Jijou o Shiranai Tenkousei ga Guigui Kuru really is the little anime that could.  It’s humble in so many ways and quite anonymous in a schedule full of headliners, but it just keeps delivering.  I knew it was good from reading the manga, but the anime is doing a beautiful job of playing up the weightier elements in the story (which is generally a good idea when adapting this sort of manga).  The sheer amount of positive emotion it can pack into an episode is truly amazing.  Especially given that it doesn’t gloss over the more painful elements of the premise in the least.

We start with more of those painful elements, this time Kasahara being Kasahara.  She still has it in her head to get between Akane and Taiyou, but she doesn’t learn any faster than Kitagawa-kun.  First she tries to convince Taiyou that Akane finds him boring.  That only serves to inflame his desire to improve for her sake.  Leave it to the tank top oracle of wisdom to sum things up: “what are you even trying to accomplish with all this?”.  Then she convinces the sensei to make the kids sit with people they don’t normally talk to on their planetarium field trip (I still remember mine), commandeers Taiyou as a seatmate, and dumps the responsibility for taking care of sick classmates on Akane.

Taiyou-kun getting carsick (bus-sick) is certainly poetic justice – the only thing that would have been even more karmic is if he’d barfed all over Kasahara.  When the time comes for someone to stay behind with Taiyou until he feels better, Kasahara tries to horn in on the sick duty she dumped on Akane but her fellow bully Kitagawa “helps” her and spoils the plan.  It’s truly hopeless – there’s no getting between these two.  Ten year-olds sometimes take a little longer to figure stuff like that out, of course.

What I really loved about what happens next is that it was Akane who came up with the idea to be “bad” – to take a detour and spend the Sensei’s emergency money on snacks rather than go straight to the museum as soon as Taiyou’s soul returned to his body.  She’s trying to prove she can be “fun”, still triggered by Kasahara’s earlier barbs.  But in truth, these kids can’t possibly be bad – they’re completely pure and wholesome, both of them (and you can add Daichi and Umi to that too).  This is their “rebellion” – walking through a shoutengai and spending a few Yen on sweets.

Taiyou and Akane are always thinking of each other.  He’s upset that he “got between her and Adachi-san” – when in fact Akane and Umi are fine, and all Akane really wanted was to spend her field trip with her bae.  Which in the end she does (and you can suck on that, Kasahara-san).  The best part of all this, in fact, is lunchtime.  Akane’s dad always puts a bunch of ajitama (flavored eggs) in her bento, and when she asks him why she says “it’s my magic spell”.  When the four of them sit down to eat and everyone wants to trade sides (ramen shop boy Dai is fixated on ajitama as a common ramen topping), she figures out her dad’s game – trying to give his shy little girl an in to talk with the other kids.

Seriously, that’s just so in-character for Jijou Tenkousei.  The best part of it is, the first thing Akane thinks to do when she does figure it out is send her dad a selfie – to let him know it worked, and that she’s doing OK.  There’s not a lot of wasted space with this series – everything that happens is relevant to the message it’s trying to send (and succeeding).  The emotional radar is completely dialed in, and everything feels completely authentic.  There may be series with thematically broader aims this season, but there are none better at accomplishing exactly what they set out to do.