A blind date episode involving Panda and Shirokuma? This should be interesting.

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It’s been established in the past that when it comes to attracting the ladies, Handa is quite lacking. If you remember, there was an entire segment dedicated to trying to get Handa to achieve moteki, his popularity period with the opposite sex. Panda, on the other hand, is the opposite—not just with the ladies, but guys too. So it’s no surprise that a blind date set up by Kirino (the other zookeeper) intended to get Handa some female experience turns out the way it does when Panda (and Shirokuma) gets involved.

For the first time this season, the entire episode was driven by one narrative, which was quite the breath of fresh air. Panda accurately deduced by curiously looking through Handa’s “boring” bento — which he characterized as something a grandmother would make for herself — that Handa was a somewhat lonely man who didn’t socialize with the opposite sex much. This led to Kirino — who had extensive screen time throughout the episode — to set up a group blind date, to which Handa reluctantly agreed to after being pressured by Panda’s cuteness insistence. (Although, he did have to plans to clean his bathroom after work.)

After one of Kirino’s male friend cancels, Panda asks Shirokuma (and not a disappointed Penguin) to help fill in. This of course leads to awkward social situations and plenty of Panda-induced gushing.

This was a decent, straightforward episode with enough entertaining moments. Half of it was spent stationary in a karaoke room where the blind date took place. There wasn’t much animal humor (seeing Panda and Shirokuma on a blind date with human girls was a bit weird, though), but it was overloaded with Panda cuteness. If that’s your thing then you will love this particular episode. The girls who were part of the blind date constantly squeeing “Kawaii!” at Panda started to lose its charm after the 100th time.

While socially awkward Handa was fun to watch (he had a hilarious moment when he was describing how panda poo actually smelled like lemons), socially deprived Penguin almost stole the show. Also, I wasn’t really a fan of Kirino coming out of nowhere and receiving screen time all of a sudden. Hopefully my girl Sasako gets an entire segment dedicated to her before the season ends.

GO Rating: 3/5

Too. Much. Cute. Must. Resist. Hmodoignsoignaskdlgo.