Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus

Episode 11

Over the course of this season, there have been two looming mysteries present in every arc. The first is, what's the deal with our titular Santa Claus, Touko Kirishima? The second is the prevalence of #DREAMING and how young people from all over Japan are seemingly seeing the future in their dreams. This episode starts the process of solving both.

For Touko, we get more than a bit about who she was before Puberty Syndrome made her imperceptible to all except Sakuta (and his female equivalent, Mito). Touko was the queen of the school before Mai arrived—at which point she was promptly replaced. Due to the complicated feelings of being dethroned and discarded, she contracted Puberty Syndrome in a way similar to Mai—but that seems to be only half the story. She also seems to have had a relationship with Sakuta's college friend, Takumi; she was Takumi's reason for coming to this particular college, and she's clearly upset that he can't perceive her either.

However, the most interesting thing we learn about Touko is that she's not the one behind the rumors that she and Mai are the same person. In fact, she's clearly pissed off at the idea—and that Mai has done nothing to quash the rumors. Mai inadvertently took her school life, and now she's going to take her musical one? It's no surprise she has no empathy for Sakuta being mid-test when she confronts him.

That said, the reason for the rumors isn't any one person. Rather, it's the prophetic dreams associated with #DREAMING. Thousands of people have dreamed the same dream of Mai announcing that she was Touko at an upcoming music festival. In fact, nearly everyone who is not an “adult” seems to have dreamed of that day, regardless of whether they were at the concert or not. However, there are three oddities. Mai and Touko, despite being at the center of the events, dreamed of nothing. Meanwhile, the remnants of Tomoe's own Puberty Syndrome resonated with the dream and allowed her to live every day from the present until the concert within the dream, making her a vein of knowledge that will need to be tapped.

But the big thing we learn about the prophetic dreams is that they may not be prophetic at all. Rather, they may be a glimpse at a similar, parallel world. And given the fact that both this season and the previous film have been intertwined with one such world in specific, it's a good bet that we know exactly which world this is: Sakuta's Perfect World.

The big hint we get for this is Sakuta's dream at the start of the episode. In it, he uses a cellphone. Our Sakuta hasn't touched one in years due to the events surrounding his sister. However, in the Perfect World's timeline, Sakuta solved Kaede's syndrome rather quickly, meaning he would not have needed to stop using them. Then there's also the fact that, back in the film, Sakuta first learns of Touko thanks to his Perfect World counterpart's warning about her—implying he had already dealt with her on his end.

However, there is one issue with this theory—namely that Kaede either relapses or was never cured from her Puberty Syndrome in the first place within the dream she witnesses. So rather than the perfect timeline, #DREAMING may in fact be witnessing the most imperfect one—one where everything goes wrong for Sakuta and Mai in the worst way possible. We'll just have to wait till next week to find out more.

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Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.