The episode opens with Nishimura and her father heading off to visit Nishimura’s grandmother. Kuro is also along, because Takada was unable to take care of the cat because he’s going to visit his old friends at the school he used to go to. Hino lives in a place that doesn’t allow pets, and there’s no one else to watch Kuro. After Nishimura makes it to her grandmother’s house, we see her wondering what Takada is doing. We also see Takada hanging out with his old school friends, and after a bit, he stops and wonders what Nishimura is up to.

At one point, while Nishimura is talking with her grandmother, they discover that Kuro managed to escape out of the cage that Nishimura’s dad had put together. After calling for Kuro and not finding the cat, Takada appears at the door, carrying Kuro. Both Nishimura and Takada are surprised to see each other, because they didn’t know their respective trips would bring them to the same location. So, Takada used to live near Nishimura’s grandmother, and the two of them know each other. That was a nice little twist, and I have to admit that I hadn’t been entirely expecting it. In a lot of ways, I was just as surprised as the characters when they realized what was going on.

In the second half of the episode, we see Nishimura taking Takada to her family’s gravesite. After the ritual is done, Takada comments on how well Nishimura did with it. Nishimura says she didn’t do it quite right, because she used jasmine tea instead of water… because she heard that was her mother’s favorite. When they headed to the gravesite, I had a suspicion that Nishimura’s mother was dead and that’s why we hadn’t seen her in the series, so this didn’t really faze me much. However, this catches Takada off-guard. Nishimura admits that she hasn’t told anyone in their class, and that he’s the first to know about this.

But after hearing that Nishimura’s mother is dead, Takada stops and thinks about the times he’s referenced Nishimura’s “Grim Reaper powers” and how awesome they were. After a moment, he asks Nishimura if he’s been saying mean things to her all this time. Even though Nishimura reassures him that he hasn’t, Takada suddenly starts crying. I nearly got emotional myself when our eternal “sunshine boy” began crying. My heart! Unfortunately, no matter what Nishimura says, Takada won’t cheer up.

I was glad to see My Clueless First Friend address what happened to Nishimura’s mother, and it appears the series is using this revelation to provide character development for Nishimura and potentially for a change in character for Takada. I think the series handled this revelation quite well, and seeing Takada’s reaction to it was almost as much of an emotional kick in the gut for me as it was for him.

If I saw something correctly, the next episode is titled, “Call Me the Grim Reaper.” If that’s accurate, then I expect the next episode will be focusing on Takada trying to deal with what he’s learned and how he’ll act around Nishimura going forward. That seems to be the logical next step after how this week’s episode ended.

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