Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko - Episode 7

As if there isn't something innately suspicious about somebody leaving a crate of soda outside of your workplace, doing so complete with a note that says "don't worry, it isn't poisoned" doesn't really do much to help - unless, that is, you live in the world of Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, in which case all's well that ends well.

Anyhow, our randomly gifted crate of cola does rather clumsily set up an opportunity for this series to do some major plot progression, with Maekawa at the centre of moving things forward after finding said soft drinks left outside of her workplace.  Her assumption is that this can only be the act of whoever is firing plastic bottle rockets into the sky on a daily basis, and so she eventually decides to find out where they're coming from to find out what it's all about.  This proves to be simple enough, and thus Maekawa ends up chatting with a man who doesn't look entirely dissimilar to Makoto - the next thing she knows, she's being offered the opportunity to build bottle rockets for money, a mission she accepts, although not before dragging a few other people into this particular fray.

Those people are, of course, Makoto, Erio and Ryuuko, all of whom seem to have pressed into this action at the suggestion of Meme.  So, plastic bottle creation takes place, as does a little home cooking (thus reveal one of Ryuuko's deficiencies) before a sleep-over with all parties concerned grants Makoto a few more of his much-coveted adolescent points.  But never mind that, who is "plastic bottle rocket man", and why is Meme trying to get Erio and Makoto involved with him?

On the surface, those final questions seem quite obvious, but there's still enough mystery and further questions to spring forth from those queries to keep things very interesting indeed, delivered by an episode that wasn't as sharp as this series at its best but was still a fun piece of viewing regardless.  Indeed, a lot of this entertainment value came from the relationship triangle which exists between Makoto, Ryuuko and Erio - a triangle which was excellently played on here, and resolved to a minor extent one could argue by the end of an episode which once again seems to value its character dynamics over all else; not a bad thing at all, judging by this series so far.