天下制覇

  

That’s how easy love can be.

Impressions:

It was a bit weird to see Mao getting depressed after Kouichi ran off to talk to Yumi at the end. Then again, outside of Kai, the girl really is kind of like a parasite in Kouichi/Kazuki’s circle of friends. I thought she was supposed to be cute and popular… why doesn’t she do anything outside of them? The little spat with Kai probably won’t last long either considering that she doesn’t have a single other friend aside from him and the dynamic duo. Who knows though, maybe she’s just feeling abandoned or unneeded. It just seemed ambiguously weird since 99% of the time in anime, when a girl gets depressed, it’s because she’s been scorned in love.

I thought the sudden forced study with Sakino thing was kind of lame, but characters aside from Hiiragi finally have a clue that Kazuki and Futami have something going on and hopefully Sakino will step it up a notch to steal him from her. I still have no clue what Kazuki even sees in her. She’s a bitch and feeds him apparently rancid coffee in the middle of the day. What does he even see in her? I guess it’s probably the first and only action the guy’s got in 17 years of life, but come on… grow a spine already and put your foot down, you putz.

Nana’s alarm goes off and her mother yells at her to wake up. Frog girl drags herself out of bed and sees Kazuki already leaving.

He runs to school and finds Sakino practicing by herself. She notices him, but ignores him. He apologizes for what he said yesterday and says that he was out of line. Sakino kicks a ball at him and smiles at him.

In Mao’s class, the teacher hands out more prep material for their big exams. Kai grabs her attention and tells her that there’s a great musician coming to town and asks if she wants to go see him. Mao accepts, but then he asks if she doesn’t have to study for the exams.

Mao thanks him for his concern, but says that she’ll be fine.

Over in Kouichi’s classroom, Kouichi asks Sakino knows where Kazuki went off to. She’s clueless, so he goes back to watching Yumi from afar.

Kazuki is with Futami. The two are sitting, facing eachother while she stares intently at him. He tries to talk, but she tells him to shut up, and then leans aside to think. She wonders if they need to kiss again. Futami starts to pour… some… brown liquid… from a beaker into glasses. She takes a drink and hands the other one to Kazuki.

He tries it, and spits it out in disgust. Futami tells him that it’s just coffee.

Kouichi and Yumi continue their romance script writing in the library. If you’re wondering how many sentences it takes for one to apologize this time… it’s three. The brainstorming continues full of blushing and social clumsiness.

Sakino gets ready to leave. Kazuki swings by to ask about club stuff, but she apologizes and says that she’s out for today. She listlessly leaves.

Kouichi returns home to find that Mao’s out.

Mao is over at Kai’s bar. The two talk about a CD he lent her while she plays with her ice. Mao ponders how she wants to see Kai play aloud.

Kouichi struggles with math. He gives up and decides to wait for Mao to come home and help him. Right on cue, she gets home. He tries to razz her about maybe having a date, and she just asks him if he was jealous in response. He says that he was just worried about her. She heads to her room and Kouichi tries to ask her to help her study, but she’s uncomfortable with it.

She finally admits that she hates studying and doesn’t really do it. Kouichi remembers that she used to be really studious though. She tells him that humans change and flashes back to getting sick during tests and doing very poorly on them which spiralled into all sorts of other academic problems. She apologizes to Kouichi again and says that he’s on his own.

Ever the washerwoman, Kouichi immediately spreads the gossip the next day to Kazuki, telling him that she refuses to study and just plays video games. Sakino comes up to them and asks Kazuki to help her with some math work. Both of them say that they’re idiots though and tell her that they can’t help. She admits that her status in the club is in danger if her grades don’t improve.

Kazuki suddenly gets a good idea.

Elsewhere, Kouichi pulls Mao aside and tells her that they’re planning an ‘event’ with Kazuki and others. Using deceptive enough wording, he convinces Mao to be excited about it and promise to come.

Yumi walks through the halls with a huge stack of papers. Kouichi passes her and takes half of them and carries them onward. He tells Yumi that they’re having a study party tonight. She thinks that she’d be in the way, but given the idiot corps already attending, Kouichi assures her that she’s not. Hiiragi overhears all this and puts an arm around Kouichi, saying that it sounds interesting.

After class, everybody is in the library. Mao fumes at being tricked into a study session, Sakino grabs her arms and leaves herself in Mao’s care. The frog brats start going on about DNA and kiss eachother as a reward. What strikes me during this scene is how everybody is in the library and yelling. Anyway, it’s mostly lots of teaching eachother.

Mao slams her notebook closed and says that her work is finished, but Sakino is still worried about her chances.

Yumi, in perhaps the most confident and loudest voice she’s used for the entire show so far, tries to give them a bit of a pickup speech and Sakino returns to studying with vigor. Kouichi and Kazuki clandestinely tell eachother that this was a good idea, but then trouble! The ice queen walks up to the library desk. Kazuki immediately turns all shifty, but when Futami starts walking away, Kazuki jumps up and asks Futami to join them in their study session.

Futami tells him that there’s no reason for that and turns to walk away. Sakino gets up and yells at her next, asking her if she cares at all what other people think of her. She ignores Sakino and walks off. Kazuki gives chase, but Sakino just sits down and apologizes to the others for her outburst. While the rest explain to Mao that Futami is a genius, Sakino looks sadly after Kazuki.

Kazuki tries to apologize to Futami, but she just asks “what for?” and continues walking.

Everybody heads home together. Mao prods Kouichi a little bit before he splits off from them to walk Yumi home.

Yumi tells Kouichi how nice she thinks Mao is for helping Sakino so much. Yumi affirms that Mao was just their childhood friend. Kouichi tells her that she really was like a sister to him and Kazuki before she left for France.

Mao swings by Kai’s place and tells him all about getting roped into the study session. Kai doesn’t respond, so Mao thinks her story bored him. His response is noncommital, but he says that she should have come to him if he had problems. She asks him if he was studying, but he doesn’t respond.

Some time later, the test results are posted. Mao did pretty well, surprisingly enough. Sakino runs up and thanks Mao for her help and she did just fine. The frog girls… did not. Kazuki idly wonders how Futami did, and sees that she got a perfect score. He sees Yumi walk up to the postings and excuses himself to talk to her. Mao watches him go with a smile, but then her expression turns downcast.