Good times. I did love the image Houtarou had of the possibilities of Chitanda's invitation. Either one seemed rather improbable for him to actually do
. Either way he'd feel a bit too uncomfortable
.
This was a pretty solid episode though the first part felt like it might be a slow one. Instead had the hilarity of everyone freaking out regarding Houtarou being curious about something. Satoshi figuring he was a fake or infected by Chitanda, Mayaka thinking he was sick and should go home and rest, and of course Chitanda being curious about Houtarou being curious
. It was just funny as hell watching them freak out. Best may have been Satoshi looking scared as hell. Suck for Houtarou but after putting up the energy conservation thing for so long he can't really even act differently without shocked expressions.
The mystery itself wasn't anything I cared about, but Houtarou and Chitanda going out together to investigate was. The big thing was getting Houtarou's reasons for why he went out to confirm his suspicions and how his response really touched Chitanda. Interesting point made by Chitanda that Houtarou gets pulled into solving things for others a lot, but rarely checks something out for the sake of his own curiosity.
He doesn't want to put out things about others that is wrong and not understanding how they felt. Maybe it does tie into the Irisu incident. In that case he misread what Irisu was actually after from him and put something out there that wasn't accurate. Made it seem like what the writer of that movie wanted was something different from her true intentions. In the end he missed the mark in several ways. After saying that Ogi liked helicopters he couldn't leave it at that if he felt that he might have been wrong.
Regardless this was an interesting start to things. He now feels like he owes Chitanda one. Also it might tie into Satoshi and continuing the development we saw last arc. He doesn't understand how Satoshi feels right now that could lead to some troubles.