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Rating: 7.8/10

Impressions:

All the theories regarding Mizuho’s mother and Ichiko’s senpai are either confirmed or refuted. Mizuho’s mother did indeed stay in her room, and she is Ichiko’s senpai from 22 years ago. It seems that Mizuho’s grandfather put her in that particular room because it belonged to her mother once, meaning it is some sort of special place. However, I wonder why Mizuho was never informed about this fairly important piece of information. With that out of the way though, the show is free to continue on with The Adventures of Mizuho and Company, since there is now no more past dramas to worry about. However, something serious is probably going to happen near the end of the series as well. I hope it doesn’t get darker before then though, since I find Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru does better with comedy rather than drama. Ichiko’s major arc seems to have passed now, and next episode appears to revolve around Mizuho and Takako, but I wonder whether it will be as friends or rivals. There still needs to be a real Mariya-centric episode, since she’s still my favourite girl. Also, neither Kana nor Yukari have gotten their individual episodes yet, so that will be something to anticipate. By looking at the episode titles of the next few episodes, I can already see a Kana and Mariya episode.

The last point brings me to this: Where is this anime going? No where is what I believe. I doubt there will even be some spectacular event at the end spanning over several episodes. While I don’t like anime of certain genres to be adventurous (meaning having a understandably progressive plot from early on and concluding at the end of the series), it’s not that fun when nothing happens in a noticeable succession. I understand that most pure romance, comedy, harem, school-life genres are like this, which is why I always hope for something different. Oh well, I’m not criticising this show or anything, since I enjoy watching it; they’re just some random thoughts. Anyway, regarding Ichiko x Mizuho, the build up to the semi-obvious revelation is a well thought-out procedure that requires some attention paid to the show apart from drooling over the girls (ok fine, exaggeration). Ichiko being able to touch Mizuho is shown several times, displaying their connection with each other. The barrier signifies that Ichiko has to stay close to the ’sacred room’ at all times due to Mizuho’s mother, but her being able to take Ichiko out of it makes their connection much more obvious for those who hadn’t caught on by then. I think it was pretty obvious that Ichiko would return, with those clues.

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