A bit of a breather episode here, after last week’s thoroughly weighty affair. But Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun has a way of throwing curveballs at you. Usually at the end of episodes. That’s consistent with the frequent inconsistency between tone and content, a hallmark of the series. It pays to never get too confident in the direction you think it’s heading, because that’s when it’s mostly likely to switch and send the train onto a different track altogether.
This was one of those eps cleanly cleaved down the middle, the first of the season. There were a lot of those in fact. The first chapter was pretty much WYSIWYG, a comic outing centered around zombie mokke. But because they’re mokke, of course, these zombies aren’t after your brains but your candy. Though they will try and eat you if you don’t have any. In fact this segment wouldn’t have felt out of place as an episode of Houkago Shounen Hanako-kun (and it was the perfect length, too).
This chapter was, however, a reminder that Teru is a pretty ominous figure in this cast. Seriously, the apples fell far away from each other with those two brothers. It’s Teru who’s responsible for the zombies, having been experimenting on a “wild” mokke his moeblob sister brought home. The whole “willting” thing was pretty out there, but this part of the episode didn’t demand to be taken too seriously. Just a bit of fun and Teru and the mokkes’ first pivotal roles in a storyline this season.
That’s the deal with the second chapter too. Mitsuba gets his first extended appearance, along with the rest of the broadcasting club cast. Natsuhiko and Sakura are whispering to each other, which unsettles Mitsuba. Then Tsukasa – ever the troublemaker – exclaims that the pair of them are talking about how to get rid of Mitsuba, and the 3rd Mystery storms off in tears, convinced he’s found another place where he doesn’t belong. Which is pretty much the story of his afterlife.
Whenever Mitsuba is involved, Hanako-kun has an air of melancholy to it. In a cast full of tragic characters he’s one of the saddest. Lonely in life, lonely in death, for Kou a symbol of his own failures as a friend. This material is pretty light in tone by Mitsuba standards but even so – stuff like the dropped hanky incident cuts pretty hard. And then Teru shows up again, making sure we don’t forget he’s a pretty vicious bastard. But for once Mitsuba gets a story with a happy ending (or so it seems) – Sakura and Natsuhiko were just trying to clear him out to set up a surprise welcome party. Complete with cake and even presents.
But then there’s Tsukasa. Whenever he’s involved something nasty is usually going on. And while it’s not clear yet just what that is, the bomb he drops at the end of the episode clearly sets up the next once. Who is this sempai of Mitsuba’s that he introduces – is she really the 4th school mystery? And in what way is she a “present” for Mitsuba who will make everybody’s wishes come true? The only thing certain is that she’s trouble, because if she wasn’t Tsukasa surely wouldn’t have bothered.
