Once again a manga chapter is taken and pumped full of melancholy, nostalgia and surrealism.
Cherry creates a “tablet of the childish mind” which he secretly feeds Sakura to make her feel young again. It causes her to fall asleep at school and flash back to her youth, when she was a sickly child and unable to play with her friends (some of whom appear to be yokai of various types, a neat bit of foreshadowing not present in the manga). This section is filled with the dreamlike atmosphere that is the trademark of the UY anime. Once again, we get silhouetted parades and girls whose faces you can’t see.
When she awakes she finds there’s a young girl sitting beside her. The various boys of Class 2-4, not to mention Lum, Shinobu and an eavesdropping Onsen-Mark think this an illegitimate daughter of Sakura’s that she’d been keeping a secret. Sakura on the other hand realises it is her “mind’s child” and runs off to find her uncle to sort it all out. Onsen-Mark meanwhile fantasises about doing the right thing and proposing to Sakura and raising her child as his own.
Left to look after the young Sakura, the gang play with her, however her idea of playing is to summon monsters to chase people round the school with. When the real Sakura arrives she chastises her younger self, but her younger self explains she only wanted to play because she’d not been able to when she was young due to her frail nature.
So Sakura let’s her play, leading to the school being destroyed yet again…
The show feels like it’s finding it’s voice again (though possibly a last gasp before the shift in creative leadership?). A good example on how they were able to flesh out a chapter of the manga to fit the running time and put their own sensibilities into it. It’s worth noting that just like Akira Kamiya did in the episode where they travelled back in time, Sakura’s voice actress Machiko Washio provides the voice of the child Sakura. Which is a little odd as she has a very husky voice, that she can’t quite pull off a little girl’s voice, particularly when the young Sakura gets excited near the end of the episode.
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Screenplay: Kozima Tamiko
Storyboard: Kozima Tamiko
Director: Tetsuro Amino
Animation Director: Takeshi Oosaka