Plot: Aoyama has been kinda flaky lately, so Moe and Miwa bring Ichigo to the school fortune teller, Mariko, to see what’s up. Mariko manages to quell her fears by telling her to trust Aoyama more and be honest about her feelings to him. She also ‘psychically’ sees that she and Aoyama are a great match for each other.
Ichigo meets up with Aoyama later that night, and he’s happy to see her. He apologizes to her for being so flaky and states that kendo club is eating up all of his time lately.
Later, everything’s going great for Ichigo and Aoyama, and she’s so happy about it that she seeks out Mariko to thank her. She finds Mariko at the soccer field and notices that she’s staring at a soccer player named Shunsuke. She quickly deduces that Mariko has a case of unrequited love for Shunsuke and believes him to be dating someone else.
Ichigo overhears Mariko giving Shunsuke some psychic advice to be honest with the feelings of his loved one and admit them to the girl at a park with a fountain on Sunday.
When Ichigo finally meets with Mariko to thank her, she admits that she was eavesdropping on her and Shunsuke’s conversation. Mariko doesn’t want to butt in and ruin Shunsuke’s love for another girl, so she wants to support his efforts and ensure his happiness, even if it breaks her heart.
That Sunday, Ichigo goes to the park and finds Shunsuke. She hides behind a tree and is surprised to find Mariko also hiding. Ichigo encourages Mariko to go be honest about her feelings, like she told her to be with Aoyama, but, Shunsuke being her childhood friend and love, she still doesn’t want to get in the way of his own love.
They’re about to watch Shunsuke meet his crush when Kisshu suddenly appears, demanding Mariko’s crystal ball. They’ve detected Mew Aqua within it and will not leave without it. Ichigo tells Mariko to run, but Kisshu pursues. Shunsuke sees Mariko in danger and jumps in the way of Kisshu’s soul-extracting ability.
He creates a Chimera Animal with Shunsuke’s spirit, creating a giant elephant monster, before nabbing the crystal ball.
Ichigo struggles with the Chimera Animal, and the other Mews show up to help by trying to get the ball away from Kisshu. Mariko also gets knocked out, but Ichigo’s too preoccupied with the Chimera Animal to help her. The Blue Knight rushes in to help Ichigo and gives her advice on how to defeat the creature.
Ichigo manages to take the chimera animal down, but the crystal ball breaks in the scuffle. The ball was merely ordinary crystal after all since Mew Aqua would never break like that.
Mariko and Shunsuke wake up, and as Mariko is about to leave Shunsuke to have his date in peace, he tells her to check her email. She sees that he tried to ask her on a date in the park at the fountain, but failed to get the message.
They confess to each other, after having a bit of a back and forth bicker, and the girls look on in content, happy their friend has found love.
Turns out, Mariko was faking at being a fortune teller anyway and quits after her ball is broken.
Breakdown:
– Yeah, bring Ichigo to a fortune teller to help understand why Aoyama’s being flaky instead of just telling her to ask him what’s up. Well, we needed a plot I suppose.
– Mariko: “Oh sorry. I scare people because I’m unfriendly.” Pbbbahahahahah!
– I like Mariko. She’s actually a pretty good advice giver under the guise of a fortune teller, and I like her personality. Although, is this problem really an issue of trust?
Aoyama’s being flaky and brushing off Ichigo, though not being that rude about it. She’s worried that he’s losing interest in her. That seems like a valid concern given the evidence. She trusts Aoyama. It’s not like she thinks he’s off with some other girl or is doing something bad – she just worries that Aoyama’s no longer emotionally involved.
To her credit, Mariko later tells Ichigo to be honest with him about her feelings, which is much better, but the trust thing still bothers me a little.
– Also, hi, budget episode. I see you’re giving everyone swollen cheeks today.
– Why did Shunsuke’s spirit become an elephant?…..Why did it yell “I’m an elephant!” when it arose?
– Yes, Ichigo, transform right in front of Mariko. Who cares about secret identities anyway?
– What is up with the falsely identifying Mew Aqua? It seems silly the types of things they’ll wrongly detect. Granted, the ball did glow a bit earlier, but that doesn’t really mean anything. Ichigo would’ve sensed it, had it been active enough to glow.
– Yay convenient amnesia! Is that officially a magical girl trope yet?
– This plot was already insanely predictable, but the reason the meeting happened without her knowing she was the girl he was trying to confess to was because she failed to check her email? Wow.
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I liked this episode because I found Mariko to be a very good character, in spite of being a flash-in-the-pan-we’ll-never-see-her-again character. I believe she had better chemistry with Ichigo and was more interesting than either Moe or Miwa. I’m sad to see her go…..but, that being said, like I mentioned already, this plot is very predictable.
Right when they set up her unrequited love and this nameless, voiceless potential love interest for Shunsuke, you know exactly what’s going on and what will happen. There are zero surprises. The other Mews seemed like an afterthought, yet again, the Blue Knight showed up for all of three seconds just to spout out the obvious trick to beating the Chimera Animal, and even the problem with Aoyama wasn’t very well-written.
Seriously, Aoyama, of all people, was seemingly sneaking around just because he was busy with kendo? He’d tell Ichigo that as soon as it became any sort of issue. She mentioned he canceled a date the previous weekend – he would’ve definitely told her then.
While the animation didn’t technically suffer, the art was terribad in this episode. Swollen cheeks, weird angular designs and warped faces weren’t that distracting but they were certainly noticeable.
These issues didn’t distract a great deal from an otherwise enjoyable episode, but there were still there.
Next episode, Ichigo’s dad finds out that she’s dating Aoyama and is livid about the situation. Will he stand in the way of their love?
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