No Friends... Chiikawa Eating Snacks Alone is Striking in Episode 131 of "Chiikawa"

The "Big Subjugation" arc of the anime Chiikawa kicked off in Episode 129. The latter half of Episode 131 saw Chiikawa (CV: Haruka Aoki) return from the subjugation and head to their sticker-on-lemons part-time job. A touching scene was then depicted where Chiikawa was eating a snack alone, as the friend in the pink pajamas, with whom they usually share snacks, was absent from work.

When Chiikawa arrived at their workplace, a different co-worker was sitting in the neighboring seat, instead of their usual pink-pajama-clad friend. Chiikawa looked around, "glancing... glancing..." for their friend, but they were nowhere to be found.

Feeling downcast, Chiikawa got a snack as usual by inserting a coin into the frog vending machine. A memorable scene followed as they ate the snack by themselves, having no friend to share it with.

This scene drew comments such as, "The friend in the matching pajamas is off today, huh? They finally became friends, so it's lonely when they're not there," and "Your friend is taking the day off today, aren't they? That's too bad. I hope you can chat a lot when you see them next."

Furthermore, numerous theories were raised suggesting that the friend in the pink pajamas might have transformed into the target of the subjugation, partly because the subjugation target was pointing at the frog and did not genuinely try to attack Chiikawa and the others.