Karen's Anime Blog

Last time, Sakuta had just met up with the mysterious Touko Kirishima, the mysterious singer in a Santa suit. Touko reveals that she’s been giving out Puberty Syndrome as “presents,” so Sakuta naturally asks her to cut it out with that nonsense. Touko agrees, because she’s already done with it: she’s gifted Puberty Syndrome to ten million people already, and one of them just happens to be Ikumi Akagi, Sakuta’s classmate from middle school. Man, ten million cases of Puberty Syndrome? A few episodes back, Futaba was talking about the whole college having the condition, but it looks like that was a drop in the bucket. As the primary investigator of Puberty Syndrome, looks like Sakuta has great job security in the second (actually third) job that he doesn’t even want.

Credits! The credits show Uzuki attending school, but we all know she dropped out of college. Stupid lying credits! Stay up to date.

Obligatory screenshot of Kunimi’s delicious fried chicken. He even shares with his friends.

Sakuta meets up with his high school friends Kunimi and Futaba and they all spend some time chatting. Kunimi mentions a junior of his on the basketball team, who is shown in the OP, so surely that character will be important later. Once Kunimi gets lost, Sakuta and Futaba do what they really want to do: chat about the latest developments in Puberty Syndrome. They compare notes on Touko Kirishima, and apparently she’s been uploading videos online for two years, presumably using her invisibility to keep her true identity a secret. Futaba makes the very obvious suggestion that Sakuta should get Touko’s contact info if he runs into her again, but Sakuta thinks he shouldn’t get another girl’s contact info while he’s dating Mai. Oh, Sakuta. You went on a full-fledged date with Uzuki in episode two, where do you get off being precious about your girlfriend?

“So, ten million new Puberty Syndrome victims?”

“Yeah, it’s not like I have anything better to do with my time, what with college and my superstar girlfriend and my two different jobs….”

When they get to cram school, there’s a kerfuffle: a teacher has just been found having an inappropriate relationship with a female student. The teacher should have known better, but the way the girl reacts makes it seem like she was the manipulator here. Futaba tells Sakuta to make sure he doesn’t end up in a similar situation. I hope that’s not foreshadowing of something that’s going to screw up his relationship with Mai, but it probably is.

Speaking of Mai, she’s driving Sakuta and Nodoka around again, so the two sisters get to chime in on the Touko Kirishima subject. Nodoka confirms that even when Uzuki covered one of Touko’s songs for the earphone commercial, she never got to meet the artist; no one has. Mai suggests that Sakuta have a conversation with Akagi, since she’s one person they know for sure got a “present” from Touko Santa Claus. Mai is also curious why Sakuta even cares so much about Akagi, since he was wondering about her even before meeting Touko, and I think the viewers have been wondering that too. Sakuta has the sense that she wanted to tell him something, but so far she’s held back. Now, he’s wondering what her particular case of Puberty Syndrome does. All he really knows about her is that she’s a nursing major and she participates in school events.

Akagi, going out of her way to re-introduce herself to Sakuta at graduation, then not saying anything. What’s her game?

At lunch, Sakuta runs into Mito again, and the two of them have some banter in a very particular style unique to the two of them. None of it seems particularly relevant to the plot, but I’m sure they’re developing this idea that Mito is like Sakuta’s female counterpart for a reason. Mito skates and then a classmate comes by and invites Sakuta to a matchmaking party. Seriously, what the hell is the point of inviting someone who’s already in a committed relationship to a matchmaking party? I get that it “evens out the numbers” or whatever, but it seems like a horrible idea to me. Especially with someone like Sakuta who has a famous girlfriend, so questions about Mai are probably going to come up and get in the way of all the other participants having decent conversations. Weird, but whatever. The girls at the party are all going to be nursing majors, so Sakuta has a chance of getting some information on Akagi, possibly from the woman herself. Since she’s the most understanding girlfriend in the world, Mai gives permission for Sakuta to go to the party, though he’s still not enthused.

“What is that strange metal device that glows? I’m a bit behind on all these modern trends the kids are into.”

Party Time! Well, it’s five people in a restaurant, so not much of a party, really. The girls start talking about a #Dreaming, and Sakuta is confused because he doesn’t know what a hashtag is. Okay, I call shenanigans here: It’s true Sakuta doesn’t have a smartphone, but he had one as recently as a few years ago, and hashtags have been a thing going back to 2008 or so. I find it hard to believe he wouldn’t know what a hashtag is. My complaints noted, the hashtag is where people used to talk about the dreams they had last night, but has now switched to dreams that predict the future, with uncanny accuracy. Things are starting to sound supernatural, so Sakuta perks up. One #Dreaming post talks about a jack-o-lantern falling on a girl in a Little Red Riding Hood costume; remember that for later.

Then the date gets totally dragged off-topic by everyone wanting to know how Sakuta ended up dating a famous actress, and I feel vindicated. The last girl shows up, and she’s one of Sakuta’s classmates from high school, and Sakuta thinks “this is what Kunimi was talking about,” and I honestly have no idea what he’s referring to. If anyone wants to leave me a comment explaining this, I’m all ears.

Sakuta leaves the party and walks through the crowd: it’s Halloween, and everybody’s in costume. He sees a running child version of Mai Sakurajima, the same version of Mai that was running the show in the Rascal Doesn’t Dream of A Knapsack Kid movie. I have no idea who this “Mai” really is, she seems to be some kind of supernatural time goddess or something, and her presence here has to be significant. Sakuta doesn’t get to follow “Mai” before running into Akagi, who is dressed as a blood-stained nurse. Akagi notices him but runs off. Just like in the #Dreaming post, a jack-o-lantern falls and nearly hits a little girl in costume, but Akagi manages to pull her out of the way just in time.

The kid’s parents come over to get her and they seem WAY calmer than I would be if it was my kid that nearly got clocked in the head by a heavy object, let me tell you. Akagi runs off, and Sakuta loses track of her. Is Akagi trying to find all the bad #Dreaming posts and stop them before they can happen? Was the present she got from Touko Santa related to this? Furthermore, are all the crazy accurate dream predictions online the result of the Puberty Syndrome that Touko spread far and wide?

So far, I’m enjoying this more than the Uzuki arc, even if it’s tons of long conversations that are kind of a pain to recap. Puberty Syndrome on such a large scale is a very different sort of problem, and I don’t think Sakuta is going to be able to solve it alone.