In Kawaisugi crisis I keep wondering what the status of Earth’s annihilation is. While the aliens aboard the station still haven’t experienced a real cat, apart from Fiana, they’re giving Liza a lot of leeway about all this. Well, since they’re masters of the galaxy I guess they can afford to take some time with it. As for the episodes it starts with Yozora getting a bath, about what you’d expect except he’s more patient than I expected. I had high hopes for the visit to the Izu Saboten Zoo, and while Liza does meet a capybura, and a llama, the reaction is different; she’s hypnotized by their sheer zen rather than freaking out over the cute. But she makes an ass of herself at the zoo and we don’t get to see anything else, really. No red pandas! What’s the point of going to a zoo if you don’t see the red pandas?! They’re at the zoo, we just don’t get to see them, dammit! Sigh, we move on to episode 7 and a visit to the station and the handing out of cat-gifts to soften the aliens up, which works. Then they create a device that scans Yozora and makes a Mecha-Yozora, and this wasn’t too bad until it attains consciousness and demands to be the only pet. Too bad. I had liked the bits where Y and Mecha-Y were play-fighting on top of Liza. As for next week I think we’ll see lots of bunnies, if you like that sort of thing, and Garmie and Luster seem to.
Tonikaku Kawaii 6 concludes the hot springs visit, lots of Nasa thinking “My wife is so cute!” along with the both of them dreading/wanting the shared bath in their room. In the end it works out as you’d expect, with two very shy people saying “don’t look” a lot, well, Tsukasa does, and then relaxing and having fun in the tub. So this married couple sort of take a step away from the simple-dating relationship to one where they’re actually, you know, married. Well, it was very sweet. Episode 7 doesn’t seem like much, buying an air conditioner, etc, but we meet two fun new characters. First there’s Nakiri, who works in a parts store. Fascinated that her middle-school friend Nasa is married, she asks him all sorts of questions about what marriage and girls are like, since her mind is wrapped up in car engines and the like, and she’s gay. The second girl is a friend of Kaname named Kyuume, excitable and air-headed, who has a run in with Tsukasa and goes off on wild tangents. She’ll be a good chaotic presence in the show, though for me she’s a bit too much. Oh, Nasa installs the AC himself, which works in the manliness department, at least for Tsukasa.
The last of the 6-7s, Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia, had me seriously worried for a while. In episode 6, amid the preparations for the meteor shower party, nerve-wracking in itself (can Ganta pull this off), and recruiting friends to help, including a charming scene between him and Kanami, where I wondered if Ganta was helping her practice pitching just to get her involved in helping, or because he’s a nice guy who can’t say no? … Anyway, all this stuff going on, and Isaki drops a bombshell. After Ganta takes a photo of her she says good. “Leave a trace of me behind.” Leaving me to wonder if she said that because this will be a “cute girl tragically dying at the show’s end for no reason except to yank tears out of us” type of story. I hate those!
I still have worries, but episode 7, maybe the best of the lot, allayed my fears a little. In it, the gang hand out fliers at the local festival and reconvene at the roof to watch the fireworks. It starts with Ganta and Isaki arriving early and Ganta telling her that he’s actually having fun these days. Any forward step in the romance is interrupted, of course, by the arrival of the other girls, so we get a few minutes of everyone having fun, and Ganta acting like a happy fool, proving his earlier point. After that, we learn where Isaki’s prophetic words came from. Her heart has been messed up since childhood, and while she’s physically strong now she still has a fear of it going wrong, and her dying. But it’s fear alone, and the show has done nothing to suggest there’s an illness creeping up on her. I just hope it’s not a sudden thing at the end, which would be a REAL cheap shot. Well, let’s leave it as it is for now. Anyway, after that, after Ganta swears he’ll always listen to her at night, but she’s afraid of waking people up if she calls, Ganta has her install a radio app, and so they both can transmit messages, and in a lovely scene, Ganta hears her broadcast … and fall asleep.
On to the 8s, my god I’m almost caught up! We have Lv999 and Yamada’s school festival, which the guild decides to visit. The key point is another step forward in the romance, or a misunderstanding leading to greater understanding, when Eita playfully suggests that Yamada and Akane should start dating. He meant it as a joke, but it leads to Akane freaking out, and goodness knows what was going on in Yamada’s head. They clear it up in the end, though I don’t buy Yamada’s honest reply about if the proposition was serious, that he considered her out of his league. I know he’s dense and all, but surely he’d have realized the effect he has on girls by now. Still, a nice scene. But what really makes this episode fun, one of the best so far, is it’s happening in a school festival. So now only do we have the shoujo angle, but there are also the usual game character asides, and distractions, Runa wanting snacks in spite of her anxiety-induced stomachache, and above all, all the girls in the school are shocked to see Yamada walking with a strange, older woman, and they want answers! These things are juggled so that almost every scene, apart from the floaty shoujo ones, has something fun and interesting to watch. Great fun.
And finally, Jijou no Shiranai ga Guigui kuru 8, which starts with a nothing-much bit where our couple visit Takada’s sister’s middle school festival (a lot of festivals this week), followed by teasing about being on a date, oh, and on that note, Akane’s to be a witch in their school play, but once again Takada turns it back on the teasers without even knowing he’s doing it. More of the same. The second half is far better as Takada coaxes Akane to the top of the jungle gym and talks about doing things with her, and the athletic festival coming up, then Akane falls and Takada breaks his arm protecting her … Did we really have to hear that crunch? It made me wince as much as I did watching MiA 10. The first real serious moment of the series.
But it leads to one of my favorite scenes from the manga, at the hospital, Akane distraught, her dad with her, and out comes Takada’s cool mom. She’s all smiles even as she describes her son’s injury (“It snapped like a twig!”), and then gently reassures the sobbing Akane. Yes, what they did was a little dangerous, but Takada-kun’s to blame, too. What’s more, she tells her just how much her son likes Akane, and he would be glad that Akane’s not hurt, thanks for being such a good friend to him, and other things that Akane needed to hear. In other words, the mom knows exactly what Akane’s feeling, and uses her kindness and smiles to make her feel better. As the topper, the next day Takada-kun’s in a cast but in his usual high spirits (the cast is to keep the Dark Dragon sealed away, you see), and says, word for word, what his mom did: he’s glad she’s not hurt.
Too Old for Anime 