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「はなまるスープ顛末記」 (Hanamaru Suupu Tenmatsuki)
“The Hanamaru Soup Incident”
This week’s case: a mysterious man with sunglasses who always takes one bite out of his ramen then leaves. Doesn’t sound like much, but Min accepts the challenge of creating a dish that he will be willing to finish, forcing poor Narumi to pull all-nighters to work on the soup. Later he and the other NEETS find out about how Min’s sarashi has been stolen on several different occasions . With a probable pervert stalker and a man who randomly appears and disappears on their hands, they pay Alice a visit where Min deftly one-ups the detective’s high and mighty attitude, bring her to tears.
The mysterious dude with sunglasses was an obvious suspect — so obvious that it would be strange if he really was the criminal. No detective mystery is that simple, and indeed the situations turns out to be two separate cases. Narumi manages to catch the thief with a well-placed stun gernade to the head, and he confesses that he’s actually a fashion designer for women’s underwear who is striving for ultimate perfection in lingerie. He is obsessed with Min alright, but not quite in the way that was expected; the guy just couldn’t stand seeing Min without a proper bra.
The real meat of the mystery is Min’s father, who has apparently returned as a phantom to give her the secret ramen recipe that she has been trying to imitate all along. All in all in the end, Min gets a little character development and some closure with her father. I found it more enjoyable than the previous Yakuza case, perhaps because the supernatural elements in this one threw me for a loop, and I didn’t quite follow Alice’s explanation until the very end. Alice doesn’t really reveal her thought process as she pieces the case together, so less-than-genius brains have difficulty following along as the mystery unravels. I was slightly disappointed that the two mysteries were pretty much completely unrelated to each other, making the flow of the story feel rather disconnected. The BGM during the climax of the story was great though and suited the mood, but otherwise the episode on the whole felt rather rushed, and this story really needed more than 20 minutes to be properly fleshed out. I didn’t think it was terrible, but it certainly wasn’t very memorable.
Preview
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FIRST!
I agree with the “meh”-ness of this episode. The series overall is beginning to feel rather meh to me. The mysteries aren’t that exciting, and the characters aren’t that interesting. Narumi annoys me to death. I might drop this series.
Oh my God… I actually got the first comment. The joy I am experiencing at this moment is sending tremors of pleasure throughout my neurons. Hurray.
Oh shit, yugioh cameo next week!
Ore wa Turnno, Draw
I just wish Alice has more appearance than this and they should have made Meo a regular character =/
The hell is Yugi Moto doing in the next episode preview??
Ok, I’m paying attention now.
Better than a Yuma cameo!
or Yusei
Next episode: that YuGiOh guy with sunglasses.
nice fan service
I’m hoping this series is going through the Eureka Seven syndrome, because this was just weird. And not the interesting kind of weird.
The only good part about this episode was the Min fan service. Otherwise, it was a rather mediocre episode.
why would Alice NEET a bra?
what are you talking about? Bra is the symbol of girl, we males need them to be worn by girl.
I see what you did there , well played
I find all the episodes so far rushed. This one was no different. Enjoyable though, for various reasons. I did figure out what was going on when the issue about the lock was revealed.
Alice won’t need one, but perverts will always insist on every women wearing one.
Okay, this is a light-weight drama/comedy. As long as I
watch it with those expectations, I’m not disappointed.
The timing of the comedy is off and seems out-of-place.
It’s like they’re out of character when it happens –
almost inappropriate.
I’d like to see better character development of the main
characters, but right now they seem pigeon-holed to their roles –
we haven’t been told anything about Alice – she’s just there…
Alice beats her assistant thinking he’s the one who asked for the bra lol.
It was some nice Min development, and so far, she’s been one of my favorite characters.
When Alice is trying to sound like a normal unphilosophical girl though, her voice really urks me.
I don’t know if I want to watch this episode or this anime for that matter. It’s been rather disappointing so far. I thought this would be a mystery anime, but it seem more like a bunch of convent coincidences.
I haven’t read the review for spoiler reasons, so I’m asking:
Is this worth watching?
Depends, I watch this because I like the original character design (Kishida Mel’s work, if I’m not mistaken) and that first 1-hour episode got me hooked.
The quality overall is not so bad either, but JC is prone to inconsistency so we’ll have to wait and see if they can keep this up the entire series.
This episode made me rofl, esp the stalker. Man, I really wanted Min to beat him up though.
What I don’t get is why would Min’s dad break in…4 times? It only takes him once to leave the ramen recipe, and who doesn’t lock the door when they go out? She’s showering for goodness sakes! You want your daughter to be robbed or something? O-o Weirdo father…
As for the “mystery” part, it was so bad, even I knew right away the sunglasses dude was her father. The so-called mysteries in this sereis is very predictable. What confuses me the most are their follow-up actions, like the yakuza-money follow-up and this follow-up. They let the perv go…and then what? Let him steal another sashimi?
I’m really loving the two-part mysteries of this show; it’s better suited for them, but the only thing that’s really dragging this show down is the main character and also the really bad fanservice with Alice. The main character is just TOO bland. He’s whiny, he’s…talentless- in fact, I’m honestly just as intrigued as everyone else as to why Alice keeps him around. It would have been nice to see some more development like we did in the last episode where he did the sake ceremony with the Yakuza, but otherwise…he’s just too whiny, too weak and I’m really starting to get nagged by that.
This episode was completely boring, and hopefully things will spice up a bit with the appearance of Min’s father.
I’m thinking this’ll be the last we hear anything significant about Min’s father, since the series is only 12 episodes long.
While this ep and the last arc felt less than spectacular, next week’s is awesome (i’m hecka late on commenting, and have already watched next week’s ep XD I’m from the future~~~ oooh)
Well, awesome might be too much praise, it feels like it has more of the spark that makes this series unique and interesting.