Minami-ke Okaeri 1 review, the Minami-ke sisters are back.

 

        This episode begins in typical Minami-ke fashion, with Haruka and Chiaki getting ready for their hatsumoude (first shrine visit on New Years day usually early in the morning) while Kana oversleeps and has to rush to get ready. At the temple, the three girls meet up with Uchida who thinks it’s a party and has spent all her money on snacks. Later, the girls buy their fortunes, but Uchida has to borrow money from Kana because she’s already spent all her cash. Uchida’s fortune is very good, it tells her that she’ll be lucky in love and marriage, and back at the house Kana and Chiaki try to tell Uchida that it’s all make believe and there is no prince for her.

 

       Finally, Kana agrees with Uchida and tells her that her prince will come today so Uchida waits by the door for her prince to arrive. Soon the doorbell rings and Fujioka arrives, Kana tells Uchida to go get her prince but Uchida tells Kana that Chiaki likes Fujioka. Chiaki grabs Fujioka and takes him to the kotatsu where she sits in his lap, then Kana asks for her money back from Uchida, and finally after Uchida admits that her love and financial luck isn’t good, she pays Kana back.

 

        Then we get a skit involving Chiaki, Touma, the sisters’ uncle (Takeru), and Chiaki’s teddy bear (Fujioka). It seems that Takeru is bummed out about his job and his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Reiko.  Haruka then makes Takeru some tea and she tries to cheer him up.

 

         At school, Chiaki gets informed that the school’s nurse will be doing her home visit, and Haruka arraigns for Takeru to be there for the visit. Chiaki seems nervous about this, but when Takeru and the nurse meet they seem to hit it off, Kana tells Chiaki that this is matchmaking. Soon, Fujioka shows up and also hits it off with the nurse,and Chiaki gets tired of this and presses the nurse to get on with the visit, so she hands Takeru the results of Chiaki’s physical exam, much to Chiaki’s embarrassment.

 

        Later on, we get a skit about finding missing things, with Takeru telling the girls that if you let a pen fall, whatever direction it points to is where your missing item will be found. This method leads Chiaki to finding her missing bear inside a cooking pot in the kitchen which she blames on Kana’s handiwork. Then Haruka asks Takeru to help her find something else, and his pen points directly at Kana, it looks like Kana ate Haruka’s expensive ice cream. Kana doesn’t believe that his method is real, so Takeru asks Kana what she’s looking for? Kana tells him to use his pen find her future potential husband. When Takeru lets go of his pen it stays pointing straight up, then Kana tips the pen over with her finger. Soon the doorbell rings and Kana goes to see who it is, Haruka, Chiaki, and Takeru are curious because when Kana tipped the pen over it pointed towards the front door. When Kana answers the door she finds that Fujioka has returned from the store and he tells Kana that he forgot the correct floor and ended up on the roof before finding his way back to the apartment. Haruka, Chiaki, and Takeru have put it together that the pen was again right about Kana’s question, but they all comment that Kana hasn’t figured it out yet.

       Then at the very end, we see Hosaka back at the temple buying endless fortunes until the booth operator tells him to go home, and we see that Hosaka has been searching for a fortune that would predict that he and Haruka will hookup. Well, that’s all for this episode.

       Well, it’s very good to have the Minami-ke sisters back for another season. Let me start off by saying that I won’t comment about the animation style or quality because I’ve never watched Minami-ke for that reason. Minami-ke is a slice of life comedy so I’ll be commenting about the characters and  how funny or not the skits are.

       The same chemistry of the previous two seasons are back in spades; the serious Chiaki and Haruka vs the lazy Kana, dumb but endearing Uchida makes an appearance, Touma is also back, the always depressed but caring Takeru is here, and Hosaka is also back in all his duchebag glory. One thing that I did notice in this first episode is that it seems to me that all the girls are drawn in a very uncute manner compared to the first two seasons, while in the other seasons  Touma acted and dressed like a guy you could tell she was a girl but in this episode she really looked like a guy to me.

        Minami-ke is a series of slice of life skits that are mixed with comedy, while some of the skits take place at school or at a outside event, most of the real action takes place around Minami-ke kotatsu. Since this series is all about family and friends, what better setting could there be other than everyone gathered around the kotatsu? Overall, I found myself enjoying the funny, good natured, and sometimes sarcastic banter taking place between the sisters and their friends. Animation style and quality be dammed, I want my weekly dose of Minami-ke.