All this time I never realized that I actually had not one, but two hands!

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I’d like to open this review with a question for our readers: what do you think the big pink thing is?  It reminds me of a Mudkip or a Wooper, but it also kind of looks like a axolotl.  Anyone got any guesses?

Anyways, this episode is full off shenanigans just as anticipated, but Yuki and Chizuru are still slacking off, and I honestly have no idea how Kaname puts up with them.  They ditch him less than half way through the haunted house to run rampant around the school, and even for someone as seemingly calm as Kaname, you’d think he’d be pretty pissed at them for just running off like they did.  It makes them seem rather insensitive, and again I’m overwhelmed with the urge to reach through the screen and swat both of them on the back of the head.

Yuta and Shun prove to be more responsible, and much to my delight, they aren’t the only two boys in drag!  Chizuru joins the ranks as “Bathroom Hanako”, and he makes such a cute girl I honestly didn’t recognize him when they first showed him in his costume.  He and Shun steal the show as far as the costumes go, because they’re the more feminine of the group.  Kaname and Yuta just look kind of ridiculous, and although there’s not a good shot of him, Yuki doesn’t really look that different from usual.

I think it’s interesting that the crossdressing was never brought up as an issue.  Kaname makes the biggest fuss out of his costume, and his is pretty unisex, especially compared to the other boys (excluding Yuki).  Since this isn’t Hourou Musuko I wasn’t expecting a big deal to be made of it, and seeing Yuta walk around with his skirts hiked up to his armpits was hysterical, but I’m a bit surprised that someone didn’t put up more of a fuss (it probably would have been Shun for ironic reasons).

Despite the setting being the cultural festival, the real focus of the episode was Chizuru’s growing feelings for Masaki.  Now, I’m going to be honest here; I don’t like this pairing.  However, I’m going to attempt not to let that skew how I look at this episode, because regardless of my feelings for these two together, this was a darn good episode.

We knew that Chizuru had a thing for Masaki as was hinted at in the fifth episode, and we spend the episode with Chizuru as our narrator.  He’s not nearly as good at comforting people as Shun is, but he really does try, and I think it’s really good that Masaki didn’t have a sudden revelation about her feelings for Chizuru.  He cheered her up, but she still has a thing for Shun.  I feel that this is more realistic, if not a bit sad for Chizuru.

Something else that’s very small, but had more of an impact on me, is the fact that Chizuru muses about Masaki at the end of this episode and calls himself a pervert.  When we see anime romance, most of the time it’s through the point of view of the girl, and it’s a very pure, chaste relationship (think Kimi ni Todoke) that doesn’t deal much with the sexuality of the boy.  The fact that we’re given hints to something less than lilly white made me really happy, because it shows the characters as more rounded and relatable; who hasn’t had a thing for their friend’s significant other at least once?

I just hope that this love triangle doesn’t mess up Chizuru and Shun’s relationship.  At the heart, Kimi to Boku is a comedy, not a romance, and I’d hate to see any of the five boys falling out with each other because of a girl.

GO Rating: 4/5