An otaku of legendary reputation whose tastes foretell the rise and fall of anime series. Or not.
Following immediately after episode 12, the thirteenth and very last episode of Hyakko starts on a rainy day with one or more people sleeping at a bus stop with dismantled boxes in lieu of blankets, after which the opening credits start. It is April 4, the first day of school at Kamizono High School for the incoming high school students, and we get to see how each of the girls we’ve seen so far prepare for their new life.
Episode 12 of Hyakko starts with Torako trying to call her friends one night and failing. The next day, it turns out that Torako had been trying to find a friend for a place to stay. Unable to connect to Suzume, Ayumi, or Tatsuki, she ended up staying with Ushio, although they stayed up all night playing games out of the fierce competitiveness between them. Torako had run away from home for the first time after starting high school, which used to be a regular occurrence as Suzume knows all too well, having often accompanied Torako on her escapades.
Episode 11 of Hyakko, “Escaping from the tiger’s mouth”, starts off with the classroom teacher happily opening the packaging for his new cellphone, the replacement for the one Torako destroyed in the previous episode. However, he realizes how childish he must look to the teacher sitting next to him and tries to make excuses, but he needn’t have bothered since the other teacher is stuck in her own world worrying about her sick Yuki she had left at home. As the other teacher heads home sick with worry, she asks the classroom teacher to take over her English class scheduled for the next hour.
Kazamatsuri Touma
Episode 10 of Hyakko, “Wings for a Tiger”, starts off with Kazamatsuri Touma, Torako’s distant seatmate, ruminating on the roof, only to be interrupted by Torako’s pestering. Despite Torako’s persistent attempts at befriending Touma throughout the semester, Touma is still continuing to rebuff her. As Torako complains about it to her friends in the classroom, Tatsuki knows the feeling. Although Torako realizes that Tatsuki may as well be talking about understanding how it is to be pestered by herself.
Ooba Minato
Episode 9 of Hyakko starts off with the tall girl dropping her coin when trying to buy something from the vending machine. As Torako and Ayumi head toward the vending machine during recess, they find the tall girl wailing in sadness over her lost coin. Seeing the tall girl, Ooba Minato, crying so much over something that isn’t much of a big deal, Torako buys Minato a can of cocoa with no idea of how much trouble she would be getting into.
The first thing to notice when episode 8 of Hyakko starts is that the opening sequence is slightly different. Instead of just reused footage from the show itself, we actually get to see some of the characters animated in their own shots.
The actual episode starts off with an odd lack of color, where students are gossiping about ghost stories at school. It sets the stage for the appearance of the creepy girl. When a couple of girls pass by her, and one of them accidentally drops her cellphone, the two girls experience horror as the creepy girl creepily picks up the cellphone and offers it back with a creepy smile. The girls barely manage to express thanks before fleeing in terror.
The first half of episode 7 of Hyakko, “Hundredth year since meeting of fox and tiger”, starts off with Yanagi, the capitalist from episode 5, and Koma ready to enthusiastically take new pictures for the new season, as new demand is created with the switch to summer school uniforms. A bored friend of Yanagi’s comes across them, who has a really sinister-looking face but probably not so evil in reality, and he joins them to amuse himself. His name is Kitsune, which Koma finds to be an odd name, but Kitsune could say the same about hers.
Episode 6 of Hyakko, “Tiger on both sides of three houses over there”, begins with Torako, Suzume, and Ayumi hurrying off somewhere when school ends. Tatsuki feels somewhat excluded, despite being annoyed by Torako the other times she was dragged somewhere, as she thinks to herself. Or actually, Nene narrating what Torako should be thinking, which annoys Tatsuki eventually.
The first half of Hyakko episode 5, “Meeting connection, tiger connection”, starts out with a boy creepily printing out pictures of some students at Kamizono High School. It’s all for the sake of satisfying a certain market that exists in the school: love-struck students who want photographs of those they have a crush on. A male friend of his is weirded out by how enthusiastic he is about free market capitalism and money, which is his justification for selling the photos. He even has a business associate in one of the lower grades, which happens to be Kobayashi Koma, the paparazzi girl. And to think I thought they may have been rivals …
The first half of episode 4 of Hyakko, “Drinking Milk, Eating Horses, Tigers Eating”, is about the girls’ adventure in the cafeteria. Having not brought a lunch box, Torako hunts for someone to drag along to the cafeteria for lunch. Ayumi is her victim, while Suzume is a willing accomplice. And Tatsuki is collateral damage as the girls all meet up at the cafeteria.