Oh boy, another tough one to write. I get the feeling that even if I was fluent in Japanese, I’d be stumbling through this episode just because of all the subtleties.

Konata starts the episode off by showing us why it’s a bad idea to study in your room. How can you concentrate when hours of raids and power leveling is about three feet behind you? I gotta say though, at least she wasn’t studying at her desk – probably would’ve lasted a full thirty seconds before the aura of persocon creeped in. Pojito na

Well, it’s a good thing Kuroi-sensei is online to intercept her. Don’t you get the feeling that Kuroi was just like Konata when she was in high school? It’d be kinda interesting to see an episode about Kuroi and maybe Yui’s younger days. Or Konadad’s upbringing.

Pan over to the Hiiragi house, where Kagami is helping Tsukasa study. Tsukasa’s effort is admirable, but some people just have their limits. Like a 9pm bed time. Tsukasa puts on a few more epic faces, making me very happy.

Then we have this whole thing where Kagami doesn’t do too well on her test, but Tsukasa does pretty well. Only thing is, Kagami still did better. See, this puts their dad in a rather tough position. Can he reprimand one daughter for doing poorly, and congratulate his other daughter for doing well, even though she scored lower? Welp, you both tried, and that’s what’s important.

Some more food discussion – this time, we see what kind of sushi each girl is most suited for, according to one of those online sushi horoscopes. Results?

Miyuki: salmon roe sushi
Tsukasa & Kagami: Kappa sushi (not a water imp roll, but rather a stick of cucumber)
Konata: gari, aka the pink ginger stuff you get with the wasabi

I’m pretty sure the joke goes a bit further than I understand it, but I’m probably completely off.

Next, the 3 girls go to catch SAW III (or some Japanese version of it) in theaters. I was fully expecting some uguu variations from Tsukasa, but no such luck.

Afterwards, they go eat some cake. A lot of cake. Dunno, there’s something fetishist about girls stuffing themselves. You ever see those kaiten sushi eating contests they have in Japan, and the big guys never win it? It’s always the little 80 pound Japanese girls that walk away champs…I always thought that was pretty hot. No idea why; it’s either the “little shy girl doing unexpected things” appeal or just the fact that she can “take” a lot more than it appears she’s capable of (interpret that however you want).

After some incomprehensible conversation, we have Miyuki having problems with her eyedrops. Konata takes over with some evil look in her eye – well, it was still hilarious to watch Miyuki’s huge eyes try to take a drop from a tiny bottle.

Lucky Channel: Akira-chan, Akira-sama, and Shiraishi introduce Tsukasa.

Ending Song: Kogarashi ni Dakarete by Koizumi Kyouko (1986). Sung by Konata – Hirano Aya’s pop group prior to turning big-name in the seiyuu business, SpringS, did a cover of the song way back when. Check it out here. Let’s just say…it was a good thing she went the seiyuu route…

Notes: expect a similar delay between airtime and summary for the next 2 weeks – I’m in Taiwan now, so it actually airs late at night for me!

Preview

Thoughts:
More dialogue means less antics, less antics means less comprehension from me. I’m guessing this episode will be a lot funnier to in-the-know Japanese than those who aren’t, like me. Still, it was more of the same fare. Oh, and a sighting from one of the older Hiiragi sisters too!

Is it just me or is Konata getting cuter every ep? Maybe Hirano Aya is really settling into her element. Either way, Kiddy Grade 2 rolls around the end of the month, hooooooooooo

Seen the live-action version of the Lucky Star OP?

-jaalin

31 Comments

  1. To Kaz3phyrous: That doesn’t even remotely look like Mikuru. Mikuru doesn’t have straight hair like that and here’s is much longer and somewhat broken into four seperate ending points. Plus you can clearly make out a hair ribbon on that girls head and what looks like glasses and the poster girl has blue eyes while Mikuru has almond eyes.

    To Testament: That doesn’t look anything remotely like Aya Hirano, Aya Hirano has long straight black hair that is cut off before it reaches her eyes. That girl has short brown hair that is broken into spikes. Not even close.

    Honestly where are you people drawing these references from, especially the second one.

    Kaioshin Sama
  2. Kagami’s older sister? she looks pretty different from them (altho the front hair is he same pattern).

    I said Hirano Aya because there was a short 4koma at AnimeSuki which featured her and Konata, and the hair & eyes were veeery similar. I didn’t bother to check tho ^^U

    Testament
  3. @moony: Arghh!!! so disturbing, especially the part when the guys in skirts try to do that cheerleading kick *shivers* hehehe

    Tsukasa-chan with new mobile phone with Tamama. Yay ^_^

    Kirakun
  4. @ jaalin:
    this episode was definitely very dialogue intensive ^^; i wonder how the fansubs will deal with this. a little help by mewmew though on the dialogue!!! (and cultural references)

    -fortune telling discussion (fortune telling is VERY popular in japan among girls…): they discuss blood type fortune telling, as well as animal and sushi fortune telling
    -konata makes good use of her diminutive stature and begs kagami/tsukasa to tell the box office/movie ticket workers that she is their “little sister” so that konata can watch the movie…at the kid’s price…(movies are seriously expensive in japan)
    -baikingu!!! (or buffet). all-you-can-eat cake buffets are *quite* common in japan (i went to a creme puff buffet before xD)…the girls stuff themselves and continue to try and struggle to finish, because the all-you-can-eat cake buffet restaurant charges extras for “unrealistic amounts of leftover food”
    -miyuki’s eyedrop fiasco (very quasi-mikuru if you ask me)
    -miyuki likes to play the “videogames” minesweeper and solitaire on the PC
    -really difficult cultural talk about sports in japan (they dont actually MENTION the names, but the accomplishments and stuff)
    *shizuka arakawa winning gold in torino olympics for lady’s figure skating
    *high school baseball, feat. a good pitcher (i forgot his name) who became famous for always wiping his forehead with a handkerchief
    *matsuzaka playing in the mlb
    *talk about the japan series (baseball), and how if certain teams win (e.g., daiei hawks, seibu lions), their respective franchise and affiliate department stores congratulate their victory with sales

    ^^…good luck fansubbers >.>/

    mewmew
  5. Maybe it’s just me but…

    Don’t you think in this ep, when the 3 of them walking together in many scenes, konata’s height seems… wrong. She just look as tall as Kagami and Tsukasa. Is there a catch here or something? Since the preview of the previos ep also show only these scenes.

    reishiki
  6. After hunting down all the Springs videos I could find on YouTube, I starting to wonder if Akira’s bye-nii and all those hand gestures were actually from Springs… Or maybe japanese idols just do that alot…

    Still, Aya Hirano is soooo cute when she was in Springs!! Ahem… I’m a normal guy… really… I think.

    JCSlim
  7. @ kirakun,
    sugoii desushou? ^__^
    heheh XD the guys’ version is just hilarious. Especially since they used the classroom setting and still managed to get the idea across. I LOVE the guy in the green dress. heh *giggles*

    moony
  8. Miyuki scores under 100 seconds on expert; that’s pretty good. I think my best is like 120 or something. I got 26 on intermediate once though.

    Oh, and Daisuke Matsuzaka reference…woo! Go Red Sox!

    claudius
  9. The thing about show-dropping is that if more interesting stuff happens later on, you end up missing out (for example, RC stopped blogging Karin the ep before we see Winner-kun show up, and several eps before Elda and Winner-kun’s grandpa show up to cause trouble) – which may or may not mean that you’d actually like the show at that point, but the opportunity to say yes or no is lost.

    That said, Hayate and Lucky Star are way out in front in terms of comedy this season.

    (And ever since I realised that Hayate and Rin share the same seiyuu, when I see one on screen I keep hearing the other…)

    Nerroth

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