Recap: Despite Haru’s stubbornness, Shizuku wants to learn more about his past and get to understand him better. On the way to their date, Yuzan shows up and lays some knowledge on our heroine.

A bit of a slower episode this week, establishing the relationship between Haru and the rest of his family. As one can imagine, it is not a happy one. Coming back from last episode, the date is all that’s on Haru’s mind. Hilariously, Shizuku is still so devoted to studying that she decides she’d rather just go to the library. Gotta love a girl with priorities, I suppose. On the way out, Yuzan decides to break things up and Shizuku decides to pick his brain for a little bit, filling her in on the details of the Yoshida household.

It really is a strange idea, a father throwing out his own son at such a young age, but I suppose there are strict parents everywhere, and Haru’s behavior prior to this story really was inappropriate and inexcusably violent. Yuzan’s musings on the reason his father suddenly wants him back seems to imply this is actually quite a powerful family, capable of manipulating schools to allow even someone with Haru’s aforementioned behavior problems in. I have a brother I fight with, and fight with constantly, but I don’t think I could even imagine the kind of brotherly animosity Haru and Yuzan seem to have. I suppose not everyone has the best of relationships with their family, though.

While all of this was interesting, I really got a lot more out of the discussion between Haru and Shizuku once Haru arrives to take her away. As I said last week, the best thing about Shizuku is she is her own woman, beholden to no one, and especially not to Haru. She has every right to want to learn more about him, especially since she actually cares about the senseless dope. It was satisfying to see her stand up for herself against Haru, especially with how scary Haru can be when things aren’t going his way. Hopefully this’ll be the start of Haru letting himself out of his comfort zone and learning to better interact with her so they can properly bond.

The Kana Hanazawa question comes back this week as a secondary plot, only to be answered in the last frame. It’s somewhat cliche, but the Knight in Shining Armor bit that Haru did last week seems to have had quite an impression on the girl. It was pretty funny to see Haru use her as a lookout for Yuzan, but she got a totally different impression out of that exchange. It seems that Shizuku got the basic picture of her stare at the end of the episode. It’d be funny to see how Shizuku handles direct competition instead of a just girl collective like last week. She hardly seems like the girl to get caught in jealousy, but it’s clear the class rep isn’t going away.