Turnaround
The day after Ninamori sleeps over at Naota's, Naota tries to skip rehearsal again at school. He and Ninamori have a confrontation in front of the entire class because she refuses to let him leave. Eventually, he says that he doesn't want to play the cat because it's embarassing. And by this time, Ninamori is so pissed off she rips the hat off of his head and the whole class sees his furry kitty ears. Then, to get even, he tells everyone about how she rigged the votes for the play. It's pretty intense. And right about now, during the moment of heightened emotion.. Another robot decides to try and pass through the N.O. channel on Naota's head.

Of course, because of the weird accident that Ninamori and Naota got into the day before - Haruko's bike flew into Naota, who then slapped foreheads wth Ninamori - the robot decides to come out of Ninamori's head instead. The cat ears end up on her head and she transforms into a robot. Ensue insane fight sequence. Eventually, the robot is defeated after Haruko (who was visiting Naota at school to bring him his lunch, I guess) accidentally drops Naota's curry lunch into its mouth. With the robot destroyed, Ninamori is free, although unconscious. And it seems that maybe she's learned something.. either from the experience of turning into a robot, or maybe because of her two confrontations with Naota: one of her retorts, to Naota's exclamation that school plays are for kids, was an admission that she and Naota are kids. Maybe that was a moment of realization for her to start acting like one.
Anyway, from then on it seems that Ninamori is a different person.

At the end of the episode (it's still the third), we hear from Naota's narration that Ninamori's parents didn't get a divorce, her dad wasn't prosecuted, and that she didn't switch schools after the whole scandal. It also looks as if she's cut her hair. A lot. It was all the way down her back before and now it's up to her chin. That seems like the kind of thing you would do if you really wanted to change yourself or prove that you'd changed.. like a closure sort of thing. And not only that, but without her long hair, Ninamori looks a lot younger.

We don't see her at all in episode four. But when she returns in episode five, she's very different. She wears completely different clothes, and she looks like a little girl instead of an angry, stressed out high school student or something. She's seen hanging out with Gaku and Masashi as they do their "job," instead of with Naota, and when the three of them do meet up with Naota, she doesn't tease him once. She even tells him what he's wearing is cool. She sees Mamimi and says nothing about her. She doesn't pass any of her little judgements on anyone and she doesn't look angry. Maybe a little bored or wistful, but not the same sullen, irritated, stick-up-her-ass stuck-up rich girl Ninamori at all. She seems like a normal kid. She seems amused by a water squirt gun.

She certainly seems different, but what actually happened to her?

Well, in episode six, Naota runs away. Gaku, Masashi, and Ninamori are talking in gym class about where he could have gone, and Ninamori happens to say that all Naota has to do, is say how he feels, because that's what she finally did concerning her parents. So the show doesn't explain exactly what finally happened to Ninamori. But it seems to me that she finally got herself straightened out and realized that acting like somebody else wasn't get her anywhere. She decided to be honest and told her parents how upset she was.. and accepted the fact that she was a child. So, now she seems much happier, now that she's been honest, and she's gotten the problems with her parents worked out. So good for you, Ninamori. It's good that her story has a happy ending.
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