A pretty unusual episode of Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun to be sure. I don’t recall Hanako being absent for almost an entire ep like this (though it has been several years since the first season, of course). I suppose it would qualify as a breather episode, though with this series the line between the really dark and the breezily comic can be incredibly thin. And as is so often the case, it raises a number of questions it has no intention of answering until sometime later.
Nene is, as almost always, preoccupied with romance. Or more correctly, with the utterly fantastical version of it she’s concocted in her head. She even gets an insert song to go along with her imaginings – “Love is a Summer Vegetable”. Kou, meanwhile, is wholly preoccupied with Nene. Though it’s nothing he can discuss with her, as she’s still in the dark about her grim fate. He goes to Tsuchigomori-sensei to try and elicit some help on that score (though the “Spider Guy” stuff is hardly buttering him up), armed with a box full of bugs for persuasion.
Nene in fact has received her first love letter, which puts her in a decidedly good mood. I think it’s pretty telling that the first person she thinks of when this happens is Hanako-kun. She wants to share her happiness with him first, which is meaningful even if you don’t try and read deeper (like she wants to make him jealous). The problem is that he’s not in his usual girls’ bathroom haunt (though she does find Yako there, roundly displeased about the new rumor Nene has spread about her stairs). Nene seems to be one step behind Hanako-kun all day.
Tsuchigomori-sensei does indeed know about Nene’s timetable (as does Teru, as we’ll find out shortly). But he resists Kou’s entreaties, insisting that there’s nothing he can do to change fate. He does relent and agree to show him Nene’s immediate future courtesy of the Four O’clock Library). I think it’s pretty clear that Kou has feelings for Nene, which alas she shows no signs of returning. And that she has feelings for Hanako, which poses its own set of obvious problems. Kou is fighting an uphill battle on this one (never mind the book saying that Hanako and Nene would be kissing today). All he can be is his earnest and caring self, but he sees history repeating itself and finds himself powerless to change it.
Nene does finally catch Hanako up on the roof of the school. He seems very distracted, unusually so for him. We never do find out what’s on his mind (“Ghosts have problems too” isn’t much of an answer) – is it the situation with Nene or something else? He musters a bit of his usual snark when she shows him the letter. And even more when he discovers it was actually intended for Aoi, which he discreetly whispers in her ear. That leaves Kou free to draw his own conclusions when he arrives to find Nene dissolved into a puddle of humiliation.
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