Wednesday 4 March 2009

Minami-ke Okaeri - Episode 9

There's always something indescribably odd about watching Christmas-centric episodes at the beginning of March. Still, at least the weather is suitably seasonal for such an episode here in the UK right now, which is a start.

Anyhow, this episode kicks off with conflict aplenty - The cause of it all? Oranges. Well, to be more precise, Kana's refusal to give anyone else an orange she's picked out from the household box herself. A fair stance to take I suppose, but there's only so far you can go with controlling your oranges...


From here, we really enter into the Christmas spirit - Perhaps too much so in Chiaki's case, as she won't tell anyone else what she wants for Christmas despite creating a massive stocking for herself. In the end it seems that she really is happy with anything, leaving up to Santa's own discretion what to get her, and ending up with mittens as a result. Chiaki isn't the only one having Christmas present expectation issues, although Touma's problem goes to the other extreme, expecting a present that she doesn't want but getting nothing (on the day itself at least) thanks to Natsuki's forgetfulness.

While all of this is played rather straight and humour free relatively speaking, it's up to Hosaka to save the day courtesy of another of his ridiculous Haruka-related fantasies, which ends up with him... well, "raping a Christmas cake" is the only way I can think of to describe it. Don't worry though, it isn't quite as disturbing as it sounds, as serves as probably the funniest thing I've seen this week.

That laugh out loud moment aside, this was really a rather quiet episode of Minami-ke Okaeri, that served better as a demonstration of the little things that are likeable about this series (Kana's bizarre logic and Haruka's matronly attitude towards Natsuki spring to mind here) than any kind of evidence of top-notch comedy. Still, little things to make you smile (and big laughs about cake rape) can add up to something that is at least pleasant to watch.

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