I only have to sit and wonder how Takeo Ōtsuka felt when recording this episode, in particular the beginning of the episode. When Midorigaoka lost all of his pride, all of his shame. All of the things that made him up to be the person he was, and turned him in a really annoying pest with zero consideration for himself or others. The one scene that really comes to mind is when he is trying to show Kikawada his tennis moves and he puts the tennis racket between his legs and starts swinging it around. How many takes did they have to do? How many times did the actors break out laughing?
I have to give credit to all the actors in this episode. The panicked and fearful expressions from Mizukami and Kikawada. The angry and just fed up expressions on Shiroyama. The facial expressions were really on point.
Shiroyama, sick of this new version of Midorigaoka so he takes a page from Mizukami’s book and starts training hard to defeat the Sphinx and get his friends pride back. Originally, he intends to go to the 2D world all by himself. He forcibly awakens Spudio the 22nd by pressing a pickled plum [Umeboshi] to it’s face. He remembered the rocks distaste for umeboshi from the previous episode. He asks Spudio to pull him in alone and tries to get everyone else to leave the room. This does not work out for him, as everyone except Mizukami ends up on the other side.
Wow, two weeks in a row. Is his 2D model broken or something and they just wrote him out of two episodes as a result? Poor boy.
Another puzzle down and the Sphinx defeated. I can only sit and question what the rules about this are at this point. Does it get defeated if you beat the first puzzle? Does the puzzle need to be difficult? Why are there so many of these things and are we ever going to make it past the 2.4 dimension? Oh well, as they emerge back into the real world. Everything seems to come back to normal.
Midorigaoka is back to his rude/abrasive self and everyone is pretty happy about it. Nobody is more happy then Shiroyama though, he keeps urging his friend to say mean things to him and letting him verbally beat him up. The rest of the group stares on at these two and figures out some very important things about them.
Shiroyama is a giant masochist and Midorigaoka is a giant sadist and thus, they go perfectly together. Can, can the rest of the cast stop helping enable my shipping of them? Like, really guys? I swear, i’m trying not to ship in this series but comments like that aren’t helping at all.
After the group has this happy reunion revelation about their characters, they decide that they’ve had enough all of this and resolve to get rid of Spudio once and for all. Crushing him into dust, then washing the rock dust down the drain. However, is this really the end?
No, not at all. There are still questions unanswered, riddles left to answer and Sphinx’s to defeat.
The preview gave me no concept of how they’re going to handle Spudio in the 3D world, but the image of him giant and hanging out of the side of the wall in the 2D world is enough to give a girl nightmares. Where will this absurd series head next? Only time will tell.