WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Adachi & Shimamura Episode 12, "Friends and Love, Love and Cherry Blossoms," now streaming on Funimation.
Adachi & Shimamura is slowly blossoming into a love story, but the heart of the series focuses on two girls growing together as friends while discovering just as much about themselves as each other. As Adachi's quest to get closer to Shimamura grows more successful and Shimamura grows more comfortable with Adachi's closeness, only one question remains: where do the two go from here?
Inspired by Hino and Nagafuji's intimate time together, Adachi has her new goal: spending the night at Shimamura's house. Though Shimamura, as usual, questions every little detail behind Adachi's request, she agrees to have Adachi stay over -- for an entire weekend. Adachi has daydreams and desires about what may happen over these two days, and the end result leaves both girls happy with where they stand in each other's lives.
While Adachi is overjoyed thinking of her extended stay at Shimamura's home, she overlooks a couple of crucial factors she hasn't faced before. This is her chance to make a positive impression on the rest of the family as well. Shimamura's mother takes to Adachi instantly, getting to know her while learning a bit more about her daughter in return. Poor Shimamura can't catch a break -- although she's a more diligent student these days, her mother still teasingly treats her like a lazy delinquent who has to be coaxed into doing anything.
Things go quite smoothly with the mother, but Shimamura's little sister is much warier of Adachi's presence in their home. The two don't interact despite being around each other several times. "Little Shimamura" is jealous that Adachi is taking so much of her big sister's time, growing possessive just like Adachi often does at school. They act like puppies competing for their master's attention. Meanwhile, Adachi and Shimamura play board games, watch TV and eat meals together, but Adachi isn't satisfied with the lack of intimate activity together. This results in a bummed Adachi sleeping alone upstairs for the first night, but a certain alien girl changes the dynamic on day two.
The enigmatic Yashiro shows up for a sleepover with Little Shimamura and reveals another bombshell -- her species lives to be 800 million years old on average. She says she comes from another planet is looking for her partner, but she's never been shown searching for that partner. Although her role in the story remains unclear, it's striking how often her actions seem to line up with what Shimamura is doing. In the premiere, both were fishing. Other times, they run into each other while traveling through the city center or a more rural part of town. And now, both have their own sleepover plans.
Yashiro sleeping over grabs Little Shimamura's full attention, leaving Adachi free to pursue to biggest goal for this trip: to sleep in the same room with Shimamura. To her surprise, Shimamura quickly agrees to the request on their second night and even lets Adachi snuggle close enough to use her shoulder as a pillow. Earlier in the season, Adachi fled Shimamura's house in horror after getting overwhelmed by sitting in her lap. Now armed with more courage, determination and clear feelings, she soaks in the moment while Shimamura enjoys the company of her close friend. Neither one seems completely clear with where they're at in life, but both are content with the progress they've made and are overjoyed to have found one another.
The finale also reminds us that other factors are at play. Tarumi, the likely future rival for Shimamura's affections, is shown admiring her keychain that she and Shimamura bought a matching set of. Hino and Nagafuji's equally oddball and intimate relationship continues rolling along, Nagafuji growing more infatuated by and possessive of Hino.
For Adachi, Shimamura is her world. For Shimamura, her world is full of uncertainties and questions about the future, but she's happy to be Adachi's world for the time being. For now, at least, that's plenty enough for both. The next day at school, the class receives their new seating arrangement. Like so much of this series, it turns out to be symbolic: Adachi and Shimamura still aren't sitting side by side, but they're a little closer than they were before.
