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So I guess this was one THOSE penultimate episodes.

I guess Sukitte Ii na yo chose to go with a penultimate episode that could have been a final episode. A move that tends to split the vote down the middle, just because sometimes the final episode under performs or does something unrelated to the main story.

Whether or not this episode will overshadow the last one or not is yet to be seen. Let's leave that for now and talk about the actual episode, because it was a decent episode. A little generic and clich but a decent episode nonetheless.

Whenever we have a summer festival situation on our hands, romance series never let up the opportunity to get their characters closer. Sukitte Ii na yo is no exception to this, and handles this very familiar plot setting just as well as any other romance series. There's a little cheesiness to the situation but that comes with the territory of typical high school romance dramas.

Before we got to the festival, there was the brief moments for Megumi to bring herself together. I wasn't all that impressed with how this was done, considering her best friend Momo was rarely in the spotlight during episodes which made the touching reunion a little hard to get emotional about. Otherwise it was fine, and I'm happy that I called the Kai x Megumi ship. It may have been all too obvious but I still called it.

The transition from Megumi to the festival was done well, and the festival scene itself was very Kimi ni Todoke-esque. If you haven't noticed the many similarities by now, then you either haven't seen the other series or have been happily ignoring/avoiding any comparisons.

Comparisons to other series aside, there was moment in this episode which I enjoyed: the end. The ending of the episode is definition of something out of the romance anime textbook, but because it included Mei's mother, I was happy. With the most minor role in Sukitte Ii na yo, she usually popped up for some quick comic relief and here it was her time to shine. She imparted her thoughts and feeling to Mei and convinced her to go back all dolled up. I'm waiting for remarks about the sexism in all of this.....please don't.

Sukitte Ii na yo........I only want to ask what you have planned for your last episode