It’s amazing how much chemistry the main pair of characters can have when you have them actually recognize their own feelings and communicate with one another. These two just blew right through half a dozen different romcom will they/won’t they tropes in one episode:

• Ayase wouldn’t let Okarun ignore her at the school gate
• they both recognize that they couldn’t wait to talk to the other during school
• they shared the briefest of accidental (and painful) kisses
• they told each other how much they wanted to find the other to talk during lunch
• Okarun dumped out his heart about how he wanted to talk to her in front of her friends
• Ayase reconciled with him and dished out a wash basin of revenge on somebody playing with Okarun
• finally, they were back to normal (minus some balls) by the end of the episode

Step aside every other romcom out there. Dan Da Dan doesn’t have the time to deal with this tropey trash. It’s got bigger balls to find.

There is so much good I can say about this episode, but one thing I want to call out in particular is the directing during the lunch sequence when they were looking for (and missing) each other. That sequence was immensely satisfying to watch and the way the shots were sequenced and framed was magnificent.

Trivia for the day: In Japanese, the way you write testicles is 金玉 (kintama). If you look at the kanji individually, it is gold ball. So, now we know what this scene in the OP is referencing: