I'm not sure I want to believe into these theories of crossdressing either. In a way, of course I've been finding Menma's 'ghost' weird ever since the show started, but I'd rather have some sort of ghost explanation for whatever Poppo saw than... people crossdressing as Menma for whatever reason. Because if that's actually the case, they'd have to come up with a mighty fine reason for it, not to mention the perfect execution to make a scene so outrageous like that work properly.
On to the actual episode, that was pretty entertaining. There wasn't any moment as cool as Nokemon for me, but overall the development for each character was pretty significant. Most of them don't have a lot of screentime, but the writers here have been making good use of each one's individual time to shine. Every piece of dialogue, be it Anaru's argument with Jinta/other friends at school or the mum flashback, is quite straightforward and does't beat around the bush, so it helps ease out that feeling which a lot of shows seem to ride on nowadays, that insists on the same thing over and over, trying to make you feel like "hey, this is a moment where you should feel this for character x". In other words, I guess I can actually relate to these characters and (most) of their actions, they feel... natural.
Last, I gotta agree, the ED is pretty cool and usually kicks in really well into the actual episodes. I just wish they used the original ZONE one instead of the seiyuu singing, but heh, 10 years after ver. is also pretty good!
