Summary

In a very familiar setting, the entire Art Club goes out for a couple of hours of good, clean, Karaoke fun. It’s not only Nagi’s first time, but apparently Jin and Daitetsu’s as well. (Takako starts the show with the must-have song…) Everyone shuffles into the booth, and Jin is forced to choose between sitting next to Tsugumi or Zange. He starts heading for Tsugumi, but Zange doesn’t give up quite that easily, so she prompts Jin to come sit next to her, pretending to need help reading the song books. Tsugumi is left in total defeat to sulk by herself. Everyone plays janken to decide who sings first, so the order is chosen fairly and the fun begins.

First up is Tsugumi. She sings a sweet romantic song pretty poorly, but with high spirits, bouncing to the music as she reads from the screen. She blushingly sits down, self-consciously embarrassed at having to sing first. Next up is Daitetsu. Everyone is interested to hear him sing, because no one’s ever heard him before. He nervously sings a smooth pop song with a remarkably clear and talented voice, amazing everyone in the room. Meanwhile, Nagi is absorbed by the song book and remote control (especially the cheers and jeers feature), and Tsugumi is continuously annoyed at Zange-chan’s advances on Jin’s personal space.

After Daitetsu is finished, Jin stands up abruptly to go to the restroom in order to pull himself together. His nerves seem to be getting to him. Next up is Akiba. A cute loli-something song queues up, but he cancels it in favor of something he likes better (original anime soundtrack material), which starts another argument with Takako.

In the restroom, Jin washes his face and gains the courage to return to the room. Full of resolve, he opens the wrong door and walks in on the cast of Lucky Star in room 301. He comes back to the right room to help Takako annoy Akiba by ordering some drinks on the phone instead of respectfully listening to him perform. Nagi joins in on the fun by pushing the button that causes a large booing crowd to echo through the speakers.

Next up is Jin, who is swirly-eyed in fear of singing in front of his friends for the first time. Tsugumi offers to sing in a duet to give him some courage, but he flatly rejects her, as that would be even worse apparently. He blushes through a false start, and mechanically sings a pop song even while an oddly familiar waitress comes in with their refreshments and then leaves again. Nagi pushes the encore-chanting button when he finishes.

Afterward, he escapes to the bathroom, but everyone agrees he was quite brave to stick through ‘til the end (even if it was humiliating and not that great of a performance). Nagi takes a bathroom break too, and Tsugumi joins her for some girl-talk while a familiar song plays on the speakers of the bathroom radio. Tsugumi is really pleased that Jin’s character seems to be changing a bit since Nagi came into his life. He would have never developed the courage to sing in front of friends before, so she’s grateful Nagi is having a positive influence on his personality.

Meanwhile, Daitetsu offers Jin some inspiring words in the men’s restroom, reminding him that everyone’s different, and that it takes time to become talented (even though he did well himself on his first try). Jin looks at Daitetsu with sparkles in his eyes and they return to the booth together.

Tsugumi makes room for Jin again, but he chooses to sit next to his hero, instead. Nagi stands up confidently to sing a food jingle from a CM, shocking everyone with her deadpan delivery of such a horrifying tune. Akiba challenges Takako to outperform him now that it’s her turn, so she makes her move boldly to the front of the room. The next several minutes can only be described as the most horrifying, disgusting, yet talented display of karaoke singing ever, that you just can’t seem to tear your eyes away from. (Kimoi, demo umai.) Only Zange seems to be watching in burning jealousy. She leaves the room briefly to give her other half a pep talk and work on a plan to compete with this level of cuteness.

Before Takako is allowed to choose another song, Zange returns to take the stage. She sings the sweetest, most untalented love song ever, straight at Jin. Everyone stares in shock again, but this time for the complete opposite reason. It seems Zange is bursting with cuteness and bubbles, but no talent whatsoever. When she walks over and sits next to Jin mid-song, Tsugumi intervenes, and spends the latter half of the song arguing with her until the track ends.

It’s decided that the next round will all be duets, which cheers Tsugumi up 100% until Jin chooses Daitetsu without hesitation before she can get a word in edge-wise. At the end of the day, everyone walks out in varying degrees of exhaustion and satisfaction. Jin feels like they’re forgetting something, and suddenly realizes Shino never sang a single song. Takako explains the obvious: Shino can’t sing karaoke because her eyes are never open. Shino responds that it’s not technically impossible, and blinds everyone in the evening’s sunset with a shocking revelation. Takako looks on in glee and anticipation while everyone else cowers in fear…

 

Preview

First Thoughts

Well that was a fun and easy to digest episode. I don’t know if any of you have ever actually been to a karaoke bar before, but that was pretty much it. It was a very familiar feeling, which I’m sure was the intention of the writers since they’d be assuming most of the viewers would be intimately familiar with the setting where we spent almost the entire episode. The multiple Lucky Star references were more than in-passing this week, which was really funny.

There’s not much to talk about plot-wise this week – It was just a fun episode letting all the main characters shine in a unique situation. I loved the opposite reaction Takako gave to Shino’s eye-opening display at the end of the episode, that was left unresolved. I guess that blows my general theory about closed-eye characters, but that just makes it even more interesting (and tongue-in-cheek).

This week’s eyecatch is drawn by “Takahiro Kimura & Ōkouchi RICCA.” Kimura has worked on many notable animation projects, including Gundam Seed and Code Geass. Enjoy!

37 Comments

  1. Ah, this episode was very repetitive though it was filled with gags. My theory is that Shino is probably another God… But not a “protector god” like Nagi and Zange… More like an evil wolf deity or something… Can’t wait ’til next week!

    SirMuffin
  2. Quite funny since Shino’s VA Mai Nakahara usually has character roles that like to sing or either has a karaoke scene (Mai from Mai Hime, Chitose from Amaenaide yo! etc…) but she was unable to sing on this episode.

    Shinn Agami
  3. I was crying when Jin began to sing. It was hilarious how he dimmed himself out when the room service came. I couldn’t keep my composure because that’s exactly what I’d do when I know I suck. lmao

    Squanto
  4. @Luminos
    Yeah i agree Tsugumi’s like in a pinch all the time. She’s on a loosing battle against Zange, too bad im routing for her.

    Well its an entertaining episode, had some laughs too but not as much as the past few eps like ep 7 (It’s a Sony!), and ep8 or 9 with Daitetsu’s sleepover at Jin’s place which is sugoii!!! But still this ep had a nice feeling into it.

    stephen007
  5. Jin was a complete douche in this ep, and I don’t mean because of his horrendus attempt at singing, but when gave Tsugumi the slip when she tried to sing a duet him and then suggesting to duet with Daitetsu. Even if Jin admire his friend, that was completely selfish on his part, and the worst part of it is that he didn’t even notice that he hurt Tsugumi indirectly by doing so.

    Is this the first time that Zange was at disadvantage, I believe? Her usual antics are starting to being way too obvious. Point for Tsugumi. Strange enough, Nagi was almost non existant except for trolling Jin with the encore. lol

    Takako stole the show with her Godly karaoke-mode.

    SeedStriker
  6. Funniest part was when Jin walked in on Konata’s gang, period. I could hardly watch or listen to any of the shitty singing. When rewatching the series, this is defintely one to skip over, along with Nagi locking her(idiotic)self in the closet. I think this annime has completely forgot about the plot, if it even had one. Oh well, I really don’t care about that too much. Its still pretty funny if you ignore Tsugumi’s & Nagi’s antics. I don’t expect too much out of this anyway when it comes to substance. Kannagi is like trying to stretch a day’s meal money into a week.

    Megas
  7. @ Megas

    I disagree. I liked the singing parts because they mostly fit into what I think of their characters, though Daitetsu was a a pleasant surprise. Call it “shitty” if you want but I thought it was pretty funny. Lucky Star was pretty boring on the whole for me, it’s just different tastes.

    Kincaid
  8. Oh Kincaid, there yall go taking things at face value again. I said I “couldn’t” watch it for a reason. By your interpretation it was because I “wouldn’t”. I was laughing so much that the Lucky Star part actually gave me a chance to catch my breath. However, that part was so funny I couldn’t even muster a sound. Sorry to split hairs, but I’ve been doing that alot lately. I would preferably watch those 2 episodes seperately from the series. They’re basically stand alone episodes anyway.

    BTW, the only person I thought was really good was Daitetsu. His singing totally matched his personality & it wasn’t surprising at all that he could sing like that. Tsugumi almost made me tear up, Akiba & Jin was indifferent, Takako made me kill over, Nagi – I can’t even describe my reaction to her, & Zange made me knock over my LCD: good thing I have nice shaggy carpet. OK, I’ve said enough.

    Megas
  9. “I could hardly watch or listen to any of the shitty singing. When rewatching the series, this is defintely one to skip over, along with Nagi locking her(idiotic)self in the closet.”

    Meh, just guess the wording left a sour taste in my mouth.

    You seemed to dismiss it entirely and find it uproariously funny at the same time, by saying it was funny enough to knock stuff over but still an episode to skip entirely.

    Guess I’m still confused.

    “Oh Kincaid, there yall go taking things at face value again.”

    Lol, what do you mean by that? Think this is maybe the second comment I’ve posted.

    Kincaid
  10. @ Kincaid:
    I guess I’m spoiled or something when it comes to short series. I didn’t expect this series to have so many fillers. The fillers were really funny (or just stupid enough to make you laugh) but really had nothing to do with the story in general. The only part that contributed to the story in this episode was the part where both Nagi & Tsugumi was in the bathroom. I think of this as a side story. Whenever I rewatch something, its because I’ve forgot what it was really about. Bah, I do that way too much. I have about 20 TB of anime, I forget alot. Fillers in short series just leads to confusion when I’m fast-forwarding through episodes. Don’t take it personal. I usually try to talk bad about something that really doesn’t need to take place in order for the plot (or non-plot in this case) to progress.

    Megas
  11. Megas: Your issue is that you’re having a hard time giving enough credit to these two episodes that you *clearly* enjoyed a lot, despite their lack of plot (which, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t make or break a show). I don’t have time to fix weird problems like that -_- But, I get what you’re trying to say, in an estranged alternate universe.

    This was just fun. Nothing more, nothing less. The real plot is flimsy yet heartwarming at best, and if you told it to me out of context I wouldn’t have the faintest interest in watching a show like this. But, it’s the delivery which makes it so incredibly *entertaining,* which is the key word. If you’re so entertained, what are you complaining about? Why are you watching, if not for entertainment value?

    Don’t judge it (or yourself) so harshly. (This turned into an all-encompassing “you” very quickly, so don’t take anything too personally, either 😉 )

  12. @ Trillian: I know, I know. This show actually had a very interesting to start off. I can only remember something like it being done maybe twice, & even those shows can’t fully compare to the nature of this series. I don’t think the plot was really flimsy, its that they basically gave up on the plot when Zange showed up. However the laughs more than made up for it.

    Like I said, I usually criticize episodes that have little to no plot-value when the plot actually interests me. But that only goes for short series. I really don’t care about fillers at all when it comes to lengthy series. They can still easily revive it though because they brought up Nagi’s fainting spells whenever she acts weird. The plot would have no hope if they left that out.

    I like the fillers because they’re funny but loathe them because they do nothing for a undeveloped plot. I know its contradicting but I also then to contradict myself alot. Its the comedy in this show that’s everything. I hope they don’t kill it too much when they try to get serious with the ending. That’s the only problem I see. I don’t care if the show doesn’t have a plot or not, its when they try to get one going on all clinders during the last 2 or 3 episodes. Its especially sad when it happens to comedies. Its almost like they forgot why the show was so good. I know my reasoning could be completely unfounded since the show hasn’t started ‘to end’, but that’s how these shows tend to be.

    Megas
  13. am i the only one who though nagi was actually really good? lol, at least i liked it XD. and, as posted elsewhere on the web, it was funny that akiba was “technically good” but still failed. that OTAKU namenna was win though. takako actually got mad at akiba because he didn’t choose an anime song at first and forced him to choose a(n anime) song he preferred. also, at the end, takako says shino didn’t sing because her eyes open when she sings, just some random excuse to pull that ending off.

    umeboshi110
  14. This ep is not that good for me, sure it did give me a couple of laughs but not at the same level of ep 7 and the ep where Daitetsu sleeps over- which really pounded my guts and embedded those moments to my brain! Well hopefully the next ep will LMAO.

    stephen007
  15. SPEECHLESS !!!

    ~~ I was actually speechless when takako sang…

    You could actually include me in the shock pic for takako’s singing much like this one :: https://randomc.net/image/Kannagi/Kannagi%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2024.jpg

    No matter how many times i watch it i’m still speechless…
    They built a very solid image for takako then did a 180 degree turn to another direction in the image department…

    i’m really waiting for the character singles for this one…

    Hagiri

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