The episode unfolds with a message conversation between Anna and Natsuki. He’s invited her to walk around their school’s festival together, and she’s clearly looking foward to it. I’m glad Anna’s got some personality now, something that makes her a little less bland and more likeable.
Natsuki makes me laugh. He’s so childlike and naive about some things, like how he feels more adultlike because he successfully sent an invitation to Anna via text message. Tomoya’s patient sigh made me giggle a little; he and Tsuyoshi strike me as the most mature in their group of friends.
The other two guys show up, and the four of them discuss the different things they are doing to help out with the festival. Except for Tsuyoshi, who’s royally pissed that Natsuki accidently got him picked to be on the festival committee. Before going to watch Keiichi’s play, Natsuki and Tomoya head to Anna’s classroom. The two lovebirds chat about their plans the next day, while Tomoya and Mari have some foreplay bicker with each other.
At the end of the day, Keiichi and Tsuyoshi talk about how the day’s events went. There’s the obligatory reference to Keiichi’s BDSM tastes, this time being that he hung people from the ceiling and used his whip on them. Tomoya and Natsuki show up, and Tsuyoshi interrupts to ask Natsuki for his help with something.
Here’s where the main conflict of the episode is introduced: every year, a student named Buu-chan dresses up in drag and enters the crossdressing contest for kicks. However this year he is sick, and the festival committee needs someone to take his place. Tsuyoshi, still peeved with Natsuki for involving him with the festival, tells his blond friend that he is going to be the replacement. This means that Natsuki has to cancel his planned date with Anna the following day.
Anna spends the rest of the episode misunderstanding a couple of random things she sees around the school, and behaving coldly towards Natsuki, who is hurt and confused about the sudden changes in her behaviour towards him. It’s not until she has a heart-to-heart with Keiichi (ironically) that she is able to talk to Natsuki about her feelings surrounding the cancellation of their plans. They make up, and Natsuki shyly asks asks Anna if she’d like to tour the school festival with him the following year.
After the crossdressing contest is over, we see Natsuki has been crowned the runner-up crossdressing king. But before he can change back to his regular clothes, his friends take pictures for themselves, and to send to Yukirin and Anna. I smell potential blackmail material!
My thoughts: I really didn’t like this episode, at least not up until the last couple of minutes. While I haven’t been in high school for a long time and have to occasionally remind myself that teens are still growing up and learning about their emotions and all that jazz, I still got really irritated with Anna over her treatment of Natsuki. The circumstances behind the last minute change in their plans were something that couldn’t really be avoided, and instead of being understanding she overreacted and treated him coldly. The silver lining is that the situation gave her an opportunity to examine these feelings of disappointment and jealousy (which I’m guessing she has little experience with), so hopefully a repeat reaction can be avoided in the future. But still, poor Natsuki.
I also have a small issue with the topic of crossdressing being used for comedic purpose, but again it’s high school and high schoolers are not the most mature beings on earth. I mean really, laughing at a chubby teen in a dress? :/ Couldn’t something else have been used instead as the purpose of the date cancellation? #canyouseemyinnersocialworkeryet
Lastly, I wonder if we’re going to get an episode focusing on Tomoya and Mari because their constant fighting is getting repetitive. Yeah we get it, he likes her but she doesn’t know what to do about it yet. Figure it out or move on.