This season is jam-packed with good one-cour series (mostly relationship-driven), all at different places on the plausibility scale for a sequel.   I haven’t heard much talk of a second season for Skip and Loafer, and frankly I think it’s kind of a long-shot.  Still, you never know – if nothing else it seems to be quite well-received both domestically and overseas.  More likely we get a read the manga ending, in which case it’ll be another one to add to that ever-growing pile of “maybe I’ll get it someday” entries.

The first half of this episode is very typical of the mode of Skip to Loafer that doesn’t totally click with me.  I do enjoy slice-of-life but honestly, with this series I always find myself gravitating towards plot.  There wasn’t much of that in the A-part – just the four main girls reminiscing about the first six months of their high school lives and talking about churros.  If you’re very into that fluffy vibe few shows do it better than this one – I just find that it only gets me so far.

The B-part is where this ep started to work for me, as S&L shifted into its other main mode.  There was the stuff with Kanechika-sempai first of all, who was desperate to have Sousuke come and watch his latest play.  The question Sousuke asks him afterwards – “what’s your endgame?” – seems to reflect a certain skepticism of whether Kanechika has what it takes to pursue this route (whether Sousuke intended it to play that way or not).  It seems obvious Kanechika wasn’t totally happy about the response he was getting, and I felt really bad for him having the one person whose opinion he really wanted to hear whisked away before he could offer it.

That whisking was a result of the presence of Sousuke’s little brother Keiri (Han Megumi doing double-duty here).  Sousuke’s mom has brought him along to the culture fest, and he wanders off while she’s buying an egg sandwich.  Keiri is quite the little trooper for a three year-old – he promptly asks directions to Sousuke’s classroom and once he’s guided there, appears to be having a grand old time of it with the actors and crew (especially Kento).  Eventually Mitsumi puts two and two together (it’s the keychain from the zoo) and has Shima-kun brought down to the classroom (after he calls his mom).

Forget Ririka showing up at the end and the heavy drama that seems to imply (the look on Mom’s face is pretty telling), this stuff with the Shima family is more interesting to me.  Sure, they’re stepbrothers, but this obviously goes a lot deeper than that.  Sousuke is giving off a “steer clear” vibe to Keiri and basically it’s his honest feeling.  He feels like an outsider in his own family now (we need to connect some dots still, but the dots are now visible), but the key question, it seems to me, is how much of that is coming from Sousuke and how much from his mother (Keiri isn’t old enough to not want to hang out with him).  Hopefully next week’s finale delves into that, and isn’t totally sidetracked by the Ririka ordeal.