This episode begins with Akira’s brother Shinobu driving all the girls (Kyoko, Fumi, Akira, Pon-chan, Ya-san, and Mogi) out to Kyoko’s aunt’s summer house where they’ll be spending the holiday. Finally, all the girls get to meet Kyoko’s fiancee, Kou.
As the girls are watching a tennis match between Pon-chan and Kyoko, Kou and Shinobu play a round of golf where they talk about the date incident from a while back, Shinobu admits that he might be a bit overprotective of his sister but he realizes that someone will eventually come into her life, and Kou says he also understands how he feels.
After the tennis match, Kyoko shows the girls a hiking trail where long ago she became lost and was found by Kou, and Pon-chan and the others think this is very romantic. The girls take a stroll down memory lane even though Kyoko says that there’s nothing special down there. While walking down a slope Akira slips and is caught is Fumi, and they end up holding hands while walking. When the girls reach the spot where Kyoko and Kou met, Pon-chan and the others perform an over the top reenactment of the incident. The girls soon spot a patch of lilies growing in the marshy waters next to the stream.
After dinner while Akira and Fumi are relaxing in their room, the other girls join them and want to tell ghost stories, Akira doesn’t want to do this but Fumi says it’ll be interesting. So, they spent the night telling ghost stories scaring the crap out of Akira.
The next day, it gets decided that everyone will go on a overnight camping trip at a nearby campground. At the campground all the kids enjoy a nice curry supper, and it’s decided that they’ll have a test of courage this evening. Everyone will breakdown into teams of two and have to head off to the spot when they saw the lilies growing and retrieve one of them, and the mention of the trail where Kyoko and Kou met triggers a flashback in Kou’s mind of their meeting.
Later that evening ,all the kids draw straws for their partners for the test of courage and they head off into the woods. Kyoko and Fumi talk about Kyoko’s painting and when she fell in love with Yasuko while they walk. Akira and Kou talk about his meeting with Kyoko where Akira lets it slip that Kyoko was rejected by the person she loves, and Kou tells her he wishes he was the person she’s in love with. Mogi and Shinobu gets paired off together, and the last pair is Pon-chan and Ya-san. Well, once everyone’s gotten back to the cabin we find out that Mogi has a crush on Akira’s brother and the girls raze her about it. Akira asks her what’s good about her brother and all Mogi tells her is that she thinks he’s cool.
Later, that night, Akira lies awake and thinks to herself that everyone but her has someone they like and she wonders what she’ll be like when she falls for someone. Akira’s stomach then growls and she finds that Fumi’s still awake and giggling at her, so the head downstairs to find some food for Akira. While they’re downstairs, Fumi notices the beautiful night sky and they both head outside to watch the stars. Well, that’s all for this episode.
Well, I really loved the mellow, slow, and gentle pacing of this episode, and it was really nice seeing Kyoko and Kou getting some character development. I liked how the other girls found the story of Kyoko’s and Kou’s forest meeting very romantic and how they practically squealed with delight thinking about the possibilities. Also, it was nice seeing Kou admit to Akira how strong his feelings for Kyoko are. But, I do feel sorry for him, Kou’s & Kyoko’s story is like the fairy tale of prince rescuing the princess from the dark forest, or its close to the “prince on the hill” tale from Candy Candy but with the twist that the princess really doesn’t fall in love with the prince.
I also liked how Akira is starting to get a little character development of her own, up until now Akira has been a pretty good listener to the love problems of Kyoko and Fumi and now she’s wondering what will happen when she falls for someone, will she cry like Fumi? Akira also thinks to herself that she’s the only one who hasn’t fallen for or at least likes someone, and it seems like she worried that she’s falling behind her friends in the growing up process.
Well, with only two episode left we’re left with many possible endings.
1. A Fumi /Akira hookup (probably the nicest outcome, but I don’t think that Akira’s a lesbian.)
2. A Fumi/Kyoko hookup (unlikely, but we have two rejected lesbians who loved the same person.)
3. A Yasuko/Fumi or Kyoko hookup (it’s possible that she decides to pick either, but Yasuko still hasn’t resolved her own problems.)
4. A Kou/Akira hookup (it’s possible that Kou decides that Kyoko’s a lost cause and starts to get closer to Akira and their friendship turn into a real dating relationship.)
5. A Kou/Kyoko hookup (Its possible that Kyoko sees Yasuko as a lost cause and decides to turn to the one person who’s always been there for her and always supported her.)
6. A Mogi/Shinobu hookup (highly likely, Mogi already thinks he’s cool and Shinobu doesn’t seem to be exactly killing the girls in college, plus he needs something to take his mind off of worrying about his sister.)
I also really liked the camping storyline because it brought back memories from my youth. When I was first in the Army we would get 3-4 guys and invite all the girls we knew for a Friday-Sunday camping trip, and we would do the whole ghost stories around the campfire thing along with the walk though the dark woods thing. It doesn’t get any better than sitting around a campfire next to a sweet girl while telling ghost stories on a slightly chilly fall night, hookup percentage 100%, those were the sweetest days of youth.
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