And thus Azusa became a Mahou Shoujo!
This week's episode of Henneko was pretty good as well, though the pace with which the story moved surprised me.
I did not expect Azusa's problem to be resolved within a single episode given all the drama we faced at the end of last week. That being said, there was nothing unsatisfactory about how her arc is brought to a close; we got to learn of the reason why she transferred, and also had some meaningful character development where she learns that she'll be likable by just being her true self after some counseling by Youto.
She also has a really pretty and awesome mother…
Another interesting thing I found was how the plot progressed. Despite being hurt by Youto (he even rejects her in the romantic sense) plus learning that he wanted to get closer to her because he wanted his facade back, Azusa willingly returned his facade to him. I guess she really likes him a lot.
However, since Azusa has now lost her ojou-sama facade, we've lost the tsundere side of her too and won't be seeing that in future episodes. Darn, now it feels like she's become less of a character from losing a part of her personality (though it wasn't hers to begin with, I've actually warmed up and gotten used to it).
囧
Moving on to Tsukiko's part of the story, I was actually initially wondering whether we were seeing a flashback to the past or Tsukiko was dreaming; the part where she told him that she was going to his high school pretty much confirmed that it was a flashback to the past though.
One interesting point of contention is why she reacted as she did to Youto in episode 1 if she had seen him before. I guess the answer depends on whether she could see through her mask. If she couldn't, then she'd be seeing Youto for the first time in episode 1. If she could, I guess she didn't notice it was Youto initially out of shock from stumbling upon a person carrying a risqué dakimakura in the middle of the night.
Even so, I wonder why can't Youto recognize Tsukiko's voice…
Screenshots:
Full-length images:
With that, the wait for the next episode of Henneko begins…