©Honobu Yonezawa/Tokyo Grassroots Society/Small Citizen Series Production Committee
Even Kohane and Ouchi realized that they were terrible at being “ordinary.” That’s a completely different thing than thinking there’s no value in pursuing this goal and realizing they’re probably fine just the way they are, but at least Koyu may be heading in that direction. That’s probably a good thing for him; when he spends the first half of the episode outlining his theories and discussing the case with Kengo, it’s by far the most animated he’s been in the entire show. He enjoys investigating and hypothesizing, no matter how mundane (hot chocolate) or potentially dangerous (theft of a bicycle) the situation. As he writes on the board and gets ideas from his friends, his eyes and body language radiate a quiet joy, and while I know it’s different from a distance as we face this situation, I Hope he can do the same. Is being “ordinary” worth giving up something you really love?
We don’t know how Ouchi feels about this question, but it feels like in this episode, the answer she may come to is “yes.” Her situation seems to be very different from Xiaoyu’s. The weird thing about him is that he’s a self-proclaimed all-knowing detective, but as he tells Kengo, if he was a fox, then Ouchi would be a wolf. While we don’t have specific details about what she did in middle school, we can see that her default personality is like my peanut-buttered dog: once inside his consciousness, nothing can distract him. Nagauchi has always been very persistent about his mistakes and will not give up on anything until he is satisfied. We’ve seen hints of this before in Strawberry Pie (RIP), where she frustrated Obata until he agreed to go with her so she could get two. This can be annoying, but not dangerous, which is certainly not the case with bike incidents. It’s not just about wanting something easy, it’s about being faced with a man who seems more than willing to lie, steal, and cheat to get what he wants, and as she embarks on this pursuit, she fully realizes that he’s not Act alone. As Kobato said, what would a group of thugs do to a girl like Ouchi? It goes without saying that “it’s not good.”
While neither Ouchi nor Kobato seem fully capable of leaving behind their old ways, Ouchi is in greater danger of recovery. Her stubbornness is accompanied by a temper, which can be seen in her final stiff and angry walk when a woman accidentally throws water on her. Again, Osanai is overly focused on those who wronged her, and we don’t know if Kobato’s text message told her to come back, as he can figure that out by the items left on the table. Her attempt to tell Kengo that she’s “Yuki’s twin sister Maki” is ridiculous, but it does show that she’s trying to find a way to actually change. This raises the question: might Kobato return to his detective self because he wants to, or because he’s trying to save Ouchi from himself.
It’s a bit disappointing that after the blood-red sunset scene in episode three, we didn’t get any more information about what Ouchi once was. But the story delivers information at its own pace, and I think we can trust that it will ultimately give us everything we need to know. It does drag a bit, but it also seems to set up Kobato and Ouchi as two people who may not have as much choice in how they present themselves as they think. This is perhaps a reflection of the adage that the purpose of climbing a mountain is not to reach the top but to enjoy the climb along the way.
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SHOSHIMIN: How to become ordinary Currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
