The girls’ less than enthusiastic response to their father’s return pretty much says it all.

— Plus, Mamoru tells them he’s leaving immediately so it’s all moot. What’s even the point of having parents if they’re never around? Blah blah blah, gotta get them artifacts… but are the artifacts more important than your own kids? Unfortunately, you can’t expect the anime to answer these questions. It simply doesn’t even bother to.

— Anyways, evil auntie is back. Apparently, she can come and go as she pleases because the mansion belongs to the matriarch (her mother). Again, this is the sort of thing your parents should protect you from…

— Evil auntie says that Hatena has no real control over Muff-kun, so we get to see the two sisters train, train, and train some more. Unfortunately, Hatena truly is as incompetent as her evil auntie claims. When ordered to jump, Muff-kun just yeets the girl across the room.

— Ema even has the brilliant idea of pouring water on these two girls in order to facilitate their training. Misogi involves cleansing the whole body as an act of purification, but as you can see here, only the shoulder is necessary. Plus, it looks like the water simply disappears after hitting the girls’ shoulders. How? Magic!

— In the end, the two sisters couldn’t, uh, take all that water so we get some fanservice. I think Hatena is only in middle school… so… yeah…

— What about Makoto? Well, he’s training too. In fact, Mamoru’s master even drops by the mansion. It’s bad enough to not have your parents around, but now the two sisters get to have strangers coming and going as they please. Sweet.

— Anyways, Makoto has to prove to the new dude that he’s worthy of undergoing serious magical training under his tutelage, but this other guy — the first dude’s nephew — gets all jealous or whatever. Man, I don’t even care.

— Afterwards, evil auntie has a bold proclamation: the two sisters must hand over their artifacts and leave the mansion. Jeeves even backs her up. Well, something odd is going on… but I bet you those two girls sure wish their parents were here!

— Man, if only there was a technology that allowed people to communicate across long distances… it wouldn’t even need to use magic! We could, like, send radio signals via a device (something handheld) to… I dunno, an antenna that are networked to other antennas across the world, and together, we can talk to people that are far away from us! If these kids had something like that, they could ask their parents for advice!

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Housekishou Richard-shi no Nazo Kantei Ep. 8

— The episode starts off with Shoko announcing that she’s leaving for a marriage meeting, and as a result, Seigi can’t gift her the pretty gem that he had bought. In my mind, a guy can’t really give a girl a gem in a platonic fashion… but maybe it’s different in Japan or something. Plus, what do you even do with a gem and only a gem?

— So of course, Seigi’s all bummed out, and Richard gives him the obvious advice. Y’know how it is. It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Something like that. On the other hand, if you get rejected super hard…

— Later that night, Seigi happens to walk by the exact cafe where Shoko is meeting her prospective marriage partner. I’m telling ya, it’s a small damn world.

— Not only that, she’s meeting Homura-san! Wait, who’s Homura? Probably some character from a previous episode, but I have completely forgotten who he is. Welp, that goes to show you how invested I am in this anime.

— Homura straight up tells Seigi that he’s not too excited about the potential union. Nevertheless, it looks like he’ll still go through with it if Shoko is down. See, this is a cultural difference that I will never understand. I can’t imagine marrying someone I’m not excited about. In my mind, I might as well not marry. Being single isn’t a death sentence.

— Seigi, however, still doesn’t have the guts to talk to Shoko about it. He always butts into other people’s affairs, but when it comes to his own, he can’t muster up the courage. Funny how that works.

— Man, our hero is actually having nightmares about Shoko. I didn’t know he had it that bad for the girl. They only get like one scene per episode, so it’s hard to really see the relationship deepen.

— Eventually, Seigi does sit down and talk to Shoko… and she’s a bit of an oddball herself. Apparently, she has never known what it’s like to be in love. And regarding Homura, she only likes him like how she likes her mom or her dad, i.e. it’s platonic. But rather than waiting for the right person to come along, she wants to get “it” over with: “Well, once I get married, I won’t have to worry about romance anymore, right?” Bruh… that’s kinda sad. Romance shouldn’t die after marriage.

— Nevertheless, Seigi wants to be the good guy so he supports her. He’s so desperately afraid of coming off as selfish, so he tells her this story about how his mom remarried not out of love but for him. And somehow that’s a good thing. And like that, these two shake on it. What frustrating people…

— Seigi slinks back to Richard with the bad news, so the latter tells him off… then we get another story. It’s nothing major, really. He simply expands on the previous idea that we shouldn’t live with regrets. Richard had a bae, Richard lost the bae, Richard didn’t have the guts to fight for bae.

— Spurred by his friend, Seigi races to Shoko’s side. He hopes to change her mind about the wedding. When he gets there, Homura gracefully steps aside so that the two of them can talk. Gosh, what a wingman. But I mean… if he’s willing to go this far, why can’t he put the kibosh on the marriage talk? We basically have three grown adults who are unable to communicate their needs and wants. It has to be a cultural thing where no one wants to be seen as selfish. The greater good and all that jazz.

— Given a chance to finally voice his true feelings, Seigi… doesn’t do that. Well, not really. He fails to tell Shoko that he likes her. Instead, he tells her not to get married because she shouldn’t give up on love. Oh, you might meet someone awesome one day. He doesn’t even hint that he could be that certain someone! Frustrating…

— Seigi, however, does manage to give Shoko the aquamarine gem that he had bought solely for her. So I’m thinking, “Look, this is a grown woman. She’s not an idiot. Her best male friend just told her not to give up on love and gave her a very intimate gift. It doesn’t get any more obvious than that. She clearly knows that he likes her, right…? Riiiiiight…?”

— She simply thanks him for being such a nice person. Such a nice, nice hero of justice. Thaaaaaanks!

— She talks about how she only does nice things to make herself feel better, but he actually does nice things out of justice! Ah, the irony… these two are so similar to each other.

— In any case, Shoko rushes off to tell Homura the “bad” news, and we got the most anime resolution to ever anime. Any progress between Seigi and Shoko? Nada. Zilch. Zero. We did not intercept the ball. We did not force a turnover. All we did was knock the pass down to the ground. I expected nothing and I still feel let down.

— It’s really annoying. It really is. On the one hand, you have these super innocent, super-might-as-well-be-platonic relationships between a grown man and a grown woman. Then on the other hand, you have the raunchiest, trashiest, let’s bang all the species sex romp. Where’s my goddamn middle ground? I’m not asking Seigi to grab the girl and stuff his tongue down her throat, but we couldn’t even get a dinner date like Richard wanted?

— Seigi’s about to lose a lot more than just Shoko. All of a sudden, Homura tells him that Etranger is closing soon. Seigi rushes back to the shop, but Richard’s long gone. Welp, Seigi now has two baes to chase after.