First Impressions / Nyan Koi!

「その男 下僕？」 (Sono Otoko Geboku?)
“That Guy is a Slave?”

Now introducing the mamba childhood friend, Sumiyoshi Kanako. As if cat problems weren’t enough, Junpei now has to be a slave to his childhood friend for the day.

Played by Shiraishi Ryoko (Hayate in Hayate no Gotoku!), Kanako has a seemingly tough exterior thanks to her brazen personality and heavy mamba makeup. As seen in her flashbacks, this contrasts heavily with her younger image, when she got along with Junpei really well. That is, until a misunderstanding happened over a friendship doll she made for him, leading us to the unique “friendship” they have today. It was a lot of fun watching her get into fights with Junpei, who barely even sees her as a girl anymore. For comedic sake, this allows him to dish out the insults as quickly as he receives them. Throw in the fact that Kaede thinks they’re getting along great and you have a pretty humorous scenario.

As for Junpei’s cat request this week, it turns out the resident stray cat at school is relocating. Before he leaves, he wants Junpei to thank the school girl who’s been feeding him everyday and tell her that he loves her very much. However, Tama informed Junpei earlier in the day that he can’t tell other people about his curse or he risks dragging them into some catastrophic disaster in addition to speeding up his own predicament. To make things worse, this girl happens to be Kanako, disillusioning him from the cute girl scenarios he had in mind.

His first attempt to nonchalantly convey the cat’s message is seen by Kanako as something she can use against him later long. Because of this, Junpei gets dragged around as a slave during the school festival and is forced to treat Kanako to whatever she pleases. In the end though, Junpei does manage to convey the message, which Kanako interprets as his way of cheering her up since the cat’s gone. He also manages to clear things up about the friendship doll, which he was only showing to a friend that time and still has to this day.

For anti-ganguro reasons, thank god Kanako gave up the mamba makeup after learning about this. At the same time, it was nice to see that she still has lingering feelings for Junpei, giving us a potential love triangle going in all the wrong directions (as usual). Comedy-wise, the episode itself was pretty humorous throughout due to Kanako’s tsundere-like character. The highlight of the series for me is still Junpei though. His sarcastic inner thoughts and general reactions are just comedic gold. For sheer laughs this season, this series is definitely moving up on my personal list.

 

Omake

Preview

30 Comments

  2. OH GOD YES T_T!!!! long hair tsundere ftw T_T, she’s definitely the character I want him to end up with the most… these tomboy characters always get to me T_T

    I’m rather curious though to what an actual ganguro looks like… meeting one looks like it’d be an interesting experience…

    Putang
    Reply

  6. Y’know, in the manga it was hard to tell Kanako apart from Kaede once the makeup was gone, since they have the exact hairstyle (with the difference that they were mirrored). I’m kind of glad that you can now tell them apart with the help of “Technicolors”. 😛

    Misha
    Reply

  7. you dont need to see the face to tell kanako apart from kaede. juz the bust size is enough. lol. but frankly, i really like the character designs for this show.. think the girls are very cute, plus the periodic semi-deformed(nendoroid?) designs are juz plain win.

    raii
    Reply

  18. I found the manga to be pretty good too. Surprising since the “make a wish” premise seems boring. Yet both manga and anime are doing a great job of amping the comedy and adding a little romance. I do find the relationship with Kanoko a little depressing. Hopefully her feelings will reach Junpei. I’m not sure what qualities make the ditzy blond such a love interest. Hasn’t really been explained and her use more of a plot device.

    Irie
    Reply

  19. Eri:
    Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I knowingly blog some shows that aren’t that great, so it’s always best to determine for yourself if it’s something you’d like!

    garfield15:
    I don’t think this normal format accommodates captions very well, since mouseover ones won’t be read most of the time. Nyan Koi is primarily a comedy though, so it might be better if I switch back to my Hayate no Gotoku style of posts. Thoughts?

    Irie:
    Yeah, I’m not a big fan of Kaede either. When I hear Iguchi Yuka’s voice, I just picture Index in my mind. Ugh…

    divine
    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *