First Impressions / Manabi Straight!

Summary:

As they go through their exams, the girls are getting closer and closer to their long-awaited summer vacation. In the time being, they’re steadily making progress in preparations for the school festival. They’ve attracted a lot of attention by putting up posters around the school that point students to the new website created by Mei, and even the principal is excited and thinking positively. When it’s time to go home one day, Mikan notices a softball tournament listed on the schedule and stares at the entry for a while until Mucchii calls her out of it. It’s not until they stop for popsicles on their way home that Mikan asks Mucchii about it. Mucchii admits that they lost, and although they did their best, that’s how competitions are. She then laughs nervously about it, and Mikan finds out at home later from a news report that the loss was because of an error committed by Mucchii herself. Lying on her bed, Mikan thinks about how she had met Mucchii on the day of the school entrance ceremony. Back then, Mikan had tripped, and Mucchii was the person who helped her back up. They had ended up in the same 1-B class, but Mikan had stayed quiet except when Mucchii asked her what she was called. It wasn’t until Mucchii stole Mikan’s new student handbook that she got Mikan to call her Mucchii. However, these memories also come with a scene of a drenched Mucchii holding a crying Mikan.

With these memories in mind, Mikan visits Mucchii’s house so that they can study together. This doesn’t initially work out so well because of Mucchii’s three little brothers, but even after the two girls are left alone, they can only manage to study for a few seconds before they decide to take a break. They sneak out of the house and head to a cafe, but Mikan refuses to talk about the school festival or sports with Mucchii. When Mikan offhandedly remarks that they don’t have any matching hobbies and wonders why they’re friends, Mucchii starts laughing, and a conversation develops between the two. For the rest of the night, the two girls have fun at karaoke, at photo booth, at walking around town, and at watching the sunrise while chatting together. Mikan once again remembers back to the time when she had been crying alone in the student council room after all her older friends had graduated. It was because of Mucchii’s kindness in helping Mikan that the then-sole member of the student council had cried in Mucchii’s arms. Back in the present, the girls take their final exam, and Mikan doesn’t do very well. Fortunately, their student council work is done for now, and Manabi has tickets that’ll let them have all the café au lait they want at the Miss Donut shop. Mucchii and Mikan have a good laugh about it since the Miss Donut was where they started their adventures the previous night. On her way out of the room, Mikan trips again, and Mucchii is the one who helps her up again. Ｔhe student council roster, which used to have only Mikan’s name, now also lists Manabi, Mei, and Mucchii. Laughing with her friends, Mikan says that she’s happy now.

Well with the past two episodes, this series is feeling more and more like it’s about Mikan rather than Manabi. Not that it’s a bad thing since they’re reinforcing the close friends theme very well. This scene even made me think that if I didn’t know Mucchii was a girl, I could have mistaken them for boyfriend and girlfriend. At this rate, next week will be about MikanXMomo.
Other highlights of the episode include seeing Mei’s genius designer/programmer skills (I wish I could make websites that looked like that) and watching this scene that they made just long enough so that you could get the wrong idea. If you’re not sure what I mean, I’ll let the animated gif do the talking.

19 Comments

  2. Well, it just wouldn’t be the same without some fanservice each episode.

    Oh yeah, and judging by the pattern of the last few episodes, I’m hoping they’ll have a lot of Momo in the next one. It’s nice to have a lot of Mikan and I enjoy the other characters as well, but I’ve been holding out for a Momo episode for awhile now.

    Likkun
    Reply

  10. Omni, you forgot the tongue action at the beginning of your animated gif. I thought that it was probably the real part that suggested something was amiss. But that cracked me up seeing you post that to make your point.

    Likkun
    Reply

  13. Ahh, that makes sense. I knew there was a good reason not to drop by 2ch today.

    Oh, and that second gif probably makes the point clear. Now I officially have to have my body burned (especially my eyes) once I’m dead, if not have my eyes burned out now.

    Likkun
    Reply

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