For a change, we got an episode that was an almost perfect split between school and apartments settings this week, and Youkai Apato seemed to be better off for it. It also went a long way towards explaining some of the more puzzling aspects of last week’s episode – such as what went down at that school assembly, and why. Chiaki-sensei continues to be the most interesting character to come out of that side of the story, but Yamamoto’s arc continues to be teased out in inter-episode snippets. The preview suggests that’s finally going to come to a head next week, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
It’s playing out in pretty broad terms, but Chiaki and Aoki-sensei are certainly extreme opposites in their approach to teaching. Where Aoki does everything she can to look good with the students and curry favor, Chiaki takes the fall guy role in the aftermath of the cheating incident – though to be fair, he probably should have given that he was the one violating school policy by trusting the students with their phones. Chiaki asking for an assembly rather than having the principal intervene and a pre-arrangement with Kamiya-san cast the events of last week in a more plausible light, and they’re very much in-character with what we’ve seen of Chiaki-sensei’s personality. Of course, Chiaki is still bearing the brunt of that in terms of his reputation with some of the students.
Meanwhile it’s culture festival time – which gets the denizens of Kotobuki-so in something of a tizzy. I guess if you exist as long as some of these folks have boredom becomes your greatest enemy, and something like this a welcome diversion. They throw themselves into it with abandon, even donning (often wildly extemporaneous) school uniforms. My favorite was the three sparrows, especially the reaction of the first two when the third announced he was eating yakitori.
We know more about what’s going on with Chiaki, but I still don’t think we know everything. He has anemia, certainly – that explains the medicine – which Yuushi sees as a kind of miasma on Chiaki’s chest. It’s pretty reckless for him to try and heal that himself, and the results are predictable – but what is this “karmic connection” between the two of them (aside from a tease for the female otaku audience)? I still can’t help but suspect that Chiaki’s presence in Yuushi’s life is not a coincidence, because seemingly very little is.
As for the festival itself, that seems to be proceeding normally at school at least if not at the apartment. But unfortunately “normal” in this instance means Yamamoto seething and calling out this idiocy of everyone else in the school – especially the English club. I still haven’t quite figured out if she’s got a demonic connection or she’s just a really forking angry teenager, but either way this has been simmering narratively for a long damn time and I’m ready for it to boil over already. Is next week finally the moment?
