To say that I find a certain irony in this week’s episode of Hinamatsuri is an understatement.  Here we have a show that’s unquestionably guilty of romanticizing Japanese thugs by making them seem affable and normal doing an episode about a show taking an affable and normal thug and making him look like a mafioso.  It’s hard to know how meta any of this is design, but I suspect Hinamatsuri was mostly just doing it to be funny – which is its most natural course of action, and one it tends to be very good at.

Whether the irony is intentional or not, the comedy is real – and it’s also great to get a couple of Nitta-focused episodes in before the wire.  He’s a strong character to say the least, and by all accounts his role in the anime has been substantially reduced from what it is in the manga (ironic, as he got the ED all to himself).  Strong character he may be, romantic TV Yakuza he is not – which acts as a severe disappointment to the hack journalist who’s targeted Nitta as a telegenic and charismatic face of the “new mob”.

The Nitta the reporter gets is basically a harried stepdad unappreciated by his kid, a good-hearted boss too sanguine to yell at his “dumbass” assistant for screwing up, and a general pussycat.  This “forces” him to effectively stage the story as a complete fiction to make Nitta look like a beast.  It’s fortunate for Nitta that his fellow Yakuza know him well enough to see the absurdity in it, and find the final product more hilarious than infuriating (though the old man is furious when he hears Nitta say that Hina isn’t his real daughter).

This time around we get the more sentimental outing in the B-part, as Nitta ends up taking care of Anzu while her step-parents are off at an onsen and Hina is on a class ski trip.  It’s clear straight off that this is a major trade-up for Nitta, as Anzu is everything Hina is not – helpful around the house, respectful, affectionate.  She is, as he puts it, a “father’s dream” – and soon enough he’s infuriated that the Chinese restaurant couple get to experience this every day while he’s stuck with the Hinamator.  So Nitta decides he’s going to bring out the spoiled terror he assumes is still lurking underneath Anzu’s new facade, and sets about sabotaging things for the step-parents.

Except… he can’t.  This Anzu is the real Anzu – it was just waiting for the chance to come out.  Nitta’s comment about environment shaping child behavior is interesting and not entirely off-base, but what happened to Anzu in that homeless camp was like an enlightenment (hell, forget like –  it was).  And the good girl she is quickly breaks down Nitta’s resistance, and soon enough he abandons his scheme and just basks in the emotional glow of having a loving and selfless adolescent in his life for a few days.  The warmth here is real, not fake – and that’s one reason Hinamatsuri is able to rise above the level of a simple snarky comedy and be something deeper and more complicated.

As for the cliffhanger and what it portends for the final episode, we’ll just have to wait and see how that plays out.  Hinamatsuri has made it quite clear at this point that the Hina-Nitta relationship is pretty much WYSIWYG – there’s affection there and the bond has grown over time, but this is not Anzu we’re talking about.  Hina is still an odd and selfish child and whatever exists between she and Nitta is reflective of that – abstract rather than visceral.  I don’t think we’re going to get a heartwarming and sentimental finale for them, and I don’t think I would want to – it wouldn’t feel true to form based on what we’ve seen for 11 episodes.