This week’s Dan Da Dan revealed the nature of Okarun’s romantic rival Jiji, and he was something else. We had our usual wacky comedy, romantic drama, and a big chase sequence in this episode. So without further ado, let’s recap what happened in this episode.

Turns out, Jiji is what today’s kids call “cringe.” He is very animated and over the top awkward when he greets Momo. Momo finds his behavior very embarrassing and does not seem attracted to him, much to the relief of those hoping Momo and Okarun would get together. Aira believes that Jiji’s awkward and bizarre behavior must be because he’s an evil demon, an accusation she seems to have toward every character in this show. It turns out that Jiji is moving in with Momo because something bad happened to his parents, something ghost related.

It turns out that he lived in a haunted house and everyone who attempted to exorcise the evil spirits met a grisly fate. He asks Seiko for help in fighting the ghosts, but it turns out that Seiko’s powers only work in the city she lives in and that only Momo can fight off the ghost. Okarun is ready to go home for the day, but Momo is upset that he doesn’t say goodbye and “see you tomorrow.” This scene suggests that Momo does have feelings for Okarun, despite his fears of a challenger taking her away from him.

Jiji arrives at school as a new student and awkwardly flirts with all the girls. Meanwhile Okarun mopes and feels terrified that Jiji is going to take Momo away and he reasons the best course of action is to work out to make himself more attractive to Momo. He pumps iron when Momo sees him and it leads to another exchange showing how close the two are seeming to get. Momo offers to feed Okarun as he’s too busy lifting weights to hold any food. Then Jiji comes and Momo is busy talking to him. Okarun feels dejected and wanders if it is time to give up pursuing a romantic relationship with her.

Suddenly, a haunted anatomical model appears and it turns out that said model has what appears to be a golden ball. This leads to our big chase scene for the episode and it feels a little bit like a retread of the chase scene from episode four, complete with the same music used in that episode’s chase scene. The anatomical model’s main gimmick of being able to reassemble himself and being composed of representations of human body parts does keep this scene a little fresh. Also making things a little different is that Jiji tags along. He will probably develop shonen superpowers in a later episode, but so far, he seems to be the only muggle in the main cast.

During the chase scene, the anatomical model loses his heart and Momo offers an exchange. She is willing to give him his heart back in exchange for a golden ball. In another sudden strange occurrence, a haunted female anatomical model appears and this model is madly in love with the other model. She claims that she is an older obsolete model, but he rebuts her by saying that he loves her regardless. Then, the episode just abruptly ends.

Next episode preview teases an action packed confrontation in the haunted house after two comedic ghost/alien of the week episodes. Despite Okarun’s fears, I feel confident that he is still the boy pines for. Who knows, maybe eventually Jiji and Aira will eventually have feelings for each other, based on shonen plot conventions involving main cast romance, with the main character couple and side character couple.

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