As I said in the premiere post, the allegorical side of Otome Kaijuu Caraméliser runs deep. “I’m not a kaijuu! I’m a normal teenage girl!”. I mean, it doesn’t get much more plaintive than that. The average teenager doesn’t have a tail, never mind turn into a 60-meter tall giant monster. But they certainly have things about themselves that they hate. Things that make them feel like a freak or an outcast. And in the adolescent world there are always those “awful” people around looking to mask their own insecurities by persecuting you for yours.

Kuroe has a problem here. Any number of them, really – starting with the fact that she turns into a daikaijuu. But the trigger seems to be Arata-kun, and if her mother is right, Kuroe is in heat. She certainly finds Arata attractive and likes it when he shows her kindness and affection. And as hard as it is for her to believe, he seems very much interested in her. But what can she do but avoid him if the result is a Toho Studio outtake? That’s easy enough to do when he doesn’t come to for school at first – the buzz is he was injured in the Harugon incident – but becomes a major problem when he does show up.

To say Kuroe is torn when it appears Minami-kun has a girlfriend is an understatement. It does provide an escape hatch – but the heart wants what it wants. As it turns out the girl she sees glomping Arata is Tomosato Manatsu, and Manatsu is a kaijuu otaku. And a strange girl generally. Her only interest in Minami is because he’s an eyewitness and she wants every bit of Harugon detail she can get. Kuroe is holed up in her room dealing with the fact that all this stress has made her tail pop out when she sees what she thinks is a kaijuu by the river outside her apartment building. But it’s actually Manatsu in a kaijuu sleeping bag (homemade) plaintively waiting and hoping that Harugon will make another appearance.

There’s still much we don’t know about Manatsu. But she does seem to be an ojou-sama – after a cop shows up and she convinces herself Kuroe is Harugon’s priestess, two guys dressed in Ultraman cosplay she refers to as “my ride” come to collect her. And she’s unilaterally decided that she’s now Kuroe’s friend – and let’s be honest, she could use one – and attaches herself to Kuroe at school the next day. She even invites her over for snacks and kaijuu movies and declares that in return for Priestess Kuroe matchmaking her with Harugon, she’ll play Cupid for Kuroe and Arata. Problem compounded.

Considering she’s dragging a barely-concealed tail around Kuroe just wants to lay low at school. But the two shrews from the Minami fan club aren’t going to allow that to happen. They avail themselves of the opportunity to lock her in the equipment room, though under the circumstances there are worse things that could have happened to her. Eventually Minami and Manatsu get their heads together and realize something is up and, happily, he overhears the scumbag pair bragging over what they’d done. The mask is off – and maybe for Arata too, who declares that he’s no longer going to be nice even to people he doesn’t like (out of fear or not being liked himself).

Poor Kuroe. Allegory aside, it’s hard to imagine a much more grisly fate for a shy teenage girl, Her tail just keeps growing, and eventually she realizes that she’s trapped figuratively as well as literally – Arata is going to let her out of that room and see the truth. So she comes clean with him, which takes a lot of guts. Except that act seems to clear her psychic RAM and the tail disappears, so all Arata sees is a nice view of her derriere. He makes it clear he’s in for the duration with her, and that’s enough to bring Harugon out of hiding (much to Manatsu’s delight). Being a teenager is tough enough – this really seems like overkill. Mom and Jumbo King have some serious explaining to do.