I love the way this episode began. Sawako’s cooking dinner (top tier waifu material here) and her house gets a phone call from her friends (Yano and Yoshida) and then the whole family just starts freaking out about it. I’ll be looking forward to when her parents meet the gang. So this episode marked the first time Sawako’s hung out with her “first” friends outside of school and it was enjoyable to watch. Went out to eat than chilled a bit somewhere (in this case, a friend’s house). Nothing special or out of ordinary, but of course not to Sawako as this was a very new experience for her. And while not being out of the ordinary, this episode managed to be enjoyable. Aside from a nice change of pace from all the drama in the previous arc, it was fun seeing the interactions between everybody. Especially Ryuu. He had his “I don’t give a fuck” face for almost half the episode. There was an interesting tidbit with Kazehaya being a part of the baseball team in the past and it makes me wonder what the deal with that is. Like why did he quit in the first place. I don’t think the writers pointed that scene out just for the lulz of seeing a little Kazehaya-kun, so I’m expecting more focus on it soon.

After that, Hirano Aya’s character was pointed out as well. Yoshida didn’t give a good impression of her so I can assume she’s trouble. And Ryuu said she wasn’t her type and he knows what’s going down so she might have an inner bitch persona. Other than that, the last thing that stood out for me is the way the episode ended. It feels like the show is setting up for everybody to get an end pairing with each other. I was really surprised when Pin waited for what’s her face. I thought he was just going to be comic relief. Never thought he’d be involved in the end game. The journey towards that end should be an interesting one.