Hourou Musuko – 05

「夏のおわりに ～Long, long shadow～」 (Natsu no Owari ni ~Long, long shadow~)
“End of Summer ~Long, long shadow~”

As I mentioned last time, I feel really bad for Chiba, but she really too selfish for her own good especially demanding that Ariga vote her to be Romeo so that she could be with Nitori. Driving her friends away (if she even considers them that) and isolating oneself is only going to pull her situation downhill. Ariga, the one I consider the most mature out of their group, tries to help her and also sharply points out that the world doesn’t revolve around her and Nitori. The twisted triangle relationship they have becomes even crazier when Ninomiya, Chiba’s friend from church, shows up and he’s obviously jealous of Nitori given his own feelings for Chiba. He ends up being the catalyst for a messy scene at Chiba’s house when he calls out Nitori for being a cross-dresser in front of everyone. Alone in his bathroom he reveals his disgust for Nitori’s transsexualism… then proceeds to cross-dress himself. Similar people gravitate towards each other it seems.

I think only Sarashina and Shirai were unaware of Nitori’s secret though so the impact wasn’t that big. I love Sarashina’s upbeat “What the hell” I’ll-do-what-I-want attitude (e.g. dressing in a guy’s uniform) and it’s pretty obvious she doesn’t think that much of Nitori’s behavior, aside from being excited about finding a new partner in deviancy. It’s good that she still knows when she has stepped overboard and has no ill intent. Sarashima is definitely growing to be one of my favorite characters among the cast. Nitori doesn’t care that much either about the situation with Ninomiya, but Takatsuki and Chiba seemed to be affected the most, which places them as among the two characters closest to Nitori. Takatsuki understands him especially well and remains a close friend even if she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings for her.

They finally finish up the script around the end of summer break, but the roles are selected by random draw. I was half expecting Nitori and Takatsuki to draw the roles they wanted, but interestingly, Chiba gets the role of Romeo and Ariga gets Juliet. Unfortunately this results in Chiba becoming very depressed and she wants to kill all the characters instead… I swear that girl will grow up to be a psychopath. Ariga on the other hand drew the character that matches him perfectly as a guy who wants to be a girl, although Chiba clearly outclasses him in acting ability. Given the friction between the characters, I’m glad seeing both of them agree to do their best, and it looks the cultural festival and play will be shown in the next episode.

Preview