The group goes clothes shopping. Uzaki teases Sakurai about being independent and having more friends than him, to which he responds she won’t need his help any more then. Sakaki gives his two cents, but Uzaki calls him out for never seeing him on campus and jokes he might never graduate. Sakurai mentions Sakaki actually has more credits than he does, as shocking as that is.
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Uzaki goes to pick out a swimsuit. Asai mentions she bought one recently, but Uzaki has been going to the pool lately with Sakurai since he became more active after their last beach trip. She flashes back to Sakurai calling her swimsuit cute. As Uzaki distracts herself from gushing over Sakurai’s compliment, Asai pats herself on the back for being the one to persuade Sakurai into complimenting Uzaki more.
Born to Be Side Characters
The next scene brings viewers to a soccer field at the college, where Sakurai is dribbling a soccer ball back and forth with Uzaki. Sakaki and Asai watch, waiting for shenanigans to unfold. Asai imagines that Sakurai will end up naked somehow and this is an anime, so who knows? As Sakaki suggests a game between the four of them, they overhear a trio of college students teasing five middle school students about being unable to beat them. But don’t feel bad for the middle schoolers. Those middle schoolers taunt them right back, and they’re a little savage. Uzaki points out one of the college students crying, and it brings their attention to her group of friends.
The college trio remembers Sakaki from their soccer club mixer. As soon as the college students rattle off their forgetful names, the series narrator puts viewers’ minds at ease by mentioning not to bother remembering their names. Finally, a series that knows names will be forgotten just mere moments later if they aren’t protagonists or fan faves. After Sakaki riles them up with comments about their poor dating habits, they challenge Sakaki and his friends to a game of soccer with a worthless bet. The characters in this world love betting on random things that aren’t worth betting on. Who’s getting Kakegurui or No Game No Life vibes? Admittedly, either one of those would probably be more interesting than this moment.
Soccer Is a Battlefield
Uzaki and Asai watch as Sakaki kills it against the other team, while Sakurai can’t even hit the ball. Sakaki hypes Sakurai up with some tips about focusing on the ball and Sakurai takes that a little too much to heart. When the ball comes his way, it goes from slice-of-life soccer game to Mortal Kombat x-ray close-ups, with x-ray visuals of the opposing team’s faces or ribs every time Sakurai’s super strong kicks launch the ball at them. After scoring his first goal, Sakurai emerges from his soccer-fueled daze to see all the opponents laying KO’d on the soccer field. Sakaki says the word and the gang makes a run for it.
Udon Gets Hot and Heavy
After some time, Sakurai cooks a meal for Uzaki and her mother at their home. Uzaki’s mother commends his cooking before Uzaki shuts that down real quick. After her harsh taunts give him a reality check, he says he can’t move on to learning to cook other food until he’s perfected his udon skills and asks to learn more.
As Uzaki’s mother directs Sakurai on how to cut to udon, she brushes up against his arm and jumps back in shock, then apologizes for getting too close. Even now, she still thinks he’s a dangerous boy who’s got his sights set on her. The last season had a funny running joke where Uzaki’s mother kept misinterpreting Sakurai’s demeanor and certain conversations she misunderstood after overhearing them between Sakurai and Uzaki. Although those overheard conversations were especially easy to misread, for anime’s sake, so she can’t be blamed. It’d be easy for viewers to forget about the joke and think it was a thing of the past, but once again it rears its brazen head.
After a moment, she sees that Sakurai hasn’t even noticed. Uzaki mentions that Sakurai is really earnest about everything and gets in the zone once he’s focused on a task. Uzaki’s mother sees this as the perfect opportunity to fix the relationship she believes has become possibly corrupted between Uzaki and Sakurai. She questions her daughter if anything unusual has happened between them.
The Innate Humor of Poor Assumptions
Uzaki flashes back to the end of the last episode and viewers see the moments after the episode ended. She woke up in Sakurai’s arms, embarrassed about being caught by her friends and Sakaki. As the narrator mentions, that’s when two coincidences happen: Uzaki wondering how her mother could know about this event and Uzaki’s mother digging for info. Uzaki imagines a game of telephone carrying the information Sakaki to the café boss, then to Asai, then to her mother.
The comedy of misunderstandings begins, with Uzaki mentioning vague hints about the situation and Uzaki’s mother imagining a progressively worse scenario with each inkling of details. In the end, Uzaki’s mother wishes she was stricter with her wild child and goes to lie down.
After Sakurai is gone, Uzaki eats an udon dinner with her brother, Uzaki Kiri. He’s tired of the same old udon dinner until Uzaki mentions her senpai made it. Since Kiri hasn’t met Sakurai, he assumes that Uzaki’s senpai is a young woman and imagines her making the meal. He changes his tune and dives into the udon with newfound enthusiasm, remarking that “college-girl” udon tastes better.
All in all, this episode of Uzaki-Chan Wants to Hang Out! didn’t bring the same humor or emotional depth as the previous episode. Unlike that episode, this one was focused less on the interactions between Sakurai and Uzaki, which isn’t necessarily an issue. The problem is rather that the episode was pretty light in humor in general and didn’t have as much heart as viewers would expect. Still, the series has a pretty good track record and the humor has been hitting up to now, so it’s let’s hope this one was more of a one-off.
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