leave her side. But Yamada shoots back that it’s their wishy-washiness that’s causing Noa’s suffering. Yamada doesn’t have all the answers, but he thinks they should at least do whatever they can to make Noa smile.

At that, another switch seems to go of in Noa’s head, and when we next see her, she’s in the club clinging to Yamada, whom she claims to have fallen for completely. Urara, whom you’d think would be jealous about such a development, is actually happy, because Noa’s power is more about simply seeing someone’s darkest hour, it’s about both kisser and kissee opening their hearts to one another, eliminating artifice and pretense.

They haven’t known each other long, but Yamada and Noa experienced that, and now he knows she’s not just an annoying schemer, and he’s not just a nosy, gross upperclassman. Urara also remarks that the two aren’t all that dissimilar: Yamada’s power also ultimately brings him closer to each of the witches, since to know their powers is to know the problems that gave rise to them. He knew exactly what to do for Noa, and she appreciates it.

It was great watching the battle of wills between Noa and Yamada, as well as the breathless evolution of their relationship. Yuuki Aoi is a great addition to the already stacked cast. Two witches to go!

Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo – 07

This week the Supernatural Club changes the future, not to save lives (as in Steins;Gate) but to save reputations. No one wants to be pegged as the one who set fire to the old school building, after all.

Yamada and Miyamura end up at the house of “shut-in” Sarushima Maria, a returnee who also happens to be a witch. Her power is precognition, and saw sees a future in which she was blamed for burning the building, which is why she doesn’t go to school.

Then Yamada appeared beside her in the vision, which why she expects his arrival. He tells her the first step to figuring this whole thing out is by kissing her, which she agrees to. What Yamada wasn’t expecting was a french kiss!

Yamada experiments on his new copied power by kissing Miyamura, then gets a vision of being slapped, which comes to pass when Nene stops by and her skirt caught on her sweater, revealing her panties. But because his vision is from Miyamura’s POV, Urara determines that Maria’s vision is being seen by another person, who could be the arsonist.

Maria admits she did kiss one other guy (and likely french kissed him, at that): one Tsubaki Kentarou, an old friend and fellow returnee. Yamada confronts this Tsubaki, who promptly tells him he’s in love with Urara and wants Yamada to arrange a meet-up for them.

Tsubaki then leads Yamada to the old school building, site of the fire, to do something he does whenever he gets depressed: make tempura. While insanely random, it does explain how the school gets set on fire; it’s an accident; one that they must now prevent.

The next day, when Tsubaki is expecting Urara, he gets Yamada and Miyamura instead, with Yamada insisting they kiss. But not only is Tsubaki not into guys, he’s extremely strong, and the other guys are unable to get him to kiss Yamada.

That gambit failed, and they return to the clubroom to find Maria there, who knew it would fail. She came to kiss (i.e. french) Itou, who witnessed the fire from the club room where a clock read 8:03 PM. (BTW, I love how tall Maria turns out to be—she reminds me of Kino Makoto—and the fact Itou seems to be instantly smitten with her, perhaps due to that french kiss)

That means if they can keep Tsubaki from cooking tempura past that time, the future will change and the fire in her vision will be prevented. But how to do that? The episode doesn’t make it so easy. Tsubaki certainly wouldn’t cook tempura if Urara accepted his confession, but she can’t do that, because as we know, she likes Yamada.

Yamada believes he’s cracked it: switch bodies with Urara and agree to a date with Tsubaki while delaying a situation where he could confess to her as long as possible, thus staving off the fire. This is another episode in which Yamada’s brute strength is useless and he depends on his friends to help him sort through the tangle of temporal probabilities.So I like his little dance as Urara when Tsubaki agrees to the plan.

Only problem is, Maria still sees the school fire in the future, only this time Itou (very hot and bothered by another Maria frenching) is with them at the fire now rather than by the clock. Worse still, Yamada-as-Urara stumbles into an extremely romantic place while parting ways with Tsubaki, and Tsubaki follows her and exploits that location to confess.

This puts Yamada in the unenviable position of having to answer a confession aimed at Urara, but Urara, in his body, prevents him from saying anything by kissing. Now back in her own body, Urara tells Tsubaki “this is the way it is”, pressing herself into Yamada to make her rejection clear.

By doing this, Urara has all but assured Tsubaki will make tempura tonight, and indeed he races to the school to do just that. Yamada follows him, but isn’t strong enough to get into the kitchen. That’s when Urara arrives, which draws Tsubaki out. Yamada pounces on him, and in the confusion, the time when the school catches fire passes. Mission Complete! Maria embraces Itou in joy and relief.

She also takes Yamada aside after the club celebrates to give him a big ‘ol hug, but also tells him one of her visions was of Urara standing alone before the fire; just like the cold open. She switched bodies with Yamada during Tsubaki’s confession so she could take his place in the vision, protecting him from being blamed for an arson.

While Yamada meekly thanks her at first, he continues to say “as if I’d thank you!”, and tells her never to do something so stupid again. Thus this whole exercise in changing the future Maria saw was also an exercise in romantic development, as Urara moved to sacrifice herself for Yamada’s sake, something Yamada appreciates but doesn’t want.

The way things turned out, they worked together to resolve the issue, and neither of them had to take the hea, and hopefully that’s how they’re operate as they discover more witches.

The cast is ballooning, and Tsubaki is a somewhat simplistic character whose role in the club is still not very clear, but I did like Maria. I expected the pink-haired popular-looking girl would be a pain, but she turned out to be a big-hearted statuesque, french-kissing delight. On to the next witch!