minami-ke ~okawari~, everyone at once, thanks for the meal
Categories: anime, episodic review, fanservice, minami-ke, moe
Tagged: minami-ke
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Haruka, please don’t go either!
Oh noes! Minami-ke is over?! I… I… I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s a cold, dark world out there. Going cold turkey from brokenness will be tough, so let’s taper off with some end of the series awards.
I Like Where This Is Going Award
No matter how hard you try, you can’t censor their love. Night visit 4tw!
The I’m Getting Restless Award
Queue all the “She can sharpen my pencil anyday” comments.
(Still, melancholic Haruka is still damn delicious. Not just delicious– damn delicious.)
The You’re Doing It Wrong Award
I usually just make sure that I have a sharp knife before I start cutting onions. Wetting the onion or even tossing it into the freeze or a minute or two beforehand helps a lot too. And, whatever you do, don’t let Shigofumi run in the background on the TV.
Delicious Fish Award
I’m still convinced that one day Kana’s going to become one of those 300 pound guests on Jerry Springer. Is there a Japanese equivalent of Jerry Springer? I think he might want to start booking Kana for sometime in 2025 or 2026.
You’re Going To Get A Tummyache Award
How much did they eat?! It’s amazing that they ate so many plates… there’s ten plates there… let’s say two 8oz patties per plate… that’s 80oz of solid meat for each person… considering that the famous “Big Texan” steak is only 72oz, that’s a pretty damn impressive feat. Go take a victory lap in the bathroom, Touma.
(10 pounds of meat gets expensive too. Unless they have a Costco membership.)
A Nayuki Zombie Is Fine Memorial Award
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There’s A Lucky Guy Out There For You, I Think, Award
Gratz Uchida. Not sure what I enjoyed more this episode, her “Penguin, panda, anaconda” act or her “It’s so sticky between my fingers!” comment. I’m trying to think of an anime character as easily to manipulate as Uchida, and I’m failing. We may have to create the Uchida All-Stars in her honor. (But nothing beat how Kana so easily manipulated her into going to the bathroom.)
Most Banchou-like Award
Was there any doubt? While Chiaki might be naive (Fredo) and Kana might think she is the boss (Sonny), Haruka’s the true Don (Michael).
Truest Tears Award
Real heartfelt and emotional tears. Who would have thunk that an anime featuring the Dwight Howard of genderbendes could produce more suitable and honest tears than an anime named “True Tears.” I mean, if Haruka were your older sister, you’d cry too if she had to go overseas too. Especially if that mean you were going to be alone with your other older sister who might sell you for lunch money.
The Don’t Try This At Home Award
Surprised that the episode didn’t end with Kana burning down the apartment building. I expected major mishaps with Kana and an open flame. Oh well, i can’t wait for her future bestseller: “Kana Minami 365: A Year of Deliciously Broken Dinner Guests.”
AL MVP Award
I liked Riko’s swing. No obvious holes besides the fact that she’s in love with a guy who is in love with Kana. Riko and Keiko really didn’t have much of a role in ~Okawari~ as it was dominated by the loli brigade.
Manny Being Manny Award
Who else but Hosaka being Hosaka? Loved this final scene. How fitting. Though if he did come to SF, I’d go hang out with him.
The Kamina Memorial You Will Be Missed Award
Playing Keikenchi Joushouchuu for the final montage scene was a nice touch and nod to Doumu’s first 13 episodes. Gosh, I really ended up enjoying Minami-ke, and it didn’t really set in that “OMFG LAST EPISODE” until Keikenchi Joushouchuu started playing. It’s probably the comedy that I enjoyed most since Muteki Kanban Musume… and before that… Fumoffu. Now that’s rarefied air.
Whatever Minami-ke tried to do, it succeeded. It had a great blend of fanservice, comedy, moe, Bible Black, genderbending, brokenness, gar, and blaxploitation music. It’s certainly has the right tools to be successful. While I enjoyed both Doumu’s and Asread’s versions, I still prefer Doumu’s as it has the animation edge, the Hosaka fantasy edge, and more consistent bust sizing for Haruka. Asread, on the other hand, really took Mako-cakes to another level, and it’s really hard to complain about flotation devices.
The casting was almost perfect. Minori Chihara nailed her role as Chiaki, as did Rina Satou for Haruka. I can’t imagine any other voices for those two characters. Marina Inoue did a great job as Kana, which seems even greater considered that Tetsuya Kakihara was Fujioka, and I made zero “Hey, it’s Yoko doombitching Simon!” comments during the entire run. Horo and Lawrence weren’t as lucky. The most inspired choice of all was Daisuke Ono as Hosaka, and that was just a home run into McCovey’s Cove.
The only thing I can say is… I want another season.
Most Amazing Award
Second biggest failure of this episode was that we had Haruka in bloomers and a ponytail, and we didn’t get a good shot or a pan. Unforgivable. UNFORGIVABLE!!!
Most Broken Award
Oh come on, who else was I going to give one to? Though the biggest failure of the final episode was that we had no Mako-cakes. How is this possible? Minami-ke‘s signature character not showing up? Who was asleep at the wheel for this one? I want names, phone numbers, addresses of those responsible for this horrific screw-up. Unfortunately, the sad thing is that while epic melonpan (i.e. Haruka) come along once in a while (Haruka, Yoko, Kyou, Sumeragi, etc in the past year alone), epic brokenness is a rarer commodity. While epic melonpan is like a great perimeter player (i.e. Kobe), epic brokeneness is more like a great post player (i.e. Duncan). It might be another two years before another Mako-cakes or Mizuho-neesama. Will there be anyone else to break fanboys other than Kyonko in the foreseeable future?
Actually, scratch that… the real broken award goes to…
Real Most Broken Award
You, the fans. Greatest. Broken. Fans. Ever.
Thanks to everyone who stuck around Derailed for Minami-ke, and miracles to anyone left unbroken because of it. Minami-ke is one of those rare series that I enjoy more because of the interactions with Derailed’s readers. You’re all broken, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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79 Responses to “minami-ke ~okawari~, everyone at once, thanks for the meal”
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if we get a third season, i’m going to order a pair of custom made Minami-ke nike dunks out of sheer happiness.
>>Riko and Keiko really didn’t have much of a role in ~Okawari~ as it was dominated by the loli brigade.
Thats really ok though, I’d rather see my princess Uchida on screen than those two anyways.
Although the first season was amazing, I don’t think I was able to appreciate it as much until I saw the second season, every episode without Hosaka fantasies just grew my love for those fantasies in the first season even more.
+’s for second season: Chiaki’s Two-Tone hair color, Mako-cakes broken to the extreme, and of course plenty of screen time for princess Uchida, better OP/ED imo, GOD BELT.
-‘s Lazy animation sometimes ESPECIALLY with all the black people, horrible lack of Hosaka screen time and fantasies, no promise of third season.
Yeah it really was a great show I’ll miss it.
Minami-ke will be sorely missed in my book, indeed. Maybe I’ll have enough time to pick up all the pieces again.
I still want that damn Mako-cakes credit card.
(Also, is it odd that one of my friends totally thinks that Mako-cakes is moe? And she didn’t even read Derailed…)
Season one was the trophy piece in my opinion. The show gave off an electric vibe of creativity and passion in an industry accustomed to going through the motions. Okay, from what I’ve heard about anime studios I know this is impossible. Nevertheless, I got the feeling when I watched that the Doumu staff actually enjoyed animating Kana as she laughed maniacally and stirred up dish of nuclear aids and rice. The energy made me look forward to Minami-ke every week.
Source material contributed strongly to this. The characterizations were all vivid and originial, even among side characters. How did Sakuraba dream up Hosaka, for example? He’s a both gar and creepy, an amalgam of the hero from a shounen manga and that guy standing uncomfortably close to you on a Japanese subway. Makoto carried out the crossdressing role well enough that a whole generation of otaku has had to reconsider its sexuality. Oddly, the three main characters were the most archetypical (the kind-hearted beauty, the hyperactive boke, the loli tsundere), but even they were handled with a wonderful finesse (underlying banchou, idiot savant, flat stare and toned delivery).
Of course, the Asread interpretation was a nice wrapup. I found it lacked the energy of the first season, but everything that was good stayed good. Also, they managed to bring a rather heart-warming end to a slice-of-life comedy. I wasn’t exactly bawwwwwing at the hug scene, but I felt it was nice and appropriate and not a cheap “this is where we stop” ending.
A++ material and a sure-fire entrant into the ruling triad of comedy/slice-of-life anime.
Another thing Doumu had over Asread: Sensei and Ninomiya-kun. I really missed that in Okawari.
…I’d make Uchida happy.
Request: Fulfilled
Have a nice Day.
>> Minori Chihara nailed her role as Chiaki, Minori Chihara nailed her role as Chiaki
And some people were saying she can’t voice acting to save her life. *rooleyes*
Can we line up to be in Kana’s place in the first picture of this topic? I want a nice soft, warm, pillow to sleep on.
What is Chiaki yelling in the last picture? Is it something to do about not looking at her Haruka-neesama like that, or has she switched to “Hime” mode and asking us :”Who the hell do you think I am?”
Wait, what, we’re on the thirteenth episode already? Crap.
After all is said and done, I think I still prefer Doumu’s version over Asread’s, mostly due to reasons already mentioned in previous posts. I was skeptical last winter that Okawari could be as good as original, but they managed to pull it off splendidly. Incidentally, I’d need to check on this one but it seems they managed to say ‘okawari’ in every episode.
Alsi, I like how Hosaka (literally) gets the last laugh. Bring on the third season! I think KyoAni would be perfect for the job; it would give them yet another reason to push back FMP and Haruhi.
Quick note – I wish they’d animated the Hosaka laugh by showing his arms flung out to either side as they zoomed out the window. That, and how depressing it is to realize the last six minutes was the best animation in Okawari.
Thank you too Jason, it’s been a great ride. :)
Let me say it one last time:
Haruka IS amazing. :D
That, and how depressing it is to realize the last six minutes was the best animation in Okawari.
Surely, you missed the part where Chiaki literally went through a door. Best unintentional gag in the episode which is a bit sad I suppose… OH GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S ALL OVER.
Next time, I demand lots of excellent full body shots of Haruka in various moe attire. i.e. Meido, Miko, Waitress, and billions more.
I demand more nekkid scenes!
I demand more I AM BOSS shirts!
I demand more Hosaka fantasies. Infact, an entire episode should be devoted to following Hosaka around for a day.
I demand Kana sleeping with Fujioka because Chiaki fooled her into thinking it was an excellent way to get free Manga and food, so Chiaki can get a “dad” / “uncle”
I demand more Weather charm Chiaki!
I demand more Embarressing moments for Touma. Her embarressed face makes me forget she’s only 11. Yes. I’m going to the special hell. And if you just caught that reference, you’re awesome.
I demand more Haruka is amazing!
I demand more Senpai taking advantage of girls “drunk” of “juice”
Most importantly, beyond anything else. I demand more Mako-cakes. I don’t care if there is a penis on that or not. I want more Mako-cakes. The fact that (s)he’s cuter than most anime girls brings out weird and confusing emotions. None the less. More Mako-cakes.
>> -’s Lazy animation sometimes ESPECIALLY with all the black people, horrible lack of Hosaka screen time and fantasies, no promise of third season.
Add Fuyuki to the list.
GAR ending was GAR. There isn’t any other way to end off a season of Minami-ke. And by that, hopefully there will be a third season some time around!
They wouldn’t have to pay a thing for my 10 pounds of meat.
I’m in despair! The end of the Minami era has left me in despair! I’m going to need a
ChiakiMako-cakesHosakaHaruka body pillow to make it through the night now.PQQ – I’ll make sure Haruka’s cleaver is ready.
Asread enjoyed Hosaka and Mako-chan way, WAY too much to judge by the attention paid to animating both. Maybe they miss SHUFFLE too much, and spent more care on Mako-chan and Hosaka (two characters who might have broken Rin) as a result.
Mm… Minami-ke Live event. Highlights like the following:
– (井上 麻里奈): ã‚ãŸã—é”ã®å¥³æ€§äººã¯ã‚¢ãƒ•ãƒ¬ã‚³ç¾å ´ã§ä¿å‚ã®ã‚«ãƒƒãƒˆãŒå‡ºã¦ãã‚‹ãŸã³ã«ã€‚。。
– Inoue Marina: After Hosaka’s recording scene is done (cut), us girls think…
＊ã‚モイã€ã‚モイã€ã‚モイ。 ã‚モイã€ã‚モイã€ã‚モイ。＊
(whispering)… *that’s gross. that’s disgusting. that’s shameless. yeah, that is gross. that’s sick. what’s wrong with him?*
>>Alsi, I like how Hosaka (literally) gets the last laugh. Bring on the third season! I think KyoAni would be perfect for the job; it would give them yet another reason to push back FMP and Haruhi.
I wouldn’t even mind, considering.
Though I’d rather see a KyoAni remake of Shana…
I’m going to miss this show.
Hosaka’s gonna get himself into a lot of trouble with the TSA if he keeps up with the laughing all the way to the West Coast.
(And what in the hell did they do to that poor ketchup bottle next to Touma? It takes a lot of abuse to make HDPE do that.)
Will: I think Hosaka will get his own Food Network show, should he hit San Francisco. It’ll be like a cross between a Chippendale show and Emeril.
And given Kana’s cooking, I suspect the ketchup was the only way they could down the burgers… or it was a substitute for screaming (squeeze the bottle instead of crying aloud while eating).
You know, you can track the breaking of Haesslich in all the Minami-ki posts. It starts with Haruka, but slowly starts to shift as Mako-chan enters the scene. The focus remains on Haruka until 2008, when the flotation devices fail to distract from a moe Mako-cakes with Touma. You can see this as the breaking point from the rapid fire posting that begins late in the Episode 13 posts before Okawari got its own posts, then it is a steady stream of brakeage, with minor bumps pf imagining Fuyuki dead. Jason could get a government grant to examine this.
They all combined to break me faster than Mizuho broke Jason. Gotta love them all (except Fuyuki) for their various types of breakage. That, and my sudden desire to be a Hayami-senpai. I think I am this blog’s Hayami-senpai as I keep derailing posts, creating trouble, and trying to break everyone around me.
This should come back when they have more volumes of 4koma’s to work off of. Or when KyoAni decides they want to do a remake in a year.
The only disappointment of this series is just how few images there are in the interwebs to sate the unquenchable thirst. Good times, good times.
“-’s Lazy animation sometimes ESPECIALLY with all the black people,”
Those aren’t people they’re obviously torches. a tomogara out break ate all the non main characters between seasons.
Hosaka in the USA! He travels the country, teaching yanks how to be awesome at life.
There either needs to be a reverse-Megatokyo-like doujin series, OR
A three minute skit with Hosaka in the US in every episode (of the third season,) around the time of the episode break.
Thinking on it, if something were to turn Chiaki ever so slightly in the delinquent direction, she could make a fair Kyon-ko in a few years.
Minami-ke WILL BE MISSED! Gah! it was such a great series, both of the studio versions. Although now i kinda want another studio to pick up another 13 eps, and to have it go around till every studio makes a version of minami-ke. The ending with Hosaka going to San Fran was awesome, and just look at how he dresses too! I demand DVD special eps for all the missed Hosaka Day dreams and a Hosaka in the USA OVA!
>>Add Fuyuki to the list.
Oh god of course how did I forget, I hate that guy too. He served like no purpose at all.
>>Those aren’t people they’re obviously torches. a tomogara out break ate all the non main characters between seasons.
If only the universes of Minami-ke and Shana collided, I don’t think Chiaki and Shana would get along, or Kana and Shana for that matter, although I wonder if Kana could successfully manipulate Shana at all…
I wish Asread performed as well as Doumu. I saw in an earlier post that someone gave the first season a 9 and the second an 8 or 8.5. I would say Asread did at least 2 points lower than Doumu. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the second season.
I have to say that throughout these two seasons, I have remained more or less unbroken (I only wavered once). I never really got into the whole Mako-cakes deal… right up until that last image of your post from the previous episode. Now I’m broken. Thanks, Jason, you bastard.
Both versions were great. The first was a little more manic, the second a little more emotional.
What made Okawari stand out for me, and it surprises me that no one else has mentioned it so far, is what appears to be a deliberate focus on Kana’s physical charms. Without reviewing the episodes, by my recollection there were at least 3 occasions, possibly more, when there was a slow pan across Kana’s body, and ending with a close-up of her ass.
I’m hoping the third season of Minami-ke will be the hentai version by Milky.
wp: That’s because Mako-chan, in that magazine art, is more girly than Touma and Chiaki put together. Hell, he’s got the lowest neckline on his dress and that brooch or clasp is the perfect accessory to set off the cardigan he’s wearing over that dress. Then again, it’s not like it’s without precedent in Okawari… I mean, he even got a frilly purse to match the frills on the cuffs of the slip which he wore over the long-sleeved shirt, and had bows on the boots. A purse – I don’t think we’ve seen Haruka carry anything as feminine as that, much less her sisters.
And it’s not his fault that Mako-chan breaks everyone, including Mizuho and Jun Watarase. Those three, if they’d put their minds to it, could probably destroy whole armies through their appearances.
grepthis2000: I’m surprised they increased her ‘physical charms’ over the relatively normal Doumu version (which is more faithful to her manga appearance). It’s not like they couldnt’ have used Haruka for that type of fanservice… but I guess they decided Fujioka had to have breasts to look at/feel on his back or something.
By the way, the Starchild Live event on DVD 1 of the first season’s… well, Daisuke Ono gets to sound like Hosaka on stage, which is quite memorable, since you get the whispering in the background about how disgusting he (Ono) is as a result…
I must say… i never fully understood fuyuki’s purpose…. I unlike most people didn’t hate him.. just didn’t understand how they was using him. Good to see he sent a letter though…. also good seeing Makoto back to being Makoto… and i would be sobbing to if Haruka was leaving >__>
Edit: (half my post disappeared… >__>
I’m not ashamed of being broken thanks to Minami-ke; I was broken from the start.
Now I’ll miss Kana’s antics, Haruka’s melon pan and Chiaki’s harem; and of course, Mako-chan!!
You’ll be remembered Minami sisters. Please come back as many times as you want.
Cue the mad Hosaka-style laughter zoom-out.
Nothing made the episode more than EPIC HOSAKA ENDING.
I mean, yeah. Haruka not leaving at all and the return of the first season OP for the end credits are heartwarming, but it wouldn’t be a final Minami-Ke episode without EPIC HOSAKA ENDING.
I don’t want you to leave either,Haruka-neesama!
Mako-chan…Amazing Haruka…Hosaka and that blow-up bear…Chiaki’s duplicating ahoge…I was dubious at the start,but it’s proven itself to be a worthy successor; not the same quality,but close.
You will be bloody well missed,I’ll tell you.
Again,the comments here made it twice as much fun. I wouldn’t have watched it without you lot :D.
Hosaka in the USA! Hosaka in the USA!
Now I can’t get that stupid John Mellencamp tune out of my Head.
And did they ever explain why the teacher said Haruka was going overseas? Did Haruka change her mind or what? Really, it was the “dropping the ball” moments of the second season that made it less enjoyable than the first. The second just lacked follow through on too many occasions and left the viewer going “And?” a bit too often.
Couse, that means my only real criticism is that they should have done more. MORE MORE MORE!
Jacob: I think it was more he’d offered it, she’d thought about it, then turned it down… but Maki got it all wrong, which is why Hayami-senpai wanted to punish her by spiking that volleyball into Maki’s face at the end.
We really DID need to have Hosaka in view as the laughter continued, if only to show him being obnoxious on the plane… and that’s why I said they didn’t need to add Drama, Jacob – as a result of it, it did feel like they had to force it in there, which is probably why Fuyuki never worked as a character; he was only there to leave.
And a belated response to Saotome’s post:
>> I demand Kana sleeping with Fujioka because Chiaki fooled her into thinking it was an excellent way to get free Manga and food, so Chiaki can get a “dad†/ “uncleâ€
In about six or eight years, I suspect that she (Chiaki) may take direct action if Fujioka is still interested in Kana but not getting any. You know it’s only a matter of time before she jumps Haruka-neesama.
I’m just saying…
“Thinking on it, if something were to turn Chiaki ever so slightly in the delinquent direction, she could make a fair Kyon-ko in a few years.”
This is why some of us are thinking that Minorin should voice Kyon-ko using a slightly older version of Chiaki’s voice rather than what the typical NicoNico or Youtube video using a “Haruhi” style voice.
Managed to get through Minami-ke without being completely broken! Thank you Doumu and Asread, and thanks especially to DbD and their readers for a completely fun, if sometimes weird, experience.
(resumes lurking…)
This poll leaves me in despair! No ‘not as bwr as Hosaka, Mako-chan, Asread, or Jason Miao?’
Zetsubou shita!!
Not as bad as the above three, even. I’m in despair!!
A great two seasons overall, and it would be nice if there were more adventures with the Minami family and co.
I guess the only thing that really bugged me about Okawari was the complete lack of Touma’s brothers, especially considering how late they came into the first season. I felt they injected a little more fun in the series, though maybe their shtick might have gotten old fast.
But then I remember that Mako-chan will never die. (S)he won’t. .\/.
I’m going to miss this series. :(
I’m also glad that the true correct choice is leading right now in the poll. :3
maybe i can get my full post in this time… even thought it is already outdated…
I am sobbing now knowing Hosaka is going to San Fran and not New York…. OTL.
I think a girl like Touma would be the perfect wife once you got her cooking…. but my instincts tell me said girl would be likely to burn down the house ala Kana before you get a Hosaka let alone a Haruka type meal. Hosaka should be on Iron Chef… i think he would be the perfect flamboyant spokesman to bring it back to its former glory… Just gotta keep him from undressing before the meal is done…definitely get the female and broken audience…easily…. >_>
Touma’s a great girl… and it doesn’t matter if she cooks or not, she just is. Chiaki’s pretty good too, but.. well, let’s just wait on that, eh?
And now the image of Hosaka as the Chairman won’t leave my head. (And I know I’m going to get hunted down for what I’m about to write, but I can’t help it…)
——–
The Chairman’s breath hissed in as he paused, then with a jerk flung both the blanket as well as his dark jacket off to reveal the secret ingredient, shouting, “Ma-kombu!”
Another moment of pregnant silence ensued as the explanation voice-over went through, before Hosaka stepped back, releasing the items he held as he turned his gaze between the Iron Chef and hopeful contestant. A courtly sweep of his hands brought his arms out, then he bowed slightly to both men.
“Now,” Hosaka finished, spreading his arms wide, “ALLEZ CUISINE!”
Says something that I liked Fuyuki most when he was just a piece of paper.
Also took great satisfaction from the fact that Chiaki, while she was definitely happy, she still had a bigger reaction to a cup of ramen than she did to the postcard.
It might not have been as great as the first season, but when my first though to Kana in bed with Chiaki was “Aww, she’s actually really scared.” then they must have been doing something right.
They’ve shown that they care for one another because they’re sisters, even if Kana can be an ass – the Ramen incident you named is one such example. There’s also the fact that Chiaki keeps letting herself get talked into helping Big Sis Kana even when it’s not a good idea (witness the glass rabbit incident). They just show their feelings most of the time through abusing one another, like brothers.
>> It might not have been as great as the first season, but when my first though to Kana in bed with Chiaki was “Aww, she’s actually really scared.†then they must have been doing something right.
Whereas I was thinking more along the lines of Jason: “She spoons her pillow, her manga, and now it’s Chiaki!”
I know it’s been mentioned, but Kyoto Animation is planning the third season.
Strange how I followed the first season like a madman, and missed the second season entirely :/
When Another Jason mentioned Hosaka as the Iron Chef, my mind suddenly shut down and I was literally yelling out “Oh God no!, NO!”
Even now, I can’t even get myself to ponder over the thought, and I don’t know why.
Perhaps the world, or at least I, cannot stand up to such a situation. It’s just too powerful, sort of like that rollercoaster you decide to go on, then, once you see it, run away from in a screaming fit. It’s just too epic.
>>Whereas I was thinking more along the lines of Jason: “She spoons her pillow, her manga, and now it’s Chiaki!â€
Well, my second thought was “I bet this would have been different if that was Haruka-nee-sama”
In defense of Fuyuki, he wasn’t a bad character he was just misused because the writers apparently couldn’t think of a way to pull the funny out of a repressed guy with daddy issues + romantic tension with Chiaki. They couldn’t even make a proper joke about his inability to say “no” to any request. If this was a dorama instead of freaking Minami-ke then they could have used him properly; too bad this was freaking Minami-ke and his lack of funny made him a drag on the whole show.
The lack of Minami bros was truly the worst part of Okawari, other than the terrible animation inconsistency. I see the oldest as the anti-Haruka in that he totally fails at all the sib-parent things that Haruka has mastered. Minami bro #2, ie the luckiest man on Earth (reference all his interactions with Haruka), was basically Hosaka, Jr. But the one with the most potential for hijinx was Minami bro #3, especially as he seemed to get along with Kana as a friend better than her other age peer friends, was attracted to Fujioka’s stalker Reiko, and could trigger Bancho Fujioka. Really Asread, you couldn’t find ANYTHING here to work with? Kana’s whole age group was pretty much wasted on the whole, which just makes all the wasted Fuyuki screen time even more annoying.
Out of curiosity, how much of the manga did the two shows use, and how much is left for a potential third series?
JohnG: Romantic tension? It’s more like he’s horribly repressed, and she gets pissed off at people who are utter doormats because they dislikes dishonesty… and because he did curry favor with Haruka-neesama, making her look bad. Fuyuki’s problem was that he was there, basically, to leave – to drop drama into a show that, up till that point, didn’t have it and didn’t really NEED drama to make it work. And, because the drama angle got muffed, he (and the drama arc) was basically wasted, making what could’ve been a great season merely ‘okay, despite the Fuyuki bits’.
Seriously, I hate it when writers or directors feel a comedy has to have drama, because it’s not ‘serious entertainment’ otherwise. Comedies can have dramatic elements, but when you mix something like the first season with a drama, you get a soggy mess like Okawari’s middle third… which wasn’t really all that funny, save for some highlights (Mako-chan in meido comes to mind).
And as far as the Minami brothers, the reason they (and the rest of Kana’s class, especially the delicious-looking Reiko and Keiko) were because they were reinforcing the loli brigade this season, since Fuyuki was in it. To quote episode 2, the result was ‘orz’.
… and I belong in the 100%, but not lusting after Mako-chan category of broken, which probably means I’ve broken this post and the responders to it most thoroughly since nobody’s even blinked at the Hosaka-As-The-Chairman comment. But he has such flair that he could’ve pulled off the Chairman role with the same verve that Takeshi Kaga did, but with more shirt-unbuttoning.
Of course there was romantic tension, even the other people in the show thought there was. It was just horribly written and like you said, the infusion of drama was a terrible mistake in the whole Minami-ke setup, especially when the drama character was not used as a comedic character at all.
That was about as romantic as Kana’s kick to Fujioka’s face when he beat her grades. Actually, there was more romance in that one since Fujioka DID have a romantic interest in Kana, and did give her a love letter at the start of the show which Chiaki… creatively reinterpreted, before claiming his lap as her personal property.
He didn’t really have a place in the show, especially since the drama ended up being about as good as the ‘romance’ between him and Chiaki. I think that I saw a better romance in Gundam 00 between Tieria and Lockon than I did those two… which says something. :P
>>I think that I saw a better romance in Gundam 00 between Tieria and Lockon than I did those two… which says something.
“More pronounced” would be a more appropriate term. “Better” is stretching it a little. In like a OH GEASS NO kinda way.
It was STILL better than this – as badly written as most Gundam ‘romances’ tend to be, there’s usually more sexual tension as well as pathos than these two had. They were about as romantic as Takeru and Fujioka were in the first episode (aka: not at all).
Looking at the poll… oh my. It seems Minami-ke has, if nothing else, inflicted a dire blow against Derailed’s melonpan, sexually-normal readership. Is there any other anime where a D-cup, juicy-thighed girl like Haruka loses the locus of fanservice to an eleven year old boy? Holy crap.
No, no. Haruka is still amazing. But that was not the question. The question was “how broken are you?”
>> Looking at the poll… oh my. It seems Minami-ke has, if nothing else, inflicted a dire blow against Derailed’s melonpan, sexually-normal readership. Is there any other anime where a D-cup, juicy-thighed girl like Haruka loses the locus of fanservice to an eleven year old boy? Holy crap.
I fapped to Haruka’s floating devices, so don’t put me in the “broken by Mako-cakes” crowd please.
Sheba… sadly you and me are a dieing race on this blog…. The good ol’days when we talked about Mikuru’s Tea and costume rapping seem only like a dream now… It is now a world where the loli-shota-trap dominants the scene and gone are the days where Meido’s and Bell-chan smiled gently upon us. The end is niy…. “goes of to watch red vs bluel“
This isn’t about fanservice (because no one can defeat Haruka-neesama is Amazing), this is about the Broken. Just because you are broken, doesn’t mean that Haruka is less amazing, far from it. Our most broken soul, Haesslich, still worships Haruka-neesama and the avatar of the God Empress. Thus the effect of the Mako-cakes is just a magnifier for broken. Hosaka on the other hand, may tip the balance of power. But the merger, I mean union, between Hosaka and Haruka is Amazing would shatter all. Would the God Empress be able to stand against that kind of power? Or is Mako-cakes there to maintain the balance?
You can’t forget All-Woman Mikuru, who I mentioned as needing to be part of the Repair Team I would need after going completely loco and thinking I was Hosaka. And you know what the God Empress would say about such a union:
“I want to see you two in these outfits, so we can advertise the SOS-Dan club!”
… and in the Starchild Live special, during his introduction, Ono Daisuke indicated he was Hosaka… then started publically stripping on stage and rubbing his chest. No wonder the girls said he (Ono Daisuke) was disgusting while he was recording…
Yes, we MUST have Itsuki making a Minami-ke reference at some point – perhaps by going into a fugue over food and stripping.
I think Fuyuki’s purpose in the series was to make Chiaki more…human. And to give her somebody to have a bit of a crush on.
She wanted to make him more forthcoming…less of a freakin’ doormat. I don’t think it worked that well, all told…but we did see more Concerned Chiaki when he was around than otherwise. The postcard Chiaki got at the end…my subber didn’t put anything on there about who it was from, but I’m thinking it was Fuyuki…and Chiaki *smiled*. You can count the times she actually smiled on one hand!
Anyhow….
I WANT MORE MINAMI-KE! KyoAni WOULD be a great company to do a third season…But wouldn’t it be great if it *really* made the rounds, and a whole BUNCH of animation houses got to give their takes of the Minami Sisters? Think of it!
Gonzo(?) could make it all about Banchou-Haruka and her minions, rulin’ the school an’ killin’ dudes for profit! In maid outfits with a russian chick!
CLAMP could make it all about the firey romance between Hosaka and Mako-chan!
Bandai would give everybody giant robots!
Studio Ghibli would make it freakin’ EPIC.
Broccoli could make it even MORE Random!
Milky or Pink Pineapple could make the hardcore porn we all want!
….did I say that last part out loud? *cough*
Oh, and how could I forget…
Gainax could remake Evangelion…again…with the Minami-ke cast!
C’mon, who’d make a better Asuka than Chiaki? Misato is Haruka…Fuyuki is Rei…
Hosaka would naturally be Gendou.
No, no GONZO – it would focus on Fuyuki, and drop Haruka and Chiaki in favor of more Takeru time. And do away with Hosaka shots to give us Kana panty flashes.
>> You can count the times she actually smiled on one hand!
I assume you’re excluding all the times with Haruka.
“CLAMP could make it all about the firey romance between Hosaka and Mako-chan!”
Never do that when I’m eating. I laughed so hard I almost choked on chocolate.
You need Toei to make a movie version, then Kyoto will step up to the plate and make Haruka is ultra amazing and we get prime Hosaka fantasies.
Shaft Minami-ke will be about Hosaka and his LSD-like fantasies.