It’s Boys’ Day in Japan today (officially “Children’s Day” now, not that anyone calls it that when the cameras are off) but as good a day as any for Hinamatsuri.  Though let’s be honest, this has pretty much become the Hitomi Show at this point.  That’s no slight to Hina, who’s perfectly amusing as a female lead, but Hitomi is at the center of most of the big laughs here.  She’s even taking starring roles in chapters nominally starring the other two girls now.

The recurring pattern Oikawa Kei seems to have chosen is to lead with Anzu in the A-part and go for something a bit serious, then follow up with absurdist comedy in the B-part.  I won’t complain, because both are working well, and both represent a part of the reason why Hinamatsuri works as a whole.  This time around a stray comment from Hina about how video games are more fun than playing with string sets Anzu off on the notion that she needs to earn enough money to buy some games herself.  So she can play them with Hina, though – that’s the really sad part of all this.

Anzu has become a pretty effective tragicomic character, but even in this sketch it’s when Hitomi arrives that things get really entertaining.  After a disastrous attempt to sell CRT TVs to the local electronics fence (¥10 a pop) both Hina and Hitomi decide to help out in their own way – Hina because she’s too lazy to actually search for stuff, and Hitomi because she can.  Hitomi ends up being hauled off to the koban for attempting to plant her old TV where Anzu will find it, and Hina ends up buying a brand new one (money means so little to Nitta, truly) at Bic Camera (Nitta’s points card) and selling it for cab fare.

That’s solid stuff, but once again it’s the B-part that really shows off Hitomimatsuri Hinamatsuri at its most brilliant.  This time around a couple of boys from Hitomi’s class see first her, then Matsutani-sensei going into Little Song.  Being middle-schoolers with more imagination than sense, Kengo (Ichikawa Taichi, so great in Kabukibu!) and Atsushi (Yashiro Taku) naturally come to the conclusion that the two of them are having an affair.  They rope their classmate Aizawa-san into helping them investigate.  She’s skeptical but recommends they recruit Hina, who can be a “mascot” if nothing else.

This is just inspired lunacy from start to finish.  The overwrought reactions of all the middle-schoolers are priceless, and Hina is utterly clueless about what’s going on at very step.  I especially loved the moment when the boys and Aizawa-san officially break off into independent investigations, only to end up walking down the same set of stairs, much to their dismay.  Eventually the boys decide that what’s happening here isn’t an affair, but simple prostitution – which is a little too much for Aizawa to swallow (Hina still has no idea what’s going on).

Of course this all comes to a head when they stake out Little Song, forcing Hitomi into one of the classic “tilt” moments in anime this season when she sees them enter the bar.  The fact that she’s unable to sustain her ruse with the three of them calls Matsutani’s position into question, certainly – if a bunch of 7th-graders can see through this ruse, shouldn’t an adult be able to as well?  On some level the reality of it is just too much for him to take, I think – it’s just easier to try and convince himself that he doesn’t know what he knows.