At school, Futaba is excited to show Satou the pictures from their trip to Tokyo Domeland. Hitoha has a picture too -- the picture she wanted to get of herself holding hands with Gachi Red at the amusement park. As she fawns over it, Mitsuba snatches it away from her and mocks her, and Hitoha manages to get it back by grabbing Mitsuba's stomach flab to distract her. Her troubles are not over, however, as Matsuoka also notices that Hitoha has a picture and she wants to see it, thinking that it may contain an evil spirit. Hitoha knows Matsuoka well enough now to expect the worst from her and every situation she imagines resulting from showing her the picture ends in Matsuoka burning the picture to purge some sort of evil. To distract her, Hitoha tells Matsuoka that she senses an evil spirit in the pictures that Futaba and Satou are looking at.
Studying one of Futaba's photos, Matsuoka sees what she thinks is a ghost behind Satou. Futaba tries to correct her by saying that it's actually Hitoha, but Hitoha stops her and says that it's a ghost. Matsuoka tries to tell Futaba to stay away from Satou from now on, and this prompts the Hopeless Squad to appear, sensing a chance to get Futaba away from Satou. Matsuoka and Airi get in a fight and Hitoha tries to slink away, but the Hopeless girls see the picture of Satou with Hitoha and chase Hitoha down to angrily ask her when she went to the amusement park with Satou. Hitoha claims it's not her, but a ghost. Just then, Shiori sees the picture of Hitoha with Gachi Red, and Hitoha has to say that's a ghost too. This triggers Matsuoka to run over, snatch the photo, and burn it. Hitoha is heartbroken, and then Yabe arrives in class and, deciding that everything is normal, starts class.
Girl, Shape Up![]
Just like the real thing.
Futaba and Hitoha are at the department store. They are looking for Mitsuba, and Futaba is complaining that she can't go play on the rides because Mitsuba said they were for kids. Just then, however, they spot Mitsuba on a riding machine, which Futaba thinks is a toy and she calls her a hypocrite. After this, Sugisaki, Yoshioka, and Miyashita find them and Sugisaki picks a fight with Mitsuba. Sugisaki refers to a scene from a previous episode where Futaba was wearing one of Mitsuba's skirts because it no longer fit her and suggests that Mitsuba has gained weight. Mitsuba denies this, but Sugisaki asks why she was using a riding machine. Mitsuba yells that she just thought it was a toy and storms away.
Later that night, Mitsuba is in a dieting fit, so she skips dinner and tries to do sit ups. She wishes that she had the riding machine, though. She notices Futaba sitting on the floor and gets the idea to use her as a substitute for the machine. Jumping on Futaba's back, Mitsuba tells her to start crawling around. Soujirou sees them doing this and tells them to play outside, which Futaba takes to enthusiastically. She speeds outside on all fours with Mitsuba on her back protesting, running in the streets. As Futaba runs down an alley, Mitsuba sees Sugisaki and the others at the end and realizes she has to do something to prevent embarrassment. She lets go of Futaba and she runs off, but Sugisaki sees her holding herself up between the walls of the alley.
Waiting for Santa Claus with Bated Breath[]
It's Christmas Eve and in class the Marui sisters and Sugisaki's group are discussing having a party at Sugisaki's house that night. Yabe overhears them and is depressed; he recalls how earlier he failed to get a date with Kuriyama, as she ended up wrapping him in bandages. Meanwhile, Yoshioka suggests inviting an equal number of boys as girls, which Miyashita thinks sounds like a mixer, though Mitsuba says she likes that idea. Yabe, not understanding it's a mixer, asks if he can come too, and the girls get disgusted and walk away.
"Ousama dare da!"
That night, at Sugisaki's house, a group of girls and Chiba are playing the king game. Yoshioka is very excited, but no one else is taking the game seriously; instead of teen-romance-type orders, Mitsuba asks for cake, Hitoha tells Miyashita and Chiba to go home, and Miyashita tries to order people to be friends with her. Meanwhile, Yabe is having a lonely date with a mannequin dressed to look like Kuriyama, which ends up catching on fire when it falls on a lit cake candle. At the party, Chiba spends his capital when he tells Mitsuba and Sugisaki to poke his nipples, and he gets double-punched by them. Yoshioka notices that none of the other boys are around; Satou is playing video games with Futaba and the other four boys are fawning over Sugisaki's mom.
Futaba dooms Yabe.
The Marui sisters arrive home and Futaba rushes to bed before Santa comes. Hitoha then answers the phone, and she learns that their dad won't be home until late. Realizing that someone has to play Santa - and that Hitoha had messed up that job the last time she had it - Hitoha ends up calling Yabe, who she knows is free. Yabe arrives already in a Santa suit, which surprises Mitsuba. Hitoha mentions that he has female one too, which reminds Yabe of the earlier incident and he breaks down. He succeeds in leaving the present by Futaba's bed, but she grabs on to his suit and he can't get her to let go. He makes his way back to the Marui's living room stripped down to his boxers, surprising Mitsuba and Hitoha. Before he can get something else to wear, Soujirou arrives home and Yabe has to hide under the table. He doesn't do a good job at hiding, however, and Soujirou sees his foot, which Hitoha tries to claim is hers. Soujirou then announces that he bought presents for the girls, and hands Mitsuba a bucket of pudding. His present for Hitoha is shoes, unfortunately, and he tries to put them on Yabe's foot, which is still sticking out from under the table, but since they don't fit he decides to return them instead. This prompts Yabe to reveal himself, but Soujirou attacks him and throws him outside near the trash. It turns out that Soujirou realized it was Yabe right away, claiming that he knows everything about his daughters (although he gets Hitoha's shoe size wrong). Yabe then has to walk home half-naked in the snow catching a cold the next day
The part of the classroom scene with Yabe coming in and saying that everything is normal is only in the anime.
Since it comes from a relatively early manga chapter (28), in the scene at the department store, Matsuoka is a
Matsuoka with the Sugi-crew at the end of chapter 28.
part of Sugisaki's group and she is also with them when Mitsuba runs into them later that night.
Also, though not a content difference, it is important to note that the skirt incident that is brought up by Sugisaki actually comes from chapter 27, the preceding chapter, maintaining some semblance of continuity between them. In the anime, however, this scene was shown all the way back in episode 7 of the first season, so the continuity is somewhat lost.
The final segment, which takes up the second half of the episode, is a combination of two distinct parts of the manga. The party at Sugisaki's house is from a short color section which appears before chapter 116 in volume 7. The rest comes from chapter 124, although the party they talk about in that chapter does seem to be the same one shown in the color section. On the whole, these scenes differ from the manga versions more than usual for the show:
Though Yabe does make the comment that Christmas Eve is the most painful night of the year, there is no flashback to him trying to ask out Kuriyama in the manga.
The King Game scene is expanded in the anime, showing Miyashita's and Chiba's turns as well as Hitoha's and Mitsuba's.
In the manga, there are no scenes showing Yabe's mock date with his fake Kuriyama.
The manga version shows the boys fawning over Marina at the party, but the anime adds her fawning over Inuguchi.
Literally, "Giant Pudding Bucket"
In the manga, Soujirou doesn't give Mitsuba her giant pudding bucket present, so she is actually looking on in horror as Yabe gets beaten, whereas she is just eating obliviously in the anime.
