First Impressions / Minami-ke

「つまりは遠回しな愛の告白」 (Tsumari wa Toomawashi na ai no Kokuhaku)
“Simply put, it’s a roundabout confession”

Every household should have an emergency maid outfit, you know? This is anime as public service.

The vibe right now is as if Daume and Ohta-sensei distilled the magic of the first season of Minami-ke into its essence, bottled it and stuck it on shelf somewhere, where Asread forgot about it a good deal of the time. Asread moved out of the house, Feel moved in and found the bottle, and the rest is history. Or three episodes worth of consistently hilarious history, anyway.

If the S1 vibes weren’t strong enough from the art, the comic timing and the general tone, this episode marked the long-overdue return of “Sensei and Ninomoiya-kun”. It’s a testament to just how good S1 of Minami-ke was that “S & N-k” might just have been the second-funniest anime comedy of Fall 2007. We even get an exquisite Japanese-style pun with the introduction of a new character, “Sannomiya-kun”. This comes as part of a very funny sketch about long baths and idiots, which sees Kana, Chiaki and Touma (yet another common Minami-ke subset) immediately call on Uchida when a baka is required to test Kana’s veracity when it comes to airheads, watches and glasses of water . Haruka (in banchou mode) has the last laugh though, in the eyecatch – the eyecatches being, by the way, one thing that’s different from S1 and quite a welcome addition, too.

As expected, the focus shifted towards Haruka’s school subset this week – though still no Hosaka yet. First, with a short chapter about a lost ring (the weakest of the episode) and then a recall of the first sketch as Touma’s “Natsuki takes long baths” remark pays comic dividends. Hitomi gets some screentime here as she completely misinterprets Natsuki’s willingness to share his embarrassment at having been outed as a long-bather in front of Haruka, and Haruka tries to make amends (quite successfully too) for inadvertently embarrassing Natsuki by telling him the virtues of long baths.

The capper of the episode is about as classic a Minami-ke episode as could be, featuring our most extended food porn segment of the season. The ongoing battle between Kana and Chiaki and over food has been a theme for all four seasons, with sweets being especially inflammatory – and this time it’s a delicious powdered sugar donut which was ticketed for Haruka. I agree with Touma that Kana cheated at the Jan-Ken-Pon – she definitely waited – but even so, pretty baka move to go for a tea refill right after winning the precious pastry. Kana may be a baka but she’s still the big sister, and she quicly intimidates the chibis with the threat of a little mouth-licking – but when Haruka gets home, the focus shifts over to which one should be apologizing, the ones who ate the donut or the one who forgot who it was for. It’s refreshing to see an anime put two lolis into maid outfits (Kana wouldn’t fit) and make it cute without descending into degrading fanservice but what I want to know is, when did the emergency maid outfit become three emergency maid outfits?

Next week: the long-awaited return of the one and only Hosaka, and Mako-chan in a nun’s habit. You’d have to be crazy not to watch.

 

Full-length images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36.

 

Preview

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20 Comments

  4. https://randomc.net/2013/01/23/minami-ke-tadaima-03-2/
    Did I glance the return of Minami-Black, at least for half-a-frame?

    I had forgotten that BOSS-MODE Haruka is so epic. Kana has the (bad?) habit to make her turn it on, with excellent results for us. Another landmark of M-K retuns, and the only thing that’s left is Hosaka, but knowing him, his entrance should be as epic as always.

    https://randomc.net/2013/01/23/minami-ke-tadaima-03-2/
    Making someone like her cry should be a life-sentence penalty crime

    SeedStriker
    Reply

  6. ninomiya : sensei!!!
    sensei : NINOMIYA-KUN!!!
    ninomiya : sensei!!!
    sensei : NINOMIYA-KUN!!!
    sannomiya: sensei!!!
    sensei : huh? sannomiya-kun!

    mewhen yonnomiya-kun appear?

    Name (required)
    Reply

  12. Aw yeah knew someone had to pick this show up after 3 great eps.

    Haruka revenge was all so awesome in the first sketch. But her surprise confused face seeing kana in a mess with the maid outfit was priceless in the closing scene.

    Also hope to see hosaka go do something as goofy as the cooking quest or curry song lol. His return shall be glorious. Also I’m liking the return of Touma’s brothers, I really liked them last season.

    Sherylfan
    Reply

  15. I think the ‘missing’ doughnut happened in season 1 with lines parallel with it. That time it was Kana who ate Chiaki’s share (creampuffs or something), and Kana suggested that it never existed in the first place. 😀

    Soulsphere
    Reply

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