Minami-ke Okawari #12 — Oh God, A Fuyuki Episode

March 23rd, 2008

  

Fuyuki plus terrible animation… wonderful.

Impressions:

Chiaki checks into the nurse’s… and she’s running a massive temperature… no… the nurse is holding the thermometer upside down. Then Makoto stops in for some prescription placebo.  At home, Fuyuki and Chiaki tersely exchange greetings. A couple days continue on in their relatively normal fashion. Chiaki and Fuyuki keep having brief talks at their doors.

Thankfully, the second part of the episode was about the elementary school athletic fair. I’m just happy that there wasn’t a cavalry battle. Nobody will ever live up to the gold standard that School Rumble and Dai Mahou Touge set for cavalry battles and I’d rather not see them try. It was kind of cute that Chiaki grabbed Fujioka as a ‘father’ for the school festival. It was also a little scary seeing Makoto dressed up like a maid with lipstick on. Hosaka was also lurking in the background making noodles, but not doing anything entertaining.

Blah blah blah, eventually Fuyuki gets dragged off by some old man and Touma drops the ‘bomb’ that Fuyuki is transferring away. Chiaki goes home that day, and the name is already removed from his apartment. Good riddance, you irritating brat. Then at the end of the episode, Kana finds out that Haruka is… DOT DOT DOT.

Wow, the animation and art was absolutely abysmal this episode. The thermometer literally floated below the nurse’s hand into Chiaki’s. Then we had the lighting issues. One moment the nurse’s office was brightly animated and then the next, everything was shadowed. I’m not even certain what was happening while Kana was giving her ‘be athletic’ speech. She looked like she was having a seizure. When Fuyuki called Touma ‘kun’, she also looked like her face was about to explode.

So, Fuyuki… you hung around for awhile… irritated me… and then left. What was the point of you, you joyless stick in the mud? I guess they finally got around to reviving the one plot development over the entire 26 episodes… though why they would have introduced it a month earlier, completely ignored it, and then tried to bring it back like this was some kind of plot driven show is absolutely beyond me. Meh, this episode was pretty poor and even the humorous parts were marred by the absolutely dreadful animation. I think the artists got into the booze a week early.

Preview:

Life as usual, PLUS THE OH SO IMPORTANT DRAMA OF MAYBE HARUKA MOVING OUT.

Posted in Minami-ke | 10 Comments »

10 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Haesslich says:
    March 23, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    Ohsweet–

    Mako-chan went to school as Mako-chan? Even with Fuyuki having shown up at all, this episode tops the last one easily. He truly IS broken.

    Now, they’re following up the drama thread… alas. :P This show works better as a straight comedy – which means the whole ‘ohnoes! Haruka-neesama is going away’ thing doesn’t work too well.

    But between the way the school doctor was putting the thermometer the wrong place and Fuyuki leaving, plus Mako-chan…

  • Gummi says:
    March 23, 2008 at 5:49 pm

    HOLD ON whats this talk about Haruka leaving? or moving away? I mean if Haruka is going away? I mean to where? If she leaves the apartment and just leaves to live on her own and leaving Chiaki and Kana to live by themselfs, its like abandoning two kittens who never learn even to walk :S

  • Aroduc says:
    March 23, 2008 at 6:04 pm

    It’s that random ‘study abroad’ thing that they brought up about a month ago and then promptly forgot.

    And Makoto didn’t show up in drag, he just changed into it and apparently borrowed someone’s makeup kit.

  • Haesslich says:
    March 23, 2008 at 6:18 pm

    …

    Still, he appeared in school in DRAG. Where Chiaki could connect two and two (‘Hey, Makoto looks familiar… WAITASEC–‘). And he learned to put on makeup.

    There is no hope for him, at least not as someone protesting that he has ‘wild manliness’. However, I see great potential for him in an okama bar – someone needs to let Ranka (Ryouji Fujioka) know about Mako-chan.

  • Aroduc says:
    March 23, 2008 at 6:44 pm

    Pfft. It’s just the law of cartoon drag queens in action. Any male in drag will be found attractive. Even when it’s a total joke. This has held true since the 1930s with Loony Tunes and Makoto’s not about to buck tradition.

  • Vangui says:
    March 23, 2008 at 6:52 pm

    Well, at least the people are normal colored now (with only a few black people on the background).

  • Haesslich says:
    March 23, 2008 at 10:13 pm

    … and it’s cute that Fujioka got tapped as Chiaki’s ‘dad’ – although given her neesama fixation.. I’m kinda worried about what’ll happen in a few years, if she decides that Fujioka will never have a shot at Kana. :P

  • Haesslich says:
    March 23, 2008 at 11:08 pm

    Aroduc: Except that, where those ‘queens’ tend to appear comical (see “Tootsie” and “To Wong Foo, and Thanks For Everything Judy Newmar”), Mako-chan looks damned good in it. Just as Ranka looks much prettier as a woman than as an effeminate man.

    The problem HERE is just that, by dressing up like this at school, Chiaki could ‘out’ him mentally, which means no more visits to see Haruka-neesama for Mako-chan. That’s why I’m surprised he went through all this, and even put on makeup. It’s just like Kana said, a few eps back…

  • Minami Ke Okawari 12 at hontou ni sou omou? says:
    March 24, 2008 at 6:09 am

    […] doramaz coming soon. This is where I disagree with totali and Aroduc about the significance of Fuyuki. I’ve never liked his character and most of his scenes were […]

  • Sheba says:
    March 24, 2008 at 8:15 am

    >> Pfft. It’s just the law of cartoon drag queens in action. Any male in drag will be found attractive. Even when it’s a total joke. This has held true since the 1930s with Loony Tunes and Makoto’s not about to buck tradition.

    Exception to the rule would be Joseph Joestar. He tried the trap tactic on nazi guards. It did not go as planned.