The 4th episode of Sordemo was pretty much all Moriaki-sensei, all the time. That comes as a bit of a surprise based on the first three, but he proved himself to be sufficiently eccentric to hold his own with Arashiyama.

We learned a lot about Moriaki this week. He’s a Tigers fan, for one – Hanshin (“Manshin” for the copyright lawyers) that is. Not just a Tigers coffee mug, but a Tigers seat belt too! How’s that for devotion? We also find out his love for math comes from an unpleasant encounter where his budding genius was stomped on by a 2nd grade homeroom teacher. We also find out that Arashiyama isn’t the first student to fall for him. His response to the love letter from the first? A simple equation detailing that a teacher can’t date a student for moral reasons – no “Sensei and Ninomiya-kun” for this teacher.

He’s quite the comedian, Moriaki-sensei – in his own mind, anyway. The entire sequence with the office chairs was hilarious, but the bit with the finger puppets was the highlight of the episode for me – that was a new take on an old gag. If it wasn’t obvious before it is now that Arashiyama is seriously smitten with him. Problem is, in addition to his moral code Moriaki sees her as his second mortal enemy (after the aforementioned homeroom teacher). We found out a little about her, too – namely that she’s a surprisingly good student in everything but math. She says she fails math – making Moriaki’s life hell in the process – because she doesn’t see how it will help her quest to be a high school detective, but methinks she does it because she likes all the after-class time with sensei. She’s a clever girl this one, in her way.

Next week seems to be a Tatsuno-focused episode, so a couple of the characters who looked like majors in the first – including Miyu Irino’s Sanada – continue to be largely absent. The only constant appears to be Arashiyama and the cafe, but that’s enough so far to drive a very interesting and eccentric series.

“I like corn.”