There are a couple of speculations from my First Impressions post that I’m pretty much ready to go all-in on after this ep:

• Masumi knows about the Pugtarou thing. He either thinks it’s no big deal or is being diplomatic because he knows Mitsutaka is self-conscious about it.
• The whole “this terrible secret is not that terrible and no one really cares” thing actually is the joke. Or at least a big part of it.

The truth is, the world has changed a lot since Oji was a teenager. Kawaii culture is way more mainstream, gacha is a huge business, and everyone has character straps on their bag (by the way, even a noob like me knows you never put all your charms on one chain – talk about putting all your eggs in one basket). But PTSD is real, and our adolescent traumas tend to stay with us for life. Maybe this series is a chronicle of Oji-san learning to accept that he doesn’t have to hide who he is from the rest of the world.

Masumi definitely knows, yeah. The funny thing is that Masumi is cute too of course, which is a nice bonus for Mitsuoka in having him around the house. Unfortunately Masumi’s daily bento care packages are giving the wrong impression to Moshina-san from the office, who has a thing for the boss (which is a terrible idea, lest we forget). But the real bromancing here isn’t with Masumi, and that leads Moshina even further down the garden path, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

I’ll own up to a couple of “I feel seen” moments here. I’m not especially interested in kawaii but I do feel self-conscious whenever I go to a collab cafe, like Bokuyaba or Made in Abyss or HxH. So I felt for that shifty-eyed guy who got interviewed on the news – that’s catastrophic. Also a little embarrassed around gacha acquisition. Poor Oji-san comes back on the weekend to surf the machines near his office, only to find them swarmed with kids (just come back at night, Man). He finally gets his moment, but a dropped capsule leads to the fated encounter of the episode.

I mistakenly called Kiba, the young guy at the office, “Kawai Kenta” last week. In fact Kawai-san is actually the guy who works in Mitsuoka’s building and his future soulmate. The look of camaraderie he gives Oji is mistaken for a smirk, which ruins Mitsuoka’s evening. But in fact Kenta is a designer and loves cute stuff too, and the two uncles bond over their shared obsession. You get the idea Kenta is perfectly fine with all this (his profession probably helps) but for Mitsuoka it’s kind of a big deal to have a peer he can be open with. They wind up as NINE buddies (poor Moshina) and even have lunch dates.

Even this early, there’s a point in the episode where Mitsuoka-san literally thinks “maybe all this is not that big a deal”. Surely him learning the truth of that is going to be a big part of the story. I mean, can you imagine the adoring office trio giving a flip? If anything they’ll find it adorable and worship him even more. Or Masumi, who loves his uncle for all the right reasons (he’s kind and generous and watches out for him) and already knows anyway? Maybe there’ll be the odd rotter (like Naruto) who judges, but “screw anyone that shallow” is part of the message too. And the experience of knowing Oji-san will probably help them realize the error of their ways.