Aren’t you girls a little young to be going to Comiket unsupervised?

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Episode Six

The majority of episode six is spent at “Comuket”, the all-girls spin-off of Comiket.  I really enjoy convention episodes, and although this one wasn’t quite as funny as last season’s, I really enjoy seeing girls in anime do things anime fans do.  Kyouko is a very overzealous anime fan, but I’ve actually met a lot of people like her, so to see the girls frolicking around in costume is always fun.  It takes a significant amount of suspension of disbelief to see anything related to Comiket as something middle school girls could safely run around at unsupervised, but I guess you just have to roll with the punches.

The episode opened with a small fan cartoon of Mirakurun that Kyouko did for this year’s Comiket, and although I don’t particularly like the Mirakurun segments (I think they’re a bit too straightforwardly stupid), I really enjoyed the art and the bit at the end of the segment where Rivalrun and Mirakurun went bowling.  The last five minutes or so was just the girls making random conversation about the end of the summer, and the whole segment was worth it because of the way Akari had to speak the entire time (like she was from Ye Olden Days).

Since most of the episode was devoted to one plot, the pace was a bit slower. As I said before, I really like the Comuket episodes, and having Akari and Chinatsu tag along was a good way to make the experience different from the first time without making it over the top.

GO Rating: 4/5

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Episode Seven

This week’s episode focuses on sisters, some of whom we’ve already met (like Himawari and Yui’s little sisters) and some of whom we’ve heard about but never actually seen.  Of all the sisters, the little girls are probably my favorite, but we don’t see much of Mari or Kaede.  We see a small feature on Chizuru and Chitose, but my favorite sisters were Sakurako’s big and little sisters.  Nadeshiko and Hanako are much more serious than their middle sister, and we see them giving her a hard time about being a distraction while they study; I really like how they look like her but not so much that they could be older clones of her.

Akari and Chinatsu’s big sisters fit the older clone bill and are really pretty creepy.  Tomoko, Chinatsu’s sister, seems genuinely nice with a bit more of an obsession than any of the younger girls have, but she seems to be very similar to the twins in her tendency to fantasize even when other people are around.  Akane, who we’ve always known is a bit of an odd bird, just kind of squicked me out.  The whole joking innocent lesbian thing is cute, but when your big sister is stealing your uniform to make out with and putting your panties on your head, that’s just a bit too much.  Her segment was the very last one in the episode, and it left me with a rather bitter taste in my mouth.

I hope Nadeshiko and Hanako will make more appearances, and I’d love to see them interact with Kaede and just have a big family meal with Sakurako and Himawari (we saw significant Sakurako and Himawari focus again in this episode, so that tickled me pink).  I just could have done without the sister complex bit at the end.

GO Rating: 3.5/5