More Mary this week, but surprisingly without the usual romance! I had never really thought about it before, but Mary is a character that has always been placed in the context of the main group. We never see her doing anything else, hanging out with anyone else, or really having a normal teenage life outside of having a crush on Shun. Like Matsushita (who I will affectionately refer to as "Yuki's fanboy" from here on out), I assumed that she had all those things off-screen and never considered that maybe Mary is lonelier than anyone could guess. It certainly puts her crush on Shun (and the one she's developing for Chizuru) in a different light. Over these past two seasons, Mary character has gone from someone who openly attacks her upperclassmen to someone that I do like and sympathize with, which is saying a lot given her introduction. But as we see in this episode, she's still the type of person to push people away and has a hard time expressing her feelings even though she's not as outwardly violent anymore. She's defined herself as "the girl who has a crush on Shun," which in some ways makes her feelings towards Chizuru even more interesting and in others shows how limited her social life has been for a while now. Fortunately, this episode is not a dismal look on Mary's lack of her own circle of friends separate from Shun and Co. but is about how she starts to form one. Yuki's fanboy makes a good match with her, since they share similar enthusiasm. The scene where they try to guess how high the upperclassmen will be able to jump was really cute, and Mary's declaration later that they could just not hand out awards (after they ruined them) was pretty funny. I think that this is the start of a beautiful friendship. And thanks to him, she managed to branch out and reach the other girls as well. They seemed pretty friendly from the get go, with a golden opportunity for Mary to tell them that she'd take the extra spot on the dodgeball team so that they could all play together, but like with Shun in the first season, she had to realize that people will generally help you out and be nice so long as you're honest. Also, having some girlfriends may help her finally get her head on straight about who she really likes. We're coming up on the end, so now is the show's last chance to tie up loose ends... Current tally: Seven (7) Episode(s) without Shun in drag, two (2) consecutive (current record five [5]), one (1) where he does not appear at all. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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