Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun Season 2

Episode 23

How does one traverse from this world to the next? This season on Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun has branched out into all sorts of methods of transportation: from taking an elevator, to falling off a cliff, and a train to the afterlife. We love a robust system of public transportation, supernatural or not! “One-way Train to the Far Shore” appears to be the penultimate episode of the season, with our cast members on both sides of the Boundary poised to at long last reunite. This season has had a particularly foreboding air, and I've been waiting for weeks for the other shoe to drop. Now with Teru back to his usual, manipulative self, battle lines are being redrawn to where they were at his introduction back in season one. In this episode that sets the scene before one final showdown, it's not only Nene who is in danger, but Hanako, too.

Is anyone else craving some pizza? Or perhaps, like Nene, Kou, and Akane, you're reconsidering ever eating pizza again? Last week I compared Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun to The Summer Hikaru Died, but this week it took a page out of Jujutsu Kaisen when Teru fed the crew some shavings off of Sukuna's finger in order to prime them to return to the boundary. “Oh I wish I could go rescue Hanako-kun and Aoi!” (Monkey's paw curls.) “Wait, why is that monkey's paw missing a finger?" I did note with concern how Teru wasn't letting his baby sister Tiara try any of the salami by saying it was “too spicy”—”too spicy” is what I tell my kids whenever I don't want them to eat something regardless of its actual taste. I could probably keep cracking jokes about the pizza situation for the entire review and not run out, but I'll restrain myself. I thought Teru's sneaky finger-feeding and the return of his unknowable smile marked a shift in his characterization of late. Since the Severance happened, Teru has presented a more human side of himself—a boy forced to give up his childhood in order to be the perfect exorcist, a secret whiner, a hopeless romantic with a crush on Aoi as big as Akane's. Now, Teru has recovered his composure and put a barrier between himself and the others. Rather than just tell them, “you need to eat this to save your friends,” he makes the decision while consulting nobody.

Teru's renewed ruthlessness is what's on display at the tail-end of the episode, too. During his one-on-one with Hanako, he's merciless. Despite Number Seven's youthful form, he's ready for blood—he doesn't warn Hanako before he stabs him; he stabs him as a warning. But before you think I'm painting Hanako as the victim here, I'll admit Teru has some good points when he calls out Hanako's selfishness in letting Aoi take the fall so Nene can live. Teru was spot-on when he said Hanako saw himself as a person willing to do the dirty work since he was already stained as a murderer. What Teru doesn't realize is how much he and Hanako have in common—Teru is also prepared to do the dirty work: not only with the pizza, but with his willingness to harden his heart to become Hanako's judge and executioner. What Teru didn't anticipate, however, is that Kou and Nene clearly talked after Nene overheard his plan last night, and developed a plan of their own. They're not just pawns in Teru's game. And Kou clearly feels more loyalty to Nene and Hanako than to his duty to exorcise spirits at any and all cost. This episode ends with Hanako and Nene's clasped hands, reunited at last.

And where's Akane in all this? Saving Aoi in the nick of time, of course. Akane is cursed to only look like a cool guy when it's time to come to Aoi's rescue, and like a huge dork at all other times. Teru may be the coolest guy in school, but he has no hope of competing with Akane for Aoi's affections. When Aoi and Hanako had a moment to themselves on the train to the far shore before everything went down, I don't think Hanako was expecting Aoi to bring up romance. I appreciate this way this season has developed Aoi, transforming her from a plot device and mouthpiece for creepy school rumors to a complicated girl who conceals both her affections and her fury, concerned that her friends will find both of them unpalatable. She, too, has more in common with Hanako than I ever realized before. And I suspect the moment when all of these characters' stories parallel one another will arrive as soon as next week.

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Lauren is a freelance journalist with a focus on anime fandom. Both of her kids are named after Gundam characters.