Hikari confesses a secret to her friends and Sakie: she’s kissed Tetsuo on his cheek. This gets Kyouko thinking, while Sakie just retreats to the women’s washroom to moan about how jealous of Hikari she is.

We see Tetsuo helping the principal by carrying a couple of heavy file boxes for him, and while the principal spouts endless praise for Tetsuo, we see the vice-principal doesn’t appear to share those same sentiments. Hmmm, perhaps there is trouble brewing.

Kyouko finds Tetsuo in a hallway and, remembering Hikari’s words, tries to angle her head so she too can kiss Tetsuo on his cheek. However her grip slips and her head goes flying. Tetsuo panics and tries to catch Kyouko’s head, dropping the file boxes in the process. Kyouko catches her head and all is well, but Tetsuo actually yells at her for being careless. Kyouko ends up in tears and runs off, leaving Tetsuo rather remorseful. 

Hikari and Yuki find Kyouko crying, and Hikari runs off to bring Tetsuo to her. Teacher and student apologize to each other, and they make up with a hug (well, Tetsuo hugging Kyouko’s head anyways). Naturally this scene happens right in front of the vice-principal’s office, and he doesn’t look happy about what he sees. Shit, maybe Tetsuo’s gonna get fired…? o_O

In order to compensate for what happened, Kyouko goes to Tetsuo’s office and offers to tell him about her dullahan body. Tetsuo decides to take her to his university campus to meet his friend Souma, who majored in physics but has remained on campus to continue his research. Souma’s also a genius, and he honestly looks like an amped-up Ranma from Ranma 1/2.  xD

In a nutshell, Souma’s intensely fascinated by how Kyouko’s body works. Specifically her neck. Kyouko knows she has one, because an endoscope was once put down her throat and it showed skin on both sides of the joints in her neck. Yet humans cannot see Kyouko’s, only the flame coming out of her body where her neck should be. Souma launches into a very scientific explanation of how human observation can change an object’s reaction and a bunch of other super smart stuff I won’t attempt to repeat (but it’s super interesting so I recommend watching that scene closely if you’re a science buff).

Where does the episode’s title come from? Souma theorizes that Kyouko’s neck functions like a wormhole. Food enters her mouth and goes down her throat, and is transported into her body through this invisible function. Humans cannot see it but yet it still works, so it must exist. And because her neck works like a wormhole, moving matter from one location to another via some separate space, Souma theorizes that figuring out all the details might even help make time travel possible one day. Amazing!

After the initial meeting with Souma, the trio walk outside for a break. Souma and Tetsuo talk about what dullahans like Kyouko could mean for future scientific research, while Kyouko wanders a short distance away to do some inner reflecting. She concludes that if it’s difficult for dullahan students to be studied due to ethics, then she could become a researcher herself when she’s older and study them herself. Pretty neat eh?

My thoughts: The brewing conflict with the vice-principal brings up an issue I didn’t think Demi-chan was going to touch on, and that is that the line between Tetsuo and his demi students is definitely blurred. He’s their teacher yes, and their mentor, but some of the behaviour between them is definitely awkward and occasionally inappropritate. Hikari kissing Tetsuo on the cheek? A huge no-no. Even Tetsuo interviewing the girls (and Sakie) for his thesis could be considered a breach of ethics because he knows them all so well, he’s unable to remain an impartial party. His thoughts and feelings, even if he tries to restrict them, still bleed into his research. And this is what I figure the vice-principal is unhappy about: Tetsuo’s behaviour, while well-intentioned, is not entirely professional. It would be better if someone like Souma or another teacher/researcher entirely was conducting Tetsuo’s research. I wonder if Tetsuo will still have a job by the end of the season…

All in all, this was a great episode of Demi-chan as usual.

 

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Wanderer

    Just for the record, Souma is a terrible scientist. His spiel about observation is based on a pop-culture misunderstanding of science, which he not only treats as fact, but then uses as the basis for all his conclusions (and apparently his entire principle of life, the universe, and everything) thereafter. For anyone who knows enough science to know that “observation” when used in this context has absolutely NOTHING to do with humans (or any living thing at all), his talk was very cringe-inducing.

    1. Nikolita

      Ah, thank you for correcting me. It sounded interesting anyways.

Comments are closed.