「母の…手…」 (Haha no… Te…)
“Mother’s… Hand…”

As promised, a full episode devoted to Mero! I was super excited to see her character’s background and side story…

… but unfortunately, it did not live up to the hype I built for myself. I thought the episode focused too much on Mero’s friends rather than Mero herself. The first half of the episode was devoted to Shinoda Kazue (Matayoshi Ai) and Yasaka Miko (Kuraguchi Momo); both of whom I did not find particularly engaging. Kazue seems to be just as obsessed with zombies as Chihiro (albeit, for completely different reasons) and this led to a confrontation with their scary art teacher. Who the hell keeps a crocodile in their gym bag? I’m sure it’s not even legal to keep a wild animal at home (at least not where I live…). Eating raw meat with your carnivorous pet? That screams all kinds of crazy to me.

Then again, Miko’s story wasn’t any more exciting. Although it did really make me want to eat ramen late at night. This is why I’ll probably never blog a food anime… all I’d be thinking about is eating stuff like this and this or this!

The actual plot development of the episode comes in the latter half when Mero goes to visits her mother’s grave. She stumbles onto Rea and they have this “bonding moment” where Mero sees a strong resemblance between Rea and her own mother. I actually had the impression that Mero didn’t like seeing her brother so attached to Rea. I mean, for so long, Ranko and Mero were the only two girls that Chihiro gave attention to (I’m guessing…). Then in comes this random girl who Chihiro is taking full responsibility for and Mero just has to accept her into the family. I can see why Mero would be upset; although she doesn’t show it and I couldn’t really understand what she thought of Rea.

I honestly didn’t like how they tried to form a connection between Mero and Rea by turning her into a mother-figure for Mero. I never thought of Rea of such, and I don’t think Mero should be looking up to her as a role model in that sense. It almost seems too random since I never got a real sense of what Mero even thought of her mother. The only mention was back in Ranko’s episode when Mero was sick and her mother was taking care of her. Was this when Mero had her fever? I would think so. There are also talks about whether or not Mero’s mother is a zombie. That would explain why she couldn’t test Mero’s temperature. Side note: Since when did Mero (and the rest of Chihiro’s family) realize that Rea’s a zombie? They seem too calm about it – as opposed to Kazue’s strong reactions.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling this episode on Mero as a whole. I was a little disappointed by her lack of personality and more so towards her lack of background story. Was it necessary to devote a whole episode on her and her friends? Probably not, since I found her friends almost as annoying at Chihiro’s. I did appreciate how they branched out to touch upon other storylines though and I’m hoping that the show will come full circle somewhere along the lines. I know that Mero’s mother might play a pivotal role later; however I’m still unsure how that all ties in.

Speaking of mother’s, next week is all about Rea’s! I don’t want to get my hopes up again, but seeing as Chihiro is held hostage somewhere in their house, I’d like to hear what Aria has to say about that.

 

Preview

24 Comments

  1. I don’t think the first half of this episode was in the manga, which may explain why it felt less engaging. They are just trying to expand on the side characters, I guess.

    MasterDragonKnight
  2. This episode in my opinion was actually enjoyable, particularly since it primarily focused on Inde- I MEAN- Tsukih- I MEAN Mero. (I’ll stop now…)

    Granted its direction in the first half was a bit all over the place but despite it feeling only a little forced, the rest of this was quite amusing to say the least (Three loli zombie stooges pops into mind….)

    I’m being lenient here not because I read the manga, in fact I actually like that false buildup it had in the 10 minutes if anything. What do I mean by this? Well It’s only hinted at that Furuya’s Grandpa may hold the secret formula or equation to the zombie chemical. but in THIS particular episode it felt like “Hey, maybe there’s OTHER zombies” in the minds of our 3 loli stooges. The buildup was indeed false and a let down, but also it felt like good satire on both horror and humor. (In fact, it actually felt like “reverse Shaun of the Dead” if anything.)

    Irrelevantly being an art major, I don’t think ANY art teacher I know carry pets, much less a freaking crocodile. (lest I’m somehow proven wrong.)

    so with that we move onto the latter half, not exactly as humorous, but just as great.
    It felt “simple” if that makes any sense, that whole Deja Vu vibe was heartwarming to say the least.

    I take back what I said about the 2nd half not being as humorous, Mero calling Rea “Mama” had to be the highlight that had me chuckling.

    I really like the concept of Sankarea, the idea of a girl being an undead, all the while adding an slice o’ life element is refreshing to say the least.

    Now if you’ll excuse me guys, I must go get my next fill of E7:AO. >3>

    Acario
  3. well i guess take a detour for now for mero ep (all this happen before cat-nap of cat hair boy)

    mero doing usual sweep notice her brother more active & duty to rea.
    mero & her pals wonder strange stuff like if teacher is “something” with bag & meat.
    but it just a pet gator for the teacher to feed with meat.
    smelly stuff but smell for ramen making.
    mero mention a “zombie” give can’t let them see it due temple rules.
    one of them oops mention mero’s mom (cause she “gone”) & only memory of her mom was bandage hand & cold touch.
    mero went home hear cat hair boy & wanko blah then go mom’s grave.
    mero put foods here rea give rea amaze at mero.
    during which it’s remind mero of her mom within rea then slip feel & rea fix it for mero.
    show pic of rea that all folks.

    yet another detour ep next is the step-mom.

    CAPTAIN MAR-KLAC_VELOUS
  4. I hated the timing of this episode it just feel so out of place. It should have been last weeks episode so that the cliff hanger from last week wasn’t interupted. I feel like I just watched Ichigo and Ulquiorra fly at each other only to be interrupted by a season of fillers. While this one im sure isn’t as bad I sure hope the next episode gets back on track. An episode like this has no purpose in just popping up during a cliff hanger.

    Bijyu
  5. I thought this was one of the weakest episodes so far, because it was both badly timed (they honestly couldn’t have switched this ep and the previous ep around?) and focused on characters we hardly know and don’t much care about (Mero’s friends). The only really interesting part was the last ten minutes.

    Still, given all the hints Furuya’s senile grandpa has given, I deem it quite possible that his mother was in fact a zombie for some time as well (which explains why his father is so blasé about it). It also explains why Mero saw a mother figure in Rea; keep in mind, Mero doesn’t remember much about her mom, yet Rea triggered her memories…memories about the fact she had cold hands, bandages everywhere (her mom’s body decaying?) and the look in her eyes. Thus, it’s less about Rea being a mother figure and more being a trigger of memories because of similarity. That’s my theory at least. It was cute as hell seeing Mero embarrassed though.

    Next ep seems to be interesting though, as Furuya’s first confrontation seems to be with Rea’s mother. Seeing things from her viewpoint will probably give more background to their whole messed-up family.

    Dvalinn
  6. Cherrie, if you love ramen, you must watch Tamopopo.

    As far as this episode, I find the placement odd in the series. Also, half of it was an anime original. Sad to say, unlike some of the previous anime original sections, this one failed to live up. Looking at the preview, it looks like next episode there will be a focus on Mrs Sanka. Really? I know it’s in the manga (much later on), but this is not the place to have these fillers. I would have rather had a focused 10 episodes instead of 12 episodes with fillers. They really are taking too much time away from the main story. It’s killing the tension. I blame the director.

    bertman4
  7. Anytime an episode has to start off with “I know you are interested in what happens next but lets talk about something else” the director has gone horribly horribly wrong.

    Bijyu
  8. Well I didn’t realize her friend with the short hair was a girl. I thought it was weird the boy was in the bath w/ them two eps ago

    So looks like Furuya’s obsession w/ zombie girls comes from. After all, men typically go after women who remind them of their mother.

    Tez
  9. A nice but weak episode ; not the episode I wanted to see not the episode I wanted to see.

    They had this Wanko episode, and now this! You can do better than this Studio Deen

    Alec
  10. I am so calling that Chihiro and Mero had both a zombie mom at certain point…
    Kudo’s for trolling skilz – we wanted Mero episode and got Mero’s friends episode…

    ewok40k

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