Seikon on Qwaser 2 annoys me less, Hanamaru Kindergarten 2 not at all

After an ep1 that tested my kind nature, Seikon no Qwaser 2 actually turned out to be pretty good. It’s still routine and full of cliches, but it didn’t present everything in such an annoying way.

One reason is that it started light. After Mafuyu confronts Sasha about what the hell happened the other night, he collapses, and we get a scene where the girls get to knock him off his pins a couple times, dressing him in a nightgown and feeding him. His line “Your borscht touched my heart” is probably the best anime line of the week. In addition, Teresa acknowledges that allowing Sasha to breastfeed is indeed embarrassing.

Then we get the inevitable battle, where the bad person kidnaps sidekick Ayana, and we get a surprise that turned me on my head, except, with a subsequent surprise, we learn who the real baddie is.

I wish they had stayed with Tomo.

A shame, really. Had Tomo actually been the bad person I would have tossed out most of my negative thoughts about the show overall. Having it actually be Ayana I should have seen coming. She had been asking too many questions about the hidden icon, and I remember myself wondering about that.

Oh, parts of this show still annoy me, but at least they keep the breastfeeding offscreen, I only wish they wouldn’t do as much of that to the fighting as they do. The direction in this show makes me scratch my head. But overall, this show has become a little too good to drop.

In Hanamaru Kindergarten 2 we get to see Tsuchida actually running a classroom. As you can guess it isn’t pretty, but he does his best and only gets chewed out by the principal twice. I expected as much. Being a teacher to small children must be an exhausting experience; I’m amazed by the people who actually do it. And poor Tsuchida is still learning the ropes.

I knew Tsuchida's words would come back to haunt him.

Worse, it’s not only the demands of the kids, but those of the fellow teachers that distract him. So while Anzu, Koude and Hiiragi do have an adventure exploring the school, part one is mainly about the adults. The principal declares that each class of kids takes on the personality of its teacher, and I shuddered a little thinking about Tsuchida. But then we have a nice moment where he helps kids with the big slide (seen from Anzu’s POV—I like how they manage to create the sense of wonder these kids feel), and we think Tsuchida might not be so hopeless after all.

Part two stars Hiiragi and introduces Kenji, an older student jealous that Hiiragi knows more than he does. Confrontation after confrontation results in his humiliation. The joke is that quiet, deadpan Hiiragi doesn’t understand what the fuss is all about. Finally, Kenji goes off into the forest at night to prove that there are ghosts there. Naturally, he gets scared. Guess who rescues him.

Love the bear suit.

Actually, it was thanks to Tsuchida, who called Hiiragi’s father, who has frequently taken Hiiragi out there to stargaze. But what’s best about this second half are the closing credits: it’s all Hiiragi’s fantasies.

A violent fantasy, perhaps, but what small child doesn't dream of being big and powerful?

As I said before, the show is good at showing us the experiences of small children from their view. They could, in fact, do more of it. It works especially well here because of the discrepancy between the action scenes and Hiiragi’s emotionless but cute face. Another good episode.

Seikon no Qwaser 1 Annoys Me; Hanamaru Kindergarten 1 Doesn’t.

I’m not sure why Seikon no Qwaser 1 annoyed me so much. It’s not like the show is unique with its Catholic trappings and fanservice, but the start (a girl gets sacrificed) to the end just made me growl. The idea that the Qwasers regain their energy through breastfeeding was the only fresh annoyance.

Maybe it was Tomo. Her bouncing breasts annoyed me, her high-pitched talk further annoyed me. The fact that the other kids in school hate her and Mafuyu (who seems to be the star, though why the other kids hate them I don’t get, which annoyed me) annoyed me. There was a mean spirit to the whole episode that turned me off.

This episode’s villain, who had gone to the church to find a certain religious icon and tries to torture info out of Mafuyu was a conglomeration of smug, laughing, villains from shows past. And annoyed me. And the good guy wasn’t much better.

Oh, shut up.

Alexander, I guess I’ll call him, though the show spun through so much cult-babble I’m not sure what his real name is, at least does something constructive. Never mind that he has to suck the breast milk of Teresa (who didn’t annoy me as much because she at least keeps her mouth shut) in order to do it. This naturally occurs mostly off-camera, in fact there are a lot of scenes where something happens but they don’t show it, rather panning to a still-shot and making me think my player had stuck.

Alexander’s another conglomeration of cliches. My god, another scythe! That’s three this season! And naturally, the day after Mafuyu is attacked, well, I bet you can guess:

Interesting dress code in that school.

THAT annoyed me. The fact that he’s a dick to his new classmates and grabs Tomo’s boob actually cheered me up a little. At least he doesn’t take shit from anyone. But is that enough for me to keep watching? Maybe. It’s also possible that I sat down to watch this show already annoyed and didn’t give it a fair shot, so I’ll give it one more episode to see if it ceases to annoy me.

Hanamaru Kindergarten annoyed me only once, when rookie teacher Tsuchida introduces himself to his class, and the suspicious parents. After innocent little Anzu tells everyone that he had come onto her, he goes into a sputtering denial and almost details the physical points of adult women he does like, at which point I went “Oh, dear,” and turned away. But this is a show whose good nature blows away anything really unpleasant, like Koume’s ribbon that winds up in a tree.

I sympathize with Tsuchida. In my old job I was a minority, a male librarian. In all my time working in libraries I had only one male boss. But Tsuchida has it worse; he’s in charge of tiny kids and watched by overly concerned parents. What complicates matters is that he does have an eye for women, especially his new coworker Yamamoto. But he’s eager to learn and genuinely loves kids, and that aspect of him takes precedence in this show. His faults are there only to spice things up a little.

Talking of spicing things up, Anzu’s mother Sakura is an interesting creature. She’s confident in Anzu but watchful of her (in fact, this show is full of scenes of small children interacting well with parents who obviously love them, adding to the overall happiness level), and when Anzu declares that she’s going to marry Tsuchida, Sakura loudly gives her parental approval, the funniest scene in the episode. She’s partly doing this because it’s harmless, and she knows Tsuchida already. She’s also doing it to mess with Tsuchida’s head. It will be fun to see what else she does to him.

Then there are the kids. I can see some people complaining that they’re little more than amorphous moe-blobs, but I prefer to see them as future high school cliché anime characters at a very young age. Anzu will be the spunky lead and love interest. Koume will be the shy best friend. Hiragi will be the quiet one who speaks in a monotone. Well, they all do that already. Apart from Tsuchida and Sakura the kids have more personality than most of the adults in the show, who are stuck with roles such as Parent or Teacher.

All in all it’s a happy little show that I intend to watch again. Some of the adults are interesting, and the moe-blobs are indeed cute. I am no longer annoyed.