badger11’s take on anime

Manabi pulls a Haruhi on Mei

From episode 4
Funniest lines so far:
Muuchi: Fugusashi!
Mikan: You need a license to process Fugu.
Mikan: The little people came out while we were sleeping-
Muuchi: Sure (slap)

I don’t know why episode 4 struck me as having the funniest lines so far (well, those that I can remember) despite the issues that Mei faced. I think it must be Muuchi’s enthusiasm to inflict a potential deadly food choice on her classmates followed by Mikan’s straight delivery. Or maybe it was Manabi’s imitation of Thumper on too much caffeine. I really lost it with Mikan’s enthusiastic belief that the “little people” finished their promotion. Its probably the enthusiasm from the characters that is causing me to enjoy this show with each new episode. And I like the the facial distortions in these last two episodes.

Episode 3 was a fairly pedestrian episode. Manabi looses her confidence when she compares herself to the the uber-cool Student President from Aikoh, a sister school. Even though the president praises her idea of putting a dodgeball tournament together, a later meeting with other student presidents shakes Manabi’s confidence. A later meeting with the Aikoh student president eventually leads Manabi to realize that comparisons between her and the Aikoh student president and between the schools themselves is useless and that was what the Aikoh student president was trying to tell her.

Where episode 3 focused on Manabi’s confidence, episode 4 focus’s on Mei’s trust in others. Apparently Mei has been dealing with the feelings of being taken advantage of since grade school Which explains why she has gone to great lengths to distance herself from others with the exception of Muuchi. Despite the having to deal with her feelings when Manabi makes a innocent remark. The remark stirs up feelings that all Manabi is interested in is Mei’s computer skills in order to create a promo to be used to get the school’s students interested in the upcoming school fair.

Since she’s built up walls in order to protect herself, she hasn’t seen Manabi’s genuine interest in her as a friend. In Manabi style, Mei (and us) find out why Manabi wants to be friends with Mei. She knows that Mei is smart enough and that its the norm for students to drop out and make a good living. And Mei is capable of doing that. At a student assembly, Manabi, Mikan, and Muuchi show the school fair promotion. Unfortunately the computer systems crashes and Mei finally comes out of her shell to save the day and eventually join the student council.

I think that’s what I like about this show. The enthusiasm of its characters. Its Manabi’s enthusiasm that gets her elected to the student presidency, gets the school excited about the school its by using a remodeling of the student council room, and the dodgball tournament. Her enthusiasm carries over to Mikan and Muuchi’s as they work on the promotional video for the upcoming school fair.

That and the great facial distortions. Granted, they aren’t on the same level as Higurashi but I liked them.

And Mei is rocks.