It’s Kobato episode 6, and the nursery kids go on a field trip, but Kobato answers a phone call from a loan shark who threatens to shut down the nursery. As a result, Ioryogi decides to meet up with some old acquaintances to find out what’s going on.

The nursery is taking the kids on a field trip. However, Kobato almost forgets Ioryogi and runs into the office to grab him. While there, the phone rings and when Kobato answers, a man is on the other end and wants to talk to Sayaka. Kobato says she’s out on a field trip, so the man leaves Kobato a message for Sayaka: she needs to fold up shop and leave because he’s shutting down the nursery.

After the call, Ioryogi tells Kobato that he’ll pass on the field trip and will take a nap. However, in reality he seeks out an old friend from heaven, Genko, to check out what’s really going on with the nursery Kobato works at. Meanwhile, Kobato tells Fujimoto about the call, but he tells Kobato not to tell Sayaka about it.

Out on the field trip, everyone notices that Kobato seems more distracted than usual. This includes one of the girls at the nursery, Marina, who tells Kobato that if they find a certain thing, it’ll make Kobato happy. The other kids decide to play hide and seek, and of course Kobato turns out to be “it.” Meanwhile, once Ioryogi is done with his business with Genko, he meets another acquaintance of his, Ginsei, who Ioryogi clearly isn’t on good terms with.

It’s finally time to go home, but Marina is nowhere to be found, so Kobato and Fujimoto go out to look for her, and they finally find her sleeping behind a tree. Marina explains that she wanted to find a four-leaf clover to make Kobato happy since she was down earlier, but couldn’t find one. However, unknowingly, she ended up finding a field full of four-leaf clovers.

On his way home, Genko sends a messenger to Ioryogi: the previous owner of the nursery, Sayaka’s father, got conned into making a bad loan. However, he died two years ago, and Ioryogi realizes that the situation is pretty bad.

This was a pretty revealing episode, especially for Ioryogi. First, we find out that several people from heaven have been effectively banished or are otherwise being punished on Earth, including Genko, and old information agent friend of Ioryogi, as well as an apparent nemesis of Ioryogi’s, Ginsei. We also learn that Ioryogi apparently did something pretty bad to make “him” angry, which is why he was transformed into a stuffed animal as punishment. However, who “he” is and what Ioryogi did to receive such a punishment, we don’t know yet.

This is also the first time that we see Ioryogi kind of going behind Kobato’s back to investigate what is going on. I’m not sure yet what Ioryogi plans to do with the information that he found out about the nursery, though, as it doesn’t look like that he’s planning on telling Kobato what he’s up to.

I’m also wondering why Fujimoto is trying to keep the seriousness of the situation from Sayaka. We already know from the last episode that Sayaka knows about the budget problems that the nursery has, but clearly Fujimoto doesn’t want her to think about it any more than she has to, suggesting that Fujimoto maybe is trying to do something about it as well. Perhaps this is why he is working so many jobs – to earn enough to pay off the debt that the nursery owes?