hontou ni sou omou?

23. Eri refuses treatment from the school nurse, Tae, after being completely seen through about her jealousy about the latter’s fondness for “Hario.” This proves costly later when she loses the class relay competition due to the strain of the untreated minor injury from saving Harima’s pride during the “horseback competition” in the previous episode. To pay his debt of honour to Eri, Harima promises to win the boy’s relay for the class on her behalf. He does so against the odds after weak starts by the first guy and Imadori but his cap comes off, exposing his baldness. Eri gets him to dance with him, creating a huge sensation in the school.

Another display of muleheaded pride and hubris from Eri during her confrontation with Tae - the latter who showed herself to be the more perceptive, mature and honest person leading to even more hurt pride and unhappiness. This episode made Eri an even more interesting character for me but not any hotter or more likeable. I quite like how Harima and Eri have nicknames for each other (Hige or beard for the former and Ojou or princess for the latter) which are meant to be disdainful or sarcastic but end up sounding quite endearing.

24. Eri is too embarrassed to go to school because of the fuss over her dancing with Harima but realised that she was really happy at that moment. Harima, in turn, is devastated when Tenma encourages him to confess to Eri and to be her love-love partner - he finally realises that Tenma had never thought of him as a love interest. Later due to a miscommunication between Harima and Yakumo, the latter undoes all of Eri’s heartfelt but clumsy stitching of Harima’s name on his jacket. This results in Eri verbally lashing Yakumo twice. First at the tea club and later at the cafe in front of the rest of the gang. Eri’s accusations and Yakumo’s incompetent defence causes them to misunderstand that Yakumo and Harima are already an item. Overheard by the devastated Harima, he runs away to sea onboard a tuna fishing boat.

Eri is hot when she is evil. But hot only in the sense of a third party observer sense and I don’t want to be anywhere near her! My sympathy for the bitch-slapped Yakumo was limited though as she was reduced to an “anou-anou” girl - being kind and confused are mitigating factors but it still irritated me that she didn’t defend herself effectively because other people’s reputation (Harima) and feelings (Eri) were also at stake here.