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Coffee-tachi 33

Big episode this time. A lot of major stuff happened, but I want to start by pointing out something I just discovered a couple days ago. Ryoutarou's friend from school - the one who remembered Sakurai - is played by Hikari Mitsushima, who had a much larger role on Ultraman Max as Elly, the android girl. She's great on that show and I highly recommend watching it if you haven't. Even if the last few episodes are only available with HK subs.

Anyway, the big change this time is Kohana. I get that the show needed to replace Shiratori somehow, and this actually was a pretty clever way to do it, but I never really liked Kohana. The actress does a fine job, but she never really feels like the same character and she gets so marginalized as the Den-O franchise keeps going that I honestly never noticed when she just disappeared for good. Even know, I'm having trouble remembering if that was before or after the Chou Den-O trilogy.

The other thing to note is that this is the crazy piano guy arc. I knew it was coming up, but forgot it was these episodes. I love this dude's story, mostly for reasons that we'll see in episode 34. The actor should also look familiar if you've seen Agito or Shougeki Gouraigan.