First things first, Amaya tries to distance himself from Sanda, and his reasoning makes perfect sense. Sanda is always hanging out with Amaya and Fuyumura, the two people who have crossed Oshibu. So like I’ve said before, anyone with a brain cell or two would come to suspect Sanda. The fact that Oshibu hasn’t gone after Sanda is a bit strange. Maybe the headmaster is just one of those “hot” guys with no brains. Well, Sanda/Santa isn’t going let Amaya ditch their friendship without a fight. I wouldn’t expect anything else from our anime protagonist. Still, I do have to wonder why he thinks he can’t “do this” without Amaya? What exactly has Amaya brought to the table in recent episodes? To be honest, not much. At least Fuyumura can make bombs. Anyway, this little detour with Amaya feels kinda pointless. Santa quickly convinces Amaya to take back his words, so we end up right back where we started. All we’ve accomplished is wasting a third of this week’s episode. I don’t get it.

When we last left off, Ono finally revealed herself to Fuyumura. She even explained how she ran away because she had undergone puberty, so she feared reprisal from Oshibu. Unfortunately, the man is conveniently here to apprehend the poor girl. I need to reiterate how messed up it is for the creepy headmaster to refer to Ono as “an adult intruder.” It is sick, actually. It is utterly sick to look at a pubescent child and see an adult. Unfortunately, Fuyumura’s response doesn’t help either. I mean, sure, I get what she’s trying to say, i.e. even though there’s a clear difference between a body that has undergone puberty and a body that hasn’t, that still doesn’t make Ono an adult. I agree. But it still feels wrong to say that she has “an adult body.” In doing so, it feels like we’re trying to meet Oshibu on his level. In reality, it doesn’t matter what body Ono has. She could literally have a 150 year old’s body and it still wouldn’t matter. In fact, we should stop talking about our physical bodies altogether. With Ono’s life experiences, her knowledge, her memories, and her current mentality, she is clearly and utterly a child.

So there’s no real mystery with Ono. Puberty simply kicked in, and as a result, she feared what that sick headmaster might do to her in this weird, twisted world that they inhabit. Fair enough. I can understand her actions from that perspective. Nevertheless, I’ve got some… conflicting thoughts about these revelations. First, this rather seems anticlimactic. I’m sorry, but that’s just how I feel. No weird conspiracy. No bizarre kidnapping. She didn’t get sent to that dark and scary place. Y’know, the punishment Oshibu had threatened Amaya with back in the second episode. Nah, the reality is that she simply went through puberty, so she ran away because this society has an unhealthy relationship with youthfulness and aging.

Yaguida and his ilk are after Santa not because the jolly fat man is evil, but because they don’t want the figure of legend to give kids hope. That’s right, this fictional society coddles kids so much that we’ve looped right back to being horribly abusive. So how does this logic even work? Well, kids need to follow their marching orders. In other words, learn what we tell you to learn, marry whom we tell you to marry, do whatever job we tell you to do. But if they have hope, they might push back on said orders. They might try to achieve their own dreams and ends, and thus not do what the government tells them to do. If you want to be charitable, you could argue that the world is in such a precarious situation that it’s all hands on deck. If kids start acting out, the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. Basically, crushing kids’ hopes and dreams is just a necessary evil.

Recently, things keep falling down around Sanda. The kids speculate that this phenomenon occurs whenever a kid lies near him. Amaya further theorizes that this is how Santa can tell the difference between nice and naughty children. Essentially, whenever Santa nears a naughty child, things will magically fall to the ground or break. Um, sure, I guess that’s one way to avoid just giving Santa omnipotence about everyone’s behavior. Just earlier, Sanda had an incident with a fellow classmate. He plucked a stray strand of hair from her head, but a pencil case started jostling when she said thanks. It then completely fell to the ground when she called him sweet. I can only assume that she secretly despises him. To be fair, even if someone has something in their hair, I wouldn’t get into their personal space and pluck it myself. I dunno if I’d be grossed out if anyone does that to me, but I would definitely find it weird.