With Mopey’s objections to the maid cafe idea having been withdrawn as soon as she knew she wouldn’t be involved with it, Marumaru moves forward with planning.

And finds, to his delight, that Snuka, for one, raises no objections at all. Which is not to say that he doesn’t harbor any. In fact, he probably harbors as many or more than Mopey. He’s just far more resigned to his fate than Mopey is. Mopey has a history of overcoming fate with sheer stubbornness. Snuka has a history of overcoming fate with sheer stubbornness, and fate then simply doubling or tripling down to put him in his place.

But Snuka does a pretty good job of summarizing his history in that regard himself, so I don’t have to repeat it here. And, naturally, the panty shot happens at the very moment he mentions it – because, yeah, since he’s a guy it counts as comedy, not exploitation.

I did afford him a little fig-leaf of dignity, though, by tying the whole thing to venerated ninja traditions: infiltrating an enemy castle dressed as a girl in preparation for a surprise attack is a tactic the men of Iga never saw any shame in. Until Naruto came along, I guess… But I didn’t give Professor Ninjanopolous a tradition line leading to the Hidden Leaf Village, but to Yamada-sensei of Nintama Rantarou. Kind of the patron saint of bad ninja crossdressing.*

But no matter the background lore, the important take-aways for Marumaru are likely just that Snuka knows how to crossdress and doesn’t object to it. Pretty much all he could have been hoping for.

More on Monday.

* Although, I guess, Yamada-sensei’s crossdressing isn’t actually bad as such. He looks comically ugly when he does it, but he never gets found out as a disguised ninja – or male, for that matter. So in terms of the tactical applications, his crossdressing is actually quite effective.