#HOW DO AIDAIRO ALWAYS OUTDO THEMSELVES

[professional-idiots]

AFTERSCHOOL HANAKO KUN CH 27—THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS

1. I love this panel sm 😭 they’re all so cute and it just makes me wish and wish and wish that they could all be normal together

LOOK AT KOU AND HIS FRIENDS IM GONNA CRY!!!

2. AGSKANSK THEYRE SO CUTE AND TEENY

Also Kou’s cardigan looks like Mitsuba’s cardigan and now I need official art of him in it

3. Uh… no comment

4. This is just a Mitsuba appreciation post now

*please note that both of Mitsuba’s hands are visible here…

5. I love so much about this—Yokoo being terrified is actually so real and also LOOK AT KOU LISTENING SO INTENTLY TO HIS BF

6. Okay ngl… I was a little spooked at Mitsubas story… well up till the end

7. Now this is an Aoi appreciation post

8. I WAS SPOOKED WHEN THE SECOND YASHIRO SHOWED UP!!!! SHE STARTS BANGING ON THE DOOR LIKE HELLO?????? ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT

9. Everything about her starting to question her surroundings!!!! Like oh my god????? I had chills!! (Kou looks so cute with his little head tilt)

Edit: how tf did I not realize Kou didn’t have his lame ass earrings on here??!?! Like the head told literally like annunciates it

10. He’s so—

I actually love them so much 😭

11. AGSKANS THEYRE SO CUTE!!!!!!! LOOK AT HIM BLUSHINGGGGG

“The world I love” I know who you’re really talking about Yashiro Nene….

11. My good sir is THINKING about that shit

Okay I actually have a lot of theories for this chapter and it’s not even part of the main story.

So while I was reading it I went through a few different ideas. First I started drawing comparisons to the pilot chapters (Yashiro is in a long sleeved uniform and at first I saw Kou’s cardigan and thought that it was the same from the pilot BUT upon further research the jacket Mitsuba has on is closer to Kou’s original jacket. Which to me could still point to the pilot bc it could just be the old uniform for them but idrk) (and speaking of Mitsuba—like I said before his sweater isn’t over either of his hands…) but Teru being there kind of put a pin in this theory. Also I don’t know if the Mitsuba thing points any fingers to the pilot chapters but it’s just something I noticed and I think it must mean *something*. I also noticed that Aoi’s hair was back to being up which was really weird…

So then I started thinking about what exactly this could mean otherwise. Now, I’ve seen a lot of people calling this a nightmare, but was it?

The next place my mind jumped to was that Hanako wasn’t with them from the beginning and is not mentioned at all till he shows up at the end. Curious.

Sooo what could this meannnnn? Well I don’t think it was a nightmare at all. I think that this is a parallel universe (it’s still weird that in this universe Amane isn’t friends with Yashiro and Kou/is dead but Mitsuba isn’t, but who knows….) and our Yashiro is summoned into this parallel world by the stories her friends are telling. And so she is the doppelgänger as Teru and Natsuhiko say.

I think this is really plausible because Mitsuba’s story is very strange in that it doesn’t end normally and he says that he heard it from a friend of a friend then reiterates that same thing. In a way it almost seems like this really *was* just some real story he’d heard and maybe he’d mistaken it for fiction but it was actually true. And! These other versions of her friends that she’s with don’t recognize her versions of them (as we see with Kou), but really we can see this from the very opening because our Teru would NEVER participate in this normally. Especially not with such enthusiasm. And Hanako showing up and knowing what to do like that is very indicative of him hopping into this universe with her to protect her (like the consequences of the doppelgänger are real) (and obviously this is within Hanako’s power). Then when we cut back to the real world/the original universe Yashiro doesn’t tell us that she’d been sleeping, just that suddenly she found herself in the classroom. AND when she’s talking to Hanako later he doesn’t say he *didn’t* help her, he says “who knows” and I feel like that’s a classic Hanako deflection line!!! Meaning that he DID help her!!!!!!

Anywayyyyy I really liked this chapter. Like I feel like the afterschool chapters don’t normally feel so lore-heavy…. Part of me wants this to come back somehow. Like maybe later in the main series they travel between parallel universes for whatever reason (maybe that’s what it is when Yashiro sees past Amane—though I hope not because I really want that to have actually happened in Amane’s life in our timeline)

EDIT: OH MY GOD OH MY FUCKING GOD KOU DOESNT HAVE HIS EARRING IN!!!! HE DOESNT WEAR IT HERE!!!!!!!! THIS IS CRAZY ACTUALLY JESUS 😭 (I wonder if this can somehow be linked to Mitsuba being alive… cause traffic safety and whatnot… hmmmmm) (like he still has an earring but it’s not the traffic safety one arghhhhhhgg!!!!)

EDIT EDIT: I WENT BACK TO TRY AND FIGURE OUT WHY I DIDNT NOTICE AT FIRST AND ITS ALMOST LIKE ITS BEING HIDDEN TILL THE HEAD TILT PAGE!!!! THERES ALWAYS LIKE A SPEECH BUBBLE IN THE WAY OR LIKE YOKOOS HEAD OR SMTH!!! OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHM—

Edit edit edit: I’m Stan and I was wrong. I’m singing the Stan wrong song. I shouldn’t have taken that chance. Now here’s my remorseful dance. (Translation: even though it can’t be seen in most panels and that does feel kind of purposeful to me still, there are like two or three panels where his right ear is in clear view)