First Impressions / Nagasarete Airantou

The ugliest animals make the hottest chicks. Is it bad to lust over a whale and an elephant? Airantou sez – anything goes!

It all starts with Chikage stumbling over the mess of books in her room and finding a rather unique looking one – turns out to be some crazy magic book (not named Deathly Hallows) which she learns how to use… that night, when everybody was asleep, Chikage casts her spell over the whole island…

Ikuto wakes up to find that Suzu has turned into… a cat. A smallish one, at that, complete with the tail and paws and the trademark nekomimi. Ikuto himself has turned into a dog, with the big bushy tail and ears, but everything else seems fine. Tonkatsu… well, he’s turned into what looks like a pig. From the real world.

The two venture out to check out what happened, and run into a little girl carrying a big ass bear on her back… it’s Kuma Kuma and Yukino – guess who’s carrying who?

The circus continues as the two hit up Meimei’s pad – she’s turned into a monkey, while the kappa has turned into a younger Yoruichi-san… with a turtle shell on her back but every bit as naked. That monkey is so not cute though, I expected a lot more. Besides a panda, is there any other generic Chinese animal?

As they continue down the path, they meet up with Rin (small dog) and Mikoto (oversized squirrel). They also become aware that everybody else on the island doesn’t seem to realize they have turned into animals, and just go about their daily business as if nothing is different. It’s a good thing there’s only girls on the island, or “daily business” might get a bit troublesome at night.

After meeting up with some more odd people, a blonde hottie with a pink dress walks by, and bids them a good day. Ikuto and Suzu can’t figure out who she is, even though she acts real familiar with them… either way, Ikuto starts getting lusty eyes while Suzu pulls his ears in jealousy.

Who else do they bump into?

– The chicken family has turned into people
– Those roundish sheep are all kids with white fro’s
– Sashimi has turned into a topless bombshell mermaid – CUTE
– Chikage has turned into… Chikage?

Chikage dons her magician cosplay and her evil laugh – she’s the one responsible! Seems like her spell turned all the animals to people and all the people to animals. But, she has no time to turn everyone back, she has to continue with her experiments. What’s this, our first Airantou bad guy? While showing off her power, she pulls a rabbit (Ayane) out of a her hat – turns out that Ikuto and Suzu didn’t turn into full-blown animals because they live on the outskirts of town, and Ayane was able to defend against most of the magic herself by lobbing Machi in front of her like a shield. Machi skies in as a flying squirrel – but at least now she lacks the opposable thumbs necessary to operate a voodoo doll.

More craziness – The three plus Monjiro (who is inexplicably intact) break into Chikage’s house to try to find some way to stop her, and find their own magic book. Some roundish manju genie pops out and says she’ll (I think it’s a she…) grant them 7 wishes. Well, knowing these shows, the first six get wasted, leaving one left. While we’re on the subject, how did the six get used?
– Suzu: mame daifuku!
– Ayane: stfu and hang on a sec! (OTL)
– Ayane: hey!!! That one didn’t count!!
– Monjiro: squawk squawk! (chestnut jelly)
– Suzu: I wanna catch Chikage!
– Chikage (while tied up): set me free!

Yea, the genie will take a wish from anybody. One of those new school “equal opportunity” genies, replacing those affirmative action ones of the past. So who gets the last wish? A big battle royale commences for the rights to use the last wish… when a little flying squirrel flies in and asks for a cup of tea.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens? Duking it out fairly, then some nutjob comes in and snipes it with two seconds left. Freakin’ ebay… if only I had some scripts…

So now, with nobody to stop her, Chikage turns everyone to Pez dispensers and gets ready to show off her saw-you-in-half trick. That is, until the pink dress blondie throws a boulder on top of her. Oh, it’s Panako – I guess Suzu wasn’t kidding when she said Panako was the hottest girl on the island >.>

Chikage’s magic book is in tatters, and the magic spells dissipate. Everyone’s back to normal… including Sashimi :\


Thoughts

Don’t know what it is, but I’ve always liked these episodes where the animals turn into hot girls (remember the cat in Keroro?). There’s always some cutish quality to them too, and Nagasarete pulls it off pretty well. It was cool how so many characters got at least some screen time to show the results of the transformation, but I would have liked to see even more… namely Suzu’s master, and maybe that huge ass yellow master cat. Too bad they weren’t in the vicinity of the village!

I’m assuming this episode was significantly more enjoyable because it was based around Chikage, but if the rest of the series can maintain this upbeat spirit, there just might be hope! At least it’s pretty consistent… which is much more than I can say about Umisho… tragedy that one is.

-jaalin

24 Comments

  9. Generic Chinese animals?

    Of the top of my head, other than pandas:

    1. Pekinese

    2. Shar Pei

    3. Shi Tzu

    4. Takin (some form of ungulate)

    There are some species of tiger and alligator that are also found in China.

    ordnance11
    Reply

  12. As for Chinese iconic animals here’s a depressing one:

    The now officially extinct Baiji River Dolphin! There are probably still a few specimens living in the wild, but those are too few to continue the species.

    Grab them while you still can. OTL.

    Zzz...
    Reply

  13. Hypernova, it’s actually in book 4, unless the manga I read in Taiwan is of a different size.

    This was in the manga, but slightly merged and differently. Mainly the genie, but the uselessness of the wishes was just about identical. A lot of the images look surprisingly similar as well, if not identical. Well the overall idea for this chapter was rather simple, having magic. Though the slight truncation did remove a small importance.

    Probably since this episode didn’t contain particular character development may be the reason why it would seem filler.

    Though since this episode is kind of like the manga in colour, it becomes a little bit more obvious who is who. Yay for colour coordinating!

    Amoirsp
    Reply

  18. At least Suzu has finally begun to display fits of jealousy regarding Ikuto’s attention towards other girls, or at least towards the human Panako. Let’s hope this continues so that her feelings can finally be brought out into the open, and that this wasn’t a mere case of cat tendencies.

    Sailor Enlil
    Reply

  19. YES YES YES!!! I knew it would be this episode from the manga!!! (got the scanlationas last week) This episode is absolutely hilarious!!!! Love the Bunny-girl Ayane and the Cat-girl Suzu!

    Hudson
    Reply

  23. Rob you can get it at animesuki.com

    Also … Is it wrong to look at a kappa and think… Damn. 😛
    Sashimi and Panako both rank pretty high too…
    Its a shame we never got to see what kind of animal ayane and machi’s mother turned into in the manga…. though we never saw her at all in the anime. 😀

    Antipanda
    Reply

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