「ことりちゃん登場!!」 (Kotori-chan Toujou!!)
“Kotori-chan Appears!!”

There’s pretty much an unwritten rule in anime to be suspicious of any character that can’t be bothered to open their eyes most of the time, but it doesn’t hurt to hear them out once in a while. Take Yachiyo for example. Unless you’re Hiroomi and take enjoyment out of other people’s suffering, the logical thing to do after Mahiru lied to her mother about Takanashi being a girl who gave her a gift in return on White Day would’ve been to have either her Popura pretend to be him instead of cross-dressing. That was pretty much the first thought that crossed my mind, so I got a pretty good laugh when Jun didn’t think of that and covered it up with blatant lie about how there are times when men have to do what they have to do. I’m pretty impressed by how Yachiyo wasn’t even able to get a verbal reaction out of Jun after that, when it was clear she got through to him. In any case, this was all to deceive Mahiru’s father (Ootsuka Houchuu), whom she hasn’t even seen in ten years and who turns out to be the source of her abnormal phobia of men.

Now it’s one thing to be overprotective of your daughter and not wanting to hand her over to any man, but systematically inducing her fear of men with subliminal psychological brainwashing over several years is something else. Hell, that should be a crime of sorts now that I think about it. With that revelation and how he waltzed into Wagnaria to with a hunting rifle in his possession (fake or not) to check up on if “Takanashi” is really a girl, I was really hoping that Mahiru would lay the smack down on her father. She got the urge to and everything too, but had to show an uncanny display of restraint the one time I wished she didn’t. Violence may not solve anything, but sometimes it feels so damn warranted. You know, just one of those straight punches to the cheekbone that Souta receives on a daily basis is all I ask. Since it’s been over ten years since Mahiru saw her father, we can even give him time to brace for it for old time sakes. It probably wouldn’t matter with the way he’s been secretly slipping in weights in her stuff to bulk her up, but hey, you reap what you sow.

In the end, I guess it was a lot sweeter to have Souta stand up for Mahiru and give her father a good scolding for the mental damage he’s done to his own daughter. This is particularly true if you’re a Souta x Mahiru shipper, since Mahiru seems to have fallen head over heals for Souta after overhearing everything from the hidden mic Aoi bugged him with. Seeing how things were going just peachy for them (though not really from Souta’s point of view), I was anticipating the moment to be ruined with the lighthearted ending theme. As such, I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of a special Inami Mahiru character song ending sequence here to help emphasize her newly discovered love for Souta (see below). Looking back, it took a little longer than I would’ve liked, but the pros of Mahiru’s character have finally come to fruition in these past few episodes.

Comedy-wise, I found myself laughing on various occasions this episode, starting with Souta’s sarcastically emphatic refusal to cross-dress and how it somehow made him the bad guy for not taking his childhood scarring to the teenage level. The same goes for Hiroomi being all on board to help out and saying with a completely straight face that he can’t pass up on something so amusing, rather than helping a fellow co-worker/friend or something along those lines. Aoi popping her head out of the ceiling and getting all happy about being “praised” for being readily prepared in the drag department was also funny to see, as well as Kyouko’s initial reaction to “Kotori-chan”. Speaking of which, I found the misreading of “Takanashi” as “Kotoriasobi” here pretty befitting as well, because the later can literally mean “play/mess around with Kotori”. I’m sure everyone was getting some level of enjoyment from Souta’s misfortune, with Hiroomi having the most fun of course by blackmailing him further.

Aside from that, I thought Fukuyama Jun had a better female voice in his repertoire, but I guess it’s just Kamiya Hiroshi and his disturbing ability to do a decent, “Nyaaan, hehe”. It kind of throws my image of Tieria Erde, Orihara Izaya, Ichinomiya Kou, and even Souma Hiroomi here in for a whirl, but Hiroshi is pretty damn funny in person. Jun’s definitely no stranger to being forced to cross-dress against his will though, so if Lelouch Lamperouge lovers are prepared to be disillusioned, look no further than this.

Next time it looks like Nazuna’s going to be working at Wagnaria as well, but what I’m more curious about is the brief cameo that Matsumoto Maya got in this episode. She’s in the opening sequence and is supposed to be a regular server at the restaurant, but hasn’t made her official debut in the anime yet. Also, I forgot to mention this last time, but Aoi’s been added to the opening sequence in various places as well.

 

ED2 Sequence

ED2: 「ゴールデン・デイ」 (Golden Day) by 藤田咲 (Fujita Saki)
Watch the 2nd ED!: Download, Streaming ▼

Preview

43 Comments

    1. *kotori chan
      funny that he crossdresses now to cover up teh face that he crossdressed in his past.
      btw i wonder if Nazuna will be jelous or protective of her brother when it comes to Mahiru?????

      karnos
  1. Popura pretend to be him instead of cross-dressing.

    I dont think Popura would make decent Takanashi – it would be weird to see “Takanashi” calling herself Katanashi, right? 🙂

    Eihi
    1. Since Takanashi’s younger sister is almost as tall as him already at the age of 12, like 5-8 in inches, nobody would notice that she is not legally allowed to work yet.

      DC/AC
  2. Good episode, with character development. Does this mean that there is only an Inami end? I liked the ending, a truly a “Miku” song.

    Also, yay, Nazuna and new glasses girl working now. Does anyone know how long this anime is going to be? Looks like a 13 episode series, but unconfirmed.

  3. Definitely the best episode so far in my opinion. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time, especially when Takanashi refused to cross dress in such a straightforward and dark manner, and when “Kotori-chan” discovered the rifle in Mahiru’s father’s hands. Other good moments were when Poplar and Takanashi “switched places” and when Yachiyo caught Jun off-guard with her simple solution. What I probably enjoyed the most though was “Kotori-chan” looking like one of the cutest characters on the show, and Souta telling off Mahiru’s father, with Mahiru falling head over heels for Souta. Definitely my favorite in terms of comedy and character development(which I didn’t expect to see in this series).

    Lovin’ it.

    Click
  4. Hai! *moment of pause* Zettai ni iya desu! xDxDxD

    This is my favorite episode by far even though the previous ones were very enjoyable as well 😀 I enjoyed literally every single second, all the jokes were high-quality and we also got a good peek in Mahiru’s background. Great, great, great!

    Jurkasz
  5. LOL! I’m a “shipper”? Inami finally realizes it but when will Takanashi realize this love? He is dense when it comes to Inami. Looks like Takanashi’s sister might help with the relationship.

    conyo985
  6. ah finally she knows her feelings, it will probably affect how she works with takanashi(maybe even stopping mid-punch or punching him more often?)
    I wonder when this girl will be introduced

    I hope they animate the meeting between popura and nazuna(the girl who looks like a 12 year old and a girl who looks like 16)
    you can probably imagine what happens…

    amado
  7. Definately one of the best surprises of the season has been this show. This show came out of no where. Who knew it would be this good consistently?

    I was hoping that Inami and Takanashi would become a couple ever since he came out with that grabber/magic hands thing he uses. I figured he is going to make the effort to help her get along with everyone, maybe they will fall in love?

    Karmafan
  8. this episode is the best. how inami’s father being over protective, takanashi cross-dressing, and how inami’s fear and strength is revealed was the best. hope to see more comedy and the new character. well she was already present from the first episode where she was serving and only her back was seen i think but didnt get introduced.

    Croosboy
  9. I have always been fond of the chemistry between TakanashixInami. I know that they probably *could* have someone else female fill in for Takanashi, or even refuse entry to Inami’s dad, but I think there was subtext there that Satou clumsily explained.

    Basically, Inami came with the odd request for Takanashi to cross-dress because she still wanted him (even dressed up) to be seen as the person (even in disguise) that gave the present to her. Takanashi, however he sees Inami (probably not quite as a romantic interest yet, or ever?) feels responsibility for her, and thus stepped it up as a man, by dressing up as a woman.

    One of my favorite episodes by far! I had a lot of laugh out loud moments!

    Wes
  10. Years of watching Naruto before finally dropping it for good means I recognize Ootsuka’s voice at once when I hear him speak as Mahiru’s dad, the culprit of Mahiru’s androphobia and Souta’s source of daily physical torment as a result.

    As Mahiru is often carrying those iron plates without her even knowing, she’ll win in a weightlifting championship outright if she were to join right away.

    Like Yachiyo, I wonder just who the hell is Yamada, to possess all sorts of useful stuff, like makeup for Souta’s crossdressing, and her radio bug for eavesdropping on his conversation with Mahiru’s dad.

    Maya is probably the most “normal” of all the workers in Wagnaria, and as a result, most of the fun stuff revolving around Wagnaria’s workers usually doesn’t feature her. 🙂

    Kotori-chan sure is hawt, credit to Fukuyama for acting as feminine as possible. It’s possible his personal experience with crossdressing in Divine’s YouTube video helped considerably. XD

    Kinny Riddle
  11. I liked this episode for once , the humour made me laugh and they finnaly made Inami completly in love after 7 episodes .It’s not that I don’t like her but they could have wraped this up before I think.

    Rockmanshii
  12. man and when I thought cross-dressing is gonna be making this a bad episode…

    nice episode I must say, the ending song… I guess a character song album? next episode would be interesting, with the 3rd-party observation from nazuna would make the show more interesting liao…

    and it LOOKS like, even if I didn’t read the manga, that this is not gonna end on 13 episodes? I hope not, it’s a great show…

    kaineng
  13. nazunaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~! =D

    bracon nazuno to the rescue(?)! still, good ep xD made me actually start to look past mahiru’s burst knuckles and start to sympathize with her character o.o not to mention her blushing at the end was just too kawaii o_o

    btw, you have successfully scared my mental image of fukuyama jun Dx damn you curiosity!

    dead neko
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