「マヤの亜美~ゴ」 (Maya no Amiigo)
“MAYA’s amigo”

It may have something to do with trying to catch up on shows at 3am on a weekday morning, but I was completely led astray this episode just like Maya was. All the signs were there that Ami’s father Shige (Shimaka Yuu) had a part in the overnight appearance of a crop circle and the appearance of a UFO, yet I didn’t put two and two together even when JK and Smile were complaining about being forced to help out. I think a vacation is in order to amend the dulling “anime senses” or simply viewing times that aren’t in the wee hours of the morning, though I must say I like the former option a lot more. In reality, I probably should have known better than to expect a development immediately after Maya sees Fumiaki as someone she can relate to. For the most part, the emphasis was on Maya’s childhood with Ami and Shige’s fond memories of them playing together, so I was face palming just as much as Shige when I thought we’d make some headway on Nostradamus’ Key.

Smile’s UFOs were a bit too generic-looking for me to think that it was actually going to be the key, but not so poorly used for me to think that they were going to be a prank. There was also the cow mutilation as well, which reeked of stereotypical occult stuff yet didn’t seem terribly out of place either. While believability was clearly iffy, we are talking about a series with a person sent back in time to prevent the arrival of aliens that have taken over the Earth in the future, so I suspended my disbelief just a tad. Seeing as none of the prior incidents turned out to be hoaxes, I felt that there was enough precedence to warrant the benefit of the doubt as well. Unfortunately, that only led to me being anticlimactically had. *sniff*

On the plus side, I did enjoy the sight of Maya and Fumiaki somewhat working together even though the element of respect isn’t quite there (understatement of year), and the added drama that resulted when Maya started scolding Shige about going to all this trouble to bring back her love for occult stuff. I gather Maya was appreciative of the extent that Ami’s father went to for her, but simply frustrated over having taken this incident seriously. Ami’s slap on Maya for speaking ill of her father on the other hand was an eyebrow raiser, as was Shige’s on his own daughter, telling her to apologize to Maya for needlessly lashing out. We’ve had sci-fi and we’ve had comedy, but drama is one aspect I wasn’t expecting. It sure puts a different spin on JK spitting out pudding into Smile’s face, so I’m looking forward to seeing how these two old friends work out their differences next time. It almost looks like we’ll get some real occult stuff happening as a result, but I’ll hold my breath this time around in case they’re out to pull one over on me again.

 

Preview

33 Comments

    1. I’m with you, I’m tired of them falling down to using the same old character stereotypes in order to add “comedy” to a show. What’s wrong with more “smart” or witty humor, you know, more mature. Instead we get more idiotic stuff.

      One good thing finally though, someone bitch slapped Maya for once. Seriously, I would’ve probably done it back at the start of ep2.

      GP
  1. Heh, Divine you weren’t th only one. Although I did suspect Shige was up to something I actually believed it to be something more sinister. Like he was apart of the mysterious organization that the crazy teacher (her name eludes me) is apart of. And that whole cow thing kinda put it over the edge of a simple prank, I mean really? Killing a cow and draining it’s blood seems like a little excessive way to cheer somebody up. The ending seemed rather surprising to me as well but for different reasons. Just after it’s revealed Fumiaki was abused and neglected we have Maya in a serious relationship problem with her oldest friend. It’s like last week was a quick left jab and this week is the right hook. Rather jarring if you can forgive the boxing joke.

    Will
  2. Maya did get some character development, but again we have literally nothing to add to the conclusion of the story and unless there’s a second season the studio only has six episodes (at the most) left to handle the dad’s death, Mikaze’s constant appearances (maybe her VA is the producer’s wife) the mysterious organization and Nostradamus’ Key. Were this a 26 episode anime I would say that this is the way to go but in a 12-13 episode one I’m worried the end will be rushed.

    As an episode this was a solid work, but as part of the series I really wonder what they’re up to.

    Grant
  3. @divine
    “apologize to Ami for needlessly lashing out.” should it read Maya ? win some cookie points 😉
    ______
    Chibi Maya for the Win! Too bad she ain’t listening and is in a down spiral to fall for evil ido… errr hero of the series.
    I loved the slapping galore. They should have put more budget on it and showed the hands hitting the cheeks. Sadist moment of the week.
    Even thought his way was wrong kudos for Ami’s dad for trying to cheer a “daughter” that he knows is unhappy. Showing how important she is as well as his real daughter.

    Island Esper
    1. Great. I show up when there’s only the troll post on, type out my comment and hit submit, then go out to do some chores, come back to see the connection crapped out on me. LOL So I hit submit again to find out you’ve already commented on the same.

      Anyway, 3 cookie points from me, would’ve been 5, but I took the other 2 for my netfail. 🙁

      TehJawknee
    2. @Divine
      That’s why we are anime nakama to help each other.

      @TheJawhee
      Don’t worry you will beat me next time. To me being close to a “first” post brings bad karma 🙂

      Island Esper
  4. I loled at the photo Bunmei took of the alien. It look’s like J.K. will still be alive in the future and have 3 triplets that look just like him. and they all look like they’ll inherit they’re fathers dowsing technique. 😀

    gandalf8
  5. Of all the things, I was not expecting drama in this episode. Though it was good to know more about Ami and Maya’s friendship. I can bet they would bury the hatchet in the next episode and fight together with whatever the next Occult sighting would occur. ^^

    1. Well it the end of the world what do you expect. Its going to be insane to the degree of complete insanity however this does bring up something interesting that i think should be considered so far it has been shown that more than one person at the school survived the events that caused the alien invasion this being the case i am trying to deduce what it means and i can only come up with three possible reasons why anyone would survive the alien invasion at their beach head. First their the moron that cause it or are in the same area that they are in when it goes off and are thus spared. Second their being alive is related in some way to the key ie it may not be an object but a person could be the child version of the teacher he has strange powers in the past might be that the source of those powers was the key and he just doesn’t realize he has it or its part of him and his lack of tk is because of the invaders. Third is that they were lucky and were not near the location when this stuff goes down in any case it has to be one of those.

      chaos
  6. It’s possible you find it odd that Ami slapped Maya simply because you underestimate social etiquette in Japan. If I slapped a friend in front of my parents, they would’ve definitely hit me later, if not right then :/

    Yu
  7. it was just an ice epsiode, I wanna watch the next one now, and I want that ep to be REAL NICE xd

    its wrong to want a Fumiaki x Maya thing? xD im not that type of people who wants romance and that stuff, but fumiaki x maya seems so funny that they NEED to be together, but fumiaki is so coward, he needs to change xd

    Im loving maya, and fumiaki too xD AAH JK

    lol

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