The episode opens with Nishimura trying out a new hairstyle by wearing pigtails. When Takada notices, he gets quite excited. In class, Takada mentions that he wishes he could wear pigtails, and just then, Kitagawa approaches and says the style doesn’t work. I liked the little twist that happens here, because Hino assumes Kitagawa is referring to Takada, since Takada had just mentioned wanting to wear pigtails. Of course, he was talking about Nishimura, and once again, Takada finds a way to turn Kitagawa’s comment around to make it sound like he meant the opposite of what he said.

After the opening credits, we learn that the new semester is starting. With the start of a new semester, that means changing desks. It just happens that Nishimura and Takada end up with desks right next to each other. Kasahara, the main girl that bullies Nishimura, is jealous that she didn’t get to play with Takada at all over summer vacation, and is frustrated about the fact that she didn’t get to sit next to him.

After changing desks, their teacher says they need to select two class reps for the semester, and that they can’t leave until they do. As a joke, Kitagawa nominates Nishimura. After some hesitation, Nishimura agrees to the responsibility. As soon as she does, Takada raises his hand and volunteers to be the other class rep. After Umi, Kasahara’s friend, asks Kasahara if she’s OK with this, Kasahara suddenly volunteers to be a rep as well. The teacher leaves it up to the three of them to talk it out. Kasahara tries to talk Nishimura out of it, so she can be paired with Takada. When Kasahara tells Nishimura that she’s too dense, Takada thinks she’s referring to him. And after Nishimura says a person’s reputation is class should determine who should be class reps, Takada says that with all the attention Nishimura gets, she has to be the most popular person in the class. In the end, Takada bows out, which foils Kasahara’s plan, and now she’s forced to be partnered up with Nishimura.

In the next vignette, Umi approaches Nishimura and asks her to talk to Hino to find out what he wants for his birthday, since it’s coming up. After some hijinks, Nishimura realizes that Umi has a crush on Hino. When Nishimura talks to Umi on the school roof, we get some character development for Umi when she describes how she and Hino had been childhood friends, but had become more distant when the girls starting becoming interested in fashion and splitting into cliques. When the two girls come back inside, Kitagawa and his buddies see Umi and Nishimura together, and they start teasing Umi for being one of the “Grim Reaper’s minions.” Just then, Takada arrives and overhears the conversation, and he says he wants to be one of Nishimura’s minions, too. Kitagawa was quite upset to see Takada’s appearance. Considering how Takada always thwarts Kitagawa’s bullying attempts, it’s not surprising that he was frustrated with this interruption. Once again, Takada turns things around and causes Kitagawa to stomp off in frustration.

Takada invites Nishimura to a surprise party he’s throwing for Hino, and Nishimura asks Umi if she would like to come. After Nishimura explains that Umi and Hino are childhood friends, Takada is cool with Umi coming. By the end of this vignette, Umi and Nishimura become friends. I appreciated how this vignette brought Umi out to the forefront and helped to develop her as a character. I’m starting to like her more, and hopefully we’ll see Umi doing more than simply being a background character to Kasahara in the future.

Speaking of Kasahara, there’s a post credits scene where she approaches Takada and asks him if he’s going out with Nishimura. He asks her what that means, and she talks about going on dates, kissing, etc. Takada says they haven’t done any of that, and sputters that they’re just kids. Kasahara tells him that if boys and girls aren’t dating, then they’re practically strangers. This leads poor Takada to have an awkward conversation with Nishimura, but fortunately, they both come to the conclusion that Kasahara is wrong and that they’re friends. But, right at the end of the episode, we hear Takada’s heart racing, and he wonders if it’s normal for a friend to make your heart race like that. At this point in the series, this is the most obvious clue that Takada has developed a crush on Nishimura. I guess the question at this point is whether or not Takada will figure out what he’s feeling by the end of the series, and if he does, how this will affect the character dynamics between Nishimura and Takada.

Right now, I have to say that I dislike both Kitagawa and Kasahara as characters. From the opening, though, we see that Kasahara does become part of the main friend group, and I’m very curious to see how this is going to happen. With what we see in this episode, there’s still a wide chasm for her to cross to reach that point. With Kasahara and Nishimura being the class reps, that’s going to force them to spend more time together. But would that be enough for Kasahara to change her attitude toward Nishimura? This would be the other big question I have going into the remainder of the series, in addition to the question of whether or not Takada will figure out his feelings for Nishimura.

Even though this episode was broken up into vignettes, there weren’t quite as many as the previous episode that was told with vignettes. And with the vignettes in this episode, they built up to tell an overarching story, instead of portraying random events. But after having a couple of episodes where the tone was a bit more serious, these vignettes and the humor they included were a nice return to the series’ usual tone.

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