The episode starts out with a series of four vignettes, and three of them tie together. The first one sees Nishimura getting the role of a witch for a play, and Kitagawa and his minions are making fun of her. Taiyou defends her, and turns thing around to make it sound like Nishimura looks cute in the witch costume. What should be noted here, though, is that while Kasahara is standing around and watching what transpires, she herself isn’t participating in making fun of Nishimura. I don’t know if there’s any significance to this or not, but after last week’s episode, I thought it was worth mentioning.

We then see Taiyou’s sister giving Nishimura her old yukata, and Taiyou walks in while Nishimura’s wearing it. Taiyou compliments her, and Taiyou’s sister mentions that her middle school is having their cultural festival. She encourages Taiyou to bring Nishimura, and that the two of them wear yukata. We get to see them spending time together at the festival, with Nishimura thinking that it almost feels like a date. At one point, Taiyou comments on how grown up the middle schoolers look and wonders if they’ll be like that when they move up to middle school. Nishimira says that thinking about the future makes her sad, and Taiyou says he’ll be there to help her smile so she won’t be sad.

The next time they’re at school, Taiyou is approached by Kitagawa and his buddies. They say they saw him and Nishimura together at the middle school cultural festival and tease Taiyou about going on a date with “the Grim Reaper.” When Kitagawa suggests spreading a rumor about the two of them dating, Taiyou says that would seem like bragging. This wasn’t the reaction Kitagawa and his friend expected, and they literally collapse in response. While it was satisfying to see Taiyou turn this teasing around, it’s also a little unfortunate that Kitagawa didn’t learn anything after getting lectured by their teacher in the previous episode about referring to Nishimura as “the Grim Reaper.”

The second half of the episode sees that the school’s field day is coming up. Taiyou is excited about it, in large part due to the fact that this school has more teams for its field day than his old school did. Nishimura isn’t a fan of field day, and says that whatever team she’s on always loses each year and it’s blamed on her “curse.” Taiyou gets a little unnerved though, because if the team she’s on wins, that means there’s no truth to her “curse.” Nishimura keeps trying to tell him that the curse is something other people made up, but he doesn’t seem to pay attention to that.

Taiyou then asks Nishimura if she’s ever climbed to the top of the jungle gym. She says no, and Taiyou offers to help her get up there. They succeed and take in the view from the top. There’s a bit of wind blowing, though, and Nishimura loses her balance. Taiyou jumps down after her to try to save her, and Nishimura falls right onto his arm… and there’s a very noticeable loud cracking sound. It was heartbreaking the see the usually happy and joyful Taiyou crying because he was in pain.

That evening, we see Nishimura and her father at the hospital. They’re approached by a woman, who you can tell immediately from the face has to be Taiyou’s mother. I was glad to finally see her introduced to the series. Obviously, Taiyou and his sister had to have moved here with at least one adult, but we’ve never seen an adult in their family prior to this point. Nishimura apologizes profusely for what happened and blames herself for it, but from how Taiyou’s mother reacts and what she says, we can see where Taiyou gets his personality from. Taiyou’s mother doesn’t hold anything against Nishimura for what happened, and thanks her for being friends with her son. I really liked the interaction between the two parents, especially when Taiyou’s mother apologizes for lecturing someone else’s child. Nishimura’s father says he was glad to see it, because it allowed him to get a better idea of where Taiyou gets his personality from.

There’s a post credits scene of Taiyou coming to school the next day with a cast on his arm. He’s not down about it like Nishimura feared he would be. In fact, he’s his usual upbeat self. I was glad to see the moment wasn’t ruined by Kitagawa coming over and blaming Taiyou’s injury of Nishimura’s “curse.” From the preview for next week’s episode, we see from the title that it’s going to focus on the field day, and I wonder if Kitagawa might make this particular jab at Taiyou and Nishimura in the next episode.

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