In Episode Eight, we see Kazunari start his job at the houseboy café that he’s going to have over summer break. He’s given the name of “Anekoiji” for his houseboy personality. He meets his two co-workers: Hojo (whose houseboy personality is “Yamamoto”) and Kurokawa (whose houseboy personality is “Saionji”). It turns out that both of them aren’t what Kazunari considers to be normal.

When he comes home from work that day, he says the job is a reminder that his life is stuck in hard mode. Mayumi starts throwing a fuss, because her younger friends set up a group date and didn’t include her. At that moment, Kazunari gets a call from his friend Tagami asking him if he wants to participate in a group date. One of the girls is Hayashi, a girl from Kazunari’s middle school who used to talk to him about spirits all the time. It turns out she’s had a big high school debut and makes it clear to Tagami that she doesn’t want Kazunari to join them on the group date.

Kazunari is working on the day of the group date, and it turns out that the group comes to the café after being at the karaoke lounge. It’s an awkward situation for Kazunari, and Hayashi tries to claim that she knew of Kazunari in middle school but never talked to him. She also tells the group that he was weird in middle school. The group insists that Kazunari take their order, and they start teasing him mercilessly. At the same time, Sumiko and the residents of the dorm come to the café to eat, and Kazunari ends up getting some unexpected help.

Wow, that Hayashi girl was really bitchy, and I was glad to see the come-uppance that Sayaka gave to her. When Mayumi and Sayaka saw a picture of her, they could tell right away that she realized she could make herself look cute but went way overboard. She obviously acted like such a jerk toward Kazunari because she didn’t want the fact that she had been a Ghost Whisperer to come out and destroy her reputation with her classmates at her high school.

While this was a crappy situation for Kazunari to end up in, Ritsu surprises everyone by coming to Kazunari’s rescue. It’s become really clear to the audience at this point that Ritsu likes Kazunari, but she just can’t seem to admit that to herself yet. It was really sweet near the end of the episode when we got to see how moved Kazunari was after realizing that Ritsu did what she did for him, even though she doesn’t like talking to others and becomes easily embarrassed when she does.

Since Kazunari’s job is only supposed to last through summer break, I wonder if we’ll be seeing the café and the new characters introduced there again or not. Also, could Kazunari end up being persuaded to stay beyond summer break? I’m very curious to see what direction Episode Nine takes this series in.

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