Let the group healing commence. This episode is all about getting the rest of the gang together, but I wonder if I’m the only one who felt a little awkward at the ending thanks to Yukiatsu.

We’ll start from the top.

• At the start of the episode, Jinta’s dad pokes his head into his son’s room and asks what plans Jinta has for the day. Jinta directly tells his dad that he’s “not going,” i.e. to school, and the father doesn’t skip a beat in leaving for work. The father’s laissez-faire attitude toward his son isn’t just odd to us but to Jinta too. Jinta wonders why his dad doesn’t scold him, then wonders whether or not he wants or needs to be scolded:

Moments like this are reasons why I enjoy this anime so much. We’re privy to a certain level of candid reflection with Jinta; we can see the wheels churning inside him. He knows something’s wrong, both in ditching school and his relationship with his dad, but since he’s still an immature kid, he just doesn’t have the solutions to these problems yet. These moments of introspection are why I sympathize with the character instead of instantly deriding him like the girls at school seem to do.

• Speaking of the girls at school, Jinta came so close to becoming a student again. For whatever reason, Jinta attributes this all to Menma and is reluctant to credit Anaru in playing any role in his almost-attendance.

Despite having missed an entire term of school, Jinta is nevertheless proud — too proud for the peanut gallery.

In fact, Anaru seems prideful too; she was ashamed to stand up for an old friend. Jinta just stomps off after insulting the girls.

• Jinta’s mom had been missing from the anime all this time, but we never quite knew why until now. In this episode, we see that young Jinta got the double whammy of not only having a close friend pass away, but his dear mother as well.

(For Americans, psst, Mother’s Day is coming up; don’t be a monster — do something about it.)

In her remembrance, Menma tries to make some of Jinta’s mom’s ol’ steamed bread that kinda looked like albino cupcakes in the anime.

I’m not too positive what they are, but I’ve had steamed buns of the Chinese variety where the bread is slightly sweet and the filling is either pork, red bean paste, or whatever you fancy.

Maybe the two are similar; they both have that lumpy appearance.

• At one point, we see Yukiatsu and Tsuruko do some shopping for a recipient unknown to the latter. Tsuruko seems rather annoyed that she’s left out of the loop.

Yukiatsu’s behavior, on the other hand, feels a little off-putting. More on this later.

• The main thrust of this episode is a Menma sighting by Poppo while pissing. Seriously.

This makes him organize a barbecue get-together for all the old friends. Gee, it was that easy — all someone had to do to get the estranged friends together was to simply do something about it.

While Yukiatsu is being fashionably late, the episode treated us with some lingering tension between Tsuruko and Anaru that I’m not too interested in parsing. It’s difficult, at the moment, to tolerate Tsuruko’s character.

I wouldn’t call it a motif, but food came up in the anime again — this time, kheer, some Indian rice and milk concoction, courtesy of Poppo. Looks kind of like rice pudding:

I’m not positive how he thought he could make pancakes out of that.

• When Yukiatsu finally arrives, who strangely brings olive oil to a BBQ, he lays down the cliffhanger:

I couldn’t help but get this one-upmanship vibe from the guy when he uttered those words to Jinta. Like “you think you’re the only one who can see our dead loli friend? Get real, son.” At this point, I can only wait until the next episode to see how this plays out, but I hope it isn’t some silly rivalry between the guys.

Overall, episode 4 was slow but entertaining. I’m not trying to say this anime is deep or highly original — it’s just good. I’ve already given this anime heaps of praise, but an episode like this one is the best time to bring this up: the number one reason why the anime is so enjoyable compared to some of the other shows this season is simply because the characters aren’t aggressively stupid. Sure, Ano Hana‘s cast each have their flaws, and they each do things I wouldn’t personally do, but their actions aren’t aggressively aggravating. I don’t feel as though the characters are running into brick walls or (for the most part) pandering to a certain crowd. Speaking of which, I didn’t notice any jarring loli bits this episode, which, I hope, is only a positive sign of things to come.