As pretty as they are, I’m starting to get tired of the super symbolic pictures that have absolutely nothing to do with the plot.

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Our focus this week is on my favorite female character of the series; Kayo.  We saw her in a single episode last season that revolved around Yuki and his sticker collecting in order to get a special edition plate being put out by a convenience store.  She was a strong female character with background and a story of her own, and I can’t even begin to say how happy I am to see her back (even though it’s probably for the last time).

Kayo first caught Yuki’s attention because of her curly hair, and in this episode he finally gets over himself enough to touch one of her curls.  Yuki is so socially awkward and unsure how to act around females that it makes my heart go out to him; he obviously has feelings for Kayo, he just doesn’t know how to show them or if they’d even be appreciated if he did.

The reason Kayo probably won’t be showing up again is because she quits her job at the cafeteria to pursue a career as a hair stylist at a salon.  Yuki doesn’t know how to deal with how he feels about this, and avoids her until presenting her with the plate he was originally saving up to get for himself.  It’s such a sweet, dorky gesture, and I don’t think I’ve ever thought about a plate as a romantic present, but there you go.

As sweet and heartbreaking as their unspoken romance was, I didn’t enjoy the constant overtones of “enjoy your youth while you can” that’s still permeating the episodes.  There wasn’t much talk of studying for exams (only brought up once by Kayo) but Kayo does talk about how nice it must be to still be so young and have so much ahead of them at several points.  It’s not as bad as it could have been, because she is older than Yuki and his friends, so it made a good point of contrast between their ages.

Kayo is still one of my favorite female characters to date, but as far as romance episodes go, this one left me wanting a bit more than we got.  A lot of that is due to how awkward Yuki is, but I still found myself wanting to yell at the screen at him to kiss her hair or something.  Geez Yuki, get it together!

GO Rating: 3.5/5