Kotaro Lives Alone – Episode 3

 

At the beginning of the episode, there is a salesperson standing on the sidewalk handing out free balloons. Kotaro is concerned that the salesperson may fly away because he has so many balloons. To get pass the one-person-one balloon rule, Kotaro returns to this salesperson several times until he acquires four balloons which his asks Karino to draw faces on. Kotaro names the balloons father, mother, little brother and little sister. In a very melancholy scene, the salesperson who sold him the balloons watches him play by himself in a playground with these four balloons tied to his belt.

Later, Karino meets with his editor about the progress of his Manga series. Kotaro tags along and defends Karino against the harsh criticism of his boss. Kotaro later asks another neighbor, Isamu, to help him shop for fashionable attire at the mall. Kotaro believes wearing fashionable clothes will make him popular with everyone and help him to have more friends. Later he visits Aktomo at the club where she works because Karino tells him that’s the best way to spend time with her. He learns that she may have to move out of the apartment building and he really wants her to stay.

In this episode we also see flashbacks to Kotaro’s traumatic upbringing. It seems as though his father was violent with him. So this helps explains why he never wants his photo taken because he does not want his father to find him. Also a new character is introduced, Ayano Kobayashi. She is a lawyer who is supposed to visit Kotaro weekly to give him money from his mother’s life insurance.