I don’t want to get too heavy in talking about Jijou o Shiranai Tenkousei ga Guigui Kuru.  This is essentially a light-hearted comedy about a bunch of cute elementary schoolers, especially a cute couple.  It plants a smile on my face pretty much from the OP that never leaves.  But there are times when this series gets sort of profound, I really believe that (and have since I started following the manga).  Kids are obviously living in a different world from adults, but we were all kids once and we take a lot of that world with us when we grow up.  “Give me a child at seven and I will show you the man”, as old Aristotle said…

One of the lessons of “The Clueless Transfer Student is Assertive”, I think, is that there are basically two options open to you in life.  Either you can be nice to people, or you can be hurtful.  That’s true with fifth-graders, and it’s true with office workers and world leaders.  The great thing is, though, that the door between them is always open – you can always see the error of your ways, desert the “hurtful” camp and come over to the “nice” team.  Not that many people do  – there’s some truth in Aristotle’s words – but the best way to win converts is by example.  And boy, nobody is better at that than Takada-kun.

This episode is bookended by two really heavy moments with Nishimura-san.  The first is when she finds a black kitten, seemingly abandoned.  Taiyou naturally is able to spin even an abandoned kitten into a positive, marveling at what a cute pair the kitten and his kitten make, and how the one should adopt the other.  But Akane hesitates – because she’s sad at the idea of people thinking the cat is bad luck because it’s associated with her.  That’s really goddam depressing (not least because black cats do suffer disproportionate levels of abuse and lower rates of adoption), and it takes all of Taiyou’s chad powers to brighten the mood in spite of that.

Sure enough, the usual suspects pronounce the kitten now Kuro) to be creepy when Akane brings pictures of it, though Taiyou does his best to spin it as them calling both it and Akane cute.  It’s actually Kasahara Sumire (Maruoka Wakana) who moves the needle though.  She’s always been right there with the bullies, but she has a thing for cats (even the Reaper’s).  The first thaw outside Nishimura’s inner circle of Takada and Hino?  After that, it’s time to fill out agendas for the upcoming summer vacation (has any sentence ever sounded more Japanese than that?).  Taiyou gets into trouble for “not taking it seriously enough”, but Akane hardly fills anything in on hers – and snaps at Taiyou when he tries to look at it.

This is the first time we’ve seen Taiyou really stopped in his tracks like that, but he’s made of sterner stuff.  By the end of the day he’s back in full Taiyou mode and Akane just wants to apologize.  With a sudden downpour and no umbrellas, Akane suggests the two of them hide out in the library and finish their agendas.  They get into trouble but it’s well worth it for Akane, that’s for sure – that planner looks a lot better by the time Taiyou is done with it.  Prominent in both their agendas is “go to the pool” – and since Daichi has told Taiyou that wearing school swimsuits is dorky, he and Akane both independently decide to buy new ones.

This is another sad passage.  Akane has to try to thread the needle between looking grim and looking “too cute”, knowing she’ll be bullied if it seems like she’s trying too hard.  Eventually she clearly decides on “cute” – and again we see Taiyou stopped in his tracks for a moment or two (which  feels like a week, it’s so rare), before he issues a “heh”.  He does eventually tell her it’s super cute, but clearly he was bedazzled there for a while.  The bullying does come of course, but Taiyou once more uses his pretzel positivity to spin it into Kitagawa-kun thinking she’s “illegally cute”.  And then, with an assist from Kasahara-san (hmm) into Kitagawa having a thing for school swimsuits.  As for Daichi he shows up in one himself, reasoning that the cool factor will have come full circle.  Oh, and he wears tanktops in the pool too.

The other bookend comes after the ED, with Taiyou and Akane happily taking detours from not having anywhere special to be in the first place.  He tells her she should smile once in a while, but Akane is convinced she looks creepy when she does.  A little kid too ashamed of their appearance to smile – if that’s not heavy I don’t know what is.  For all the stuff she can (and has) thank Taiyou for, this is the most important so far – he gives her back the right to smile with his unwavering support and affection.  Maybe this is all just feckless innocence, maybe he sometimes knows exactly what he’s doing – who knows, but this is a case where it’s only the results that really matter.