When we last left off, a school festival coming up, and Uka had volunteered to lead the charge. She’s organizing a maid cafe, by the way. When is it not a maid cafe? But hey, you get to see Uka in a maid uniform if that’s your thing. Don’t worry, it’s a pretty tame uniform for a pretty tame anime. Either way, this part of the episode feels a bit disjointed. It’s like a dream as we drift from scene to scene. At first, nobody wants to help Uka, so she’s careening around on her bike all by her lonesome. But eventually, the other girls get over themselves and lend a hand. Ganbatte this, ganbatte that, and our heroine is happy. For now.

This week’s topic of conversation is Kai’s ex Serina. Serina, Serina, Serina. We can’t seem to get enough of her, apparently. Seriously, there’s so much here that I don’t understand. The last time I talked about this anime, I mentioned how high school and everything about it is nothing more than a distant memory for me. But even when I dig deep down into my gray matter, I still can’t find anything that helps me relate to these kids. Like why do they fawn over people so much just for being attractive? Sure, there were popular kids back in my day. But it didn’t mean that the vast majority of the student body did nothing but talk about said popular kids. But all throughout this episode, it’s Kai this, Serina that, Kai used to date Serina, why did they break up, blah blah blah. Bro, who the fuck cares? Where are my nerds at, geeking out over whatever dweeb stuff we like to talk about? Where are the goth-equivalents at, always looking down on the “sheeple?” How about the jocks who can only talk about sports? Some anime — big emphasis on “some” — makes Japanese high schools seem so damn monotonous, and Honey Lemon Soda is one of them. NPC is the apt description for everyone not named Kai or Serina, because that’s what they are; they don’t seem to exist for any reason other than gabbing about the two hot, attractive people.