Zettai Shounen – 15

Short Summary:
Rieko finds a book sitting in her father’s office about Material Fairies, written by one Sukawara Akira, which she takes and starts to read. Meanwhile, Makki meets with and asks Kisa about what he saw. She first denies anything, but later asks him not to tell anyone about it. After Kisa leaves, Akira approaches Makki and gives him her card, asking him to call her if he wants to talk about what he saw. On the way back, Akira bumps into an old acquantance, Miyama Mika. Meanwhile, Shigeki enters Hana-san’s restaurant (while Rieko is working), but leaves quickly after Kisa messages him. She tells him about Makki having seen Bun-chan, but he tells her not to worry about it. At Hana-san’s restaurant, Akira arrives and moves into an upstairs room. She sees Shigeki and Rieko talking below her outside. Rieko tries to get information out of Shigeki to no avail. She tracks down Kisa and asks her, but Kisa also denies everything. Rieko of course doesn’t believe her, but she leaves before Rieko can push the issue. That night, Rieko checks her cell phone to find many messages from Makki, but she ignores them all. The next day, she tells him to stop sending them, then gives him the book that Akira wrote. Later that day, Makki meets Akira by the waterfront, and pledges to help her, first showing her the photo he took of what he saw.

I’m beginning not to like Makki’s character. He first lied to Kisa about telling not telling anyone, then he’s all stalkerish towards Rieko. Then he goes and shows the picture to Akira (not that I’m making her out to be a bad guy). Clearly not the most trustworthy guy, comes off a bit as wanting attention. I can see the love triangle/quadrangle/polygon developing something like Makki -> Rieko -> Shigeki -> Kisa -> Bun-chan. A lot of that is guessing, but I could see it happening.
Akira cements herself into the picture in a big way by staying upstairs of Hana-san’s restaurant, and then recruiting Makki to help. She’s also apparently written an entire book about the fairies, which she tells Rieko is non-fiction. The air around her has changed too: she seems more confident, more mature. I’m liking this older version a lot more.
Next episode heralds the return of a certain someone. Spoilers: Image 1 and Image 2, courtesy of wao.
Closing thought: The “Trust Yourself” graffiti is still bugging me, especially since Akira is shown looking at it. And the alien abduction one is just weird…