Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun Season 2

Episode 19

Usually, I think of Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun as a quirky fairytale or a silly supernatural comedy. But at its heart, this show is extremely sad! The central romantic couple is a human girl and a ghost boy—and even if Nene does meet her heavily telegraphed end, this romance is doomed. Mitsuba, one of the main characters, is a boy who died far too early. The show is usually funny and upbeat despite these immutable facts, but this week, the facade dropped. The first half of the episode was quietly unsettling; the second half was dramatically so. “Encounters” followed Nene and Kou through two wildly different episode halves that somehow slotted together seamlessly, showcasing this story's flexible range.

Following the Severance, half the cast is still trapped on the other side, out of sight. The mood shifts as soon as Sakura gives the introductory speech, rather than Aoi, like usual, and stays low while Nene and Kou experience the world the way most of us do: with our dead friends staying dead. Kou invites Nene to his room to discuss something important to him, but there's something off about his level of nervousness—and I think it's guilt. So Kou has heard about a way for a human to become an apparition. What if the way is to switch a human body with an existing apparition? Maybe Mitsuba and Nene could switch if that's what they both want to do. And therein lies Kou's ulterior motive. It would explain why he began the conversation by asking Nene if she liked Hanako—and why that's relevant. Kou's a good boy. He would never force his beloved senpai Nene into a choice she didn't want. And maybe that's why he's so quick to backpedal before he even asks what he was going to ask. More than Kou's room, which is neat, tidy, and utterly normal, this conversation shows us the real him.

Have you ever lost a close friend at a young age? When it happened to me, the biggest surprise was that my friend's parents were still interested in keeping in touch, even if I wasn't hanging out with their child anymore. I thought it would be awkward, but instead it was cathartic to discuss how they were with their parents vs. when they were with their friends. I saw so much of this in Kou and Nene's encounter with Mitsuba's mom. After a chance encounter at Mitsuba's grave, Mrs. Mitsuba invites the pair home for generous snacks and encourages them to share anything, even the smallest scrap, of what Mitsuba was like at school while he was alive. Some parts of Mitsuba's personality never changed (like when he called his mom a “horrible carrot hag” the same way he always had a ready retort for Nene or Kou), but some facets of his personality that only made sense when his mom and friends shared their corresponding puzzle pieces. This is also the first time we learned what killed Mitsuba. OF COURSE, it was Truck-kun. “Mitsuba's gone,” Kou quietly says at one point, and even though I'm sure we'll see the sharp-tongued apparition in an episode or two, it felt like real grief. As Kou explains to Nene, the Mitsuba they know isn't the same as the boy who loved to take pictures and make birthday dinner for his mom, but a combination of that boy's ghost and an apparition that Tsukasa Frankenstein'd together. I'm hoping for my theory about the body swap to be true just so Mom can have her son again, but I already predict it won't work so easily.

I loved how this episode slowly shifted genres—by the time I realized it was no longer a poignant portrait of grief, but a spooky story about a haunted house, Kou and Nene were already standing in front of it. It's such an old story that it has transcended tropes and become an outright classic: the house that lures its victims inside so effectively, they think they're going inside it of their own free will. I thought it was fitting that the house was red—even though Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun was created as a manga first, red is the perfect color for this anime's warm, saturated color scheme. The stark contrast of the shadowy interior against stop-sign-red windows was a brilliant choice for upping the drama. As soon as young Amane (or is that Tsukasa?) appeared, one mystery was solved while raising a hundred other questions. It's a great hook to guarantee my wondering about the red house all 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.