Haruto asks for his usual plain sugar at the donut cart and finds out the employee (when are they gonna get names!?) is in love as evidenced by all the power stone bracelets he bought from the girl. He happily runs off to meet her.
At the antique shop, Koyomi wonders why Shunpei is twirling around saying “I love you” in various different languages. He’s in love with the girl who sold him all the language books and CDs. Love is in the air for Wajima too as he’s planning to give a woman he met at the museum a new magic stone ring, which Koyomi is against.
Haruto hopes he has his own “chance encounter” with someone too. He decides to just enjoy his donut when a man bumps into him causing him to drop his bag of donuts and have it get sat on.
Haruto cries. But hears the screams and heads over to where the Phantom, Gnome, appears to attack a couple meeting for a date, Yamagata and Manami, one of them a Gate.
Haruto henshins and fights Gnome. Haruto goes into Hurricane mode, but Gnome manages to run off into the ground. Haruto uses Unicorn to track the Phantom.
Yamagata brings Manami and Haruto to his mansion for some tea. He explains the situation to them and calls Rinko over to help protect them. Manami is uncomfortable by Rinko and wants to leave. Yamagata asks Haruto to stay with her. She touches him and a feeling goes through Haruto’s body.
Gnome meets Phoenix and Medusa and tells them he can still find the Gate.
On the street, Manami latches on to Haruto’s arm. She asks what kind of spells he knows, particularly if he can create money or jewels. But Haruto says his magic exists mostly for fighting Phantoms. She then drops her scarf which Haruto goes to pick up, allowing her to disappear.
Rinko asks Yamagata about him and Manami. They met at the gym and encouraged him to find a ton of healthy food. Rinko lets out an awkward laugh.
Manami, now away from Haruto, thinks he’s just a waste of time. He has no money and he’s friend with a cop. She watches a family nearby and flashes back to her own family’s happy times.
Shunpei is twirling around the park with his language CD still playing on his way to meet… Manami! She hugs him when Haruto comes running nearby. Suddenly, Wajima comes skipping along as does donut shop worker. Turns out the girl of their dreams is one person and that’s Manami.
Haruto figures out this is how she gets money. She defends herself and says they only gave her stuff because they wanted her attention. She takes the scarf from Haruto and runs off. The three guys are devastated.
Gnome grabs Manami while she’s running through the park and drags her underground. Unicorn lets Haruto know and he henshins directly to Wizard’s Land mode and drills his way to where Gnome and Manami are.
Gnome unleashes a dozen Ghouls at Haruto which he takes care of by going into Flame mode.
Haruto kicks Gnome aside and goes to Manami who asks why he would save someone like her. He says he’d save even swindlers. Gnome gets up and they fight as Manami looks at her reflection in a puddle. Gnome runs away after burying Haruto with rubble. He un-henshins and finds Manami gone.
Episode Thoughts
So we’re definitely into the Phantom of the Week stage of the show now.
A fun little episode overall. Nice to see everyone, even our donut shop friends getting some screentime.
It was interesting to see Koyomi have some emotion. The shipper in me saw Koyomi reacting to Shunpei saying he was in love as him being in love with her. But really, it was her saying “Love?” in a “Love? What is love?” sort of way. Since she’s just a hollow shell after all.
Maybe my favorite part of the episode was Haruto crying over his smooshed doughnut. I thought that was hilarious, maybe it was just the way Shunya Shiraishi played that moment, but it was funny.
I knew instantly back then that the three guys were into the same woman and at least they recognized what was going on much quicker than usual in such scenes in shows and movies.
However I did not really like this episode, mostly because of Manami and how everyone reacts towards her. They just fall for her and thats it, but why? It really seems to be just her looks and there is in my mind nothing special about her in that regard that would justify that. Heck in Rinko’s case I might be more likely to believe that she could pull that off, Shunpei himself would have the looks for it, plus his face would be unusual enough to warrant sticking out, but Manami… yeah nothing there. Plus with her and the rest of the episode and the following one, it was all pretty predictable. :/