Minami-ke 13 Final. New Years Eve, Juice and Cake?

     This episode begins with Kana telling the younger kids (her group of idiots) including Makoto about the Japanese New Years tradition of the wearing the kimono, she wants Makoto the wear the flowery kimono, and Touma to wear the reserved male kimono. Then we switch to Riko’s place where she is thinking about calling Fujioka and inviting him to a New Years Eves celebration,  and Keiko gives her Fujioka’s phone number. Back at Fujioka’s place, he is practicing the proper way he wants to ask Kana out for a date on New Years Eve, he debates if he should call her -san or -chan, he seems very shy about using the more familiar/endearing -chan form. He keeps trying to call Kana but she’s on the phone with Keiko. Riko tries to call Fujioka who is trying to call Kana who’s on the phone with Keiko, and in the end no one gets through, so what we have is a lot of frustrated teens (or at-least two frustrated teens). Then the focus switches to Hosaka who’s at work in a noodle shop, he seems to be working very hard at creating noodles, then he slips into another one of his fantasies about him, Haruka and their two daughters, and then we find out he’s not really working there, he’s just creating a dinner he wants to take to Haruka. Later that evening the sister are watching the final episode of the student/teacher romance show Ninomiya and Sensei when Haruka’s friend Hayami shows up to hang out with them, she brings a large quantity of imported ”juices” with her. Kana doesn’t think that these juices as very good so she doesn’t really drink that much of the juices, I think that she’s figured out that the juices are alcoholic in nature. Hayami and Kana have Haruka and Chiaki play twister and drink large amounts of  “juice”,  and they end up getting “drunk” on the juice. After a while Haruka and Chiaki are passed out from the “juice”, then a little while later two more or their friends show at the house and soon their passed out too, and then only Hayami and Kana are left awake, Hayami is very drunk from the juice at this point, and Hayami starts to get a little frisky in a yuri way with Kana, and at that very moment on the TV Ninomiya-kun and Sensei are getting ready to have their wedding night rewards, and at that moment in the Minami household there’s no one left to save Kana from Hayami (remember Kana, that no one can hear you scream in space/ or in the Minami household when every-one’s passed out). Well and that’s how the series ends, they leave it up to you to decide what happened to Kana, below are some screen shots.

Kana and her band of fools talking about kimono’s

Phone Tag

The triangle of teen frustration.

Hosaka’s cooking and his dreams of Haruka.

Hayami’s arrival, juice, and a game of twister.

More friends arrive and almost everyone passes out.

Ninomiya-kun and Sensei’s wedding night.

Hayami wanting some cake to go along with the juice.

You decide what happened in the end?

     Well the last episode of the first installment of Minami-ke was in many ways the same as all the other episodes from the series, in a nutshell this series was all about the three sister’s interactions with themselves, their strange but likable friends, and the guys that are attracted to the sisters. This episode deals with the issues of frustrations between teens in a large part. Below are some of those issues.

Fujioka is frustrated by his lack of ability to get anywhere with Kana.

Riko is frustrated because Fujioka’s doesn’t even notice her.

Makoto is frustrated by his attraction to Haruka so much so that he resorts to cross-dressing.

Hosaka is frustrated by his lack of courage to just tell Haruka he likes her.

And Chiaki is constantly frustrated by her dumb-ass sister Kana and some of her idiot friends.

     So, in the end, this series was all about relationships and the frustrations that go along with them, by the end of the series the only couple that seems to have gotten any was Ninomiya-kun and Sensei, unless you count the cake that Hayami tried to taste at the end of the episode, but this being anime the first episode of the next Minami-ke series will probably have Hayami passing out at the last minute. But if not, I’ll feel sorry for Fujioka , after that Kana will probably be chasing Riko, Keiko, and Chiaki. The only thing that I felt that was overly unrealistic was that Haruka was just a little too perfect, she really never got angry, frustrated, overworked or wanted anything for herself like any girl of about seventeen would want just once in a while.

     And one final thought to ruin some anime fans’ slice of life fantasies: No, Japan is not loaded with households full of cute teenaged girls living alone just waiting for the right guy to cure their loneliness, you only can wish.

 

Minami-ke 12, Christmas at the two Minami houses.

 

      This episode begins with Kana talking to Haruka about Chiaki’s dreams being ruined by Chiaki seeing their cousin Takeru changing into a Santa outfit two years ago. So, Kana has Fujioka sneak into the house and change into a Santa outfit, he goes into her room and places a gift on her bed, just as he is leaving she wakes up and he tells her merry Christmas. Chiaki come running out of the room telling Haruka and Kana that Santa was here and he wasn’t Takeru. Kana playfully instigates a fight with Chiaki by telling her she’s still a child. Later when Chiaki’s asleep, she has a dream about Santa and the gift he left her. Than the show switches to the other Minami household and the atmosphere there is very different from the other household. In my last post about Minami-ke one of the comments left about my post was about how Touma’s brothers talk about her right in front her basically ignoring her, and in this episode that comment more true than ever, it’s almost like she’s the invisible girl, she’s there but not really there. On Christmas day Fujioka goes over to the house to give Kana a gift (that’s a big deal, Christmas time is one of the biggest time of the years in Japan for hooking up, or trying to get hooked up) but once there, he sees Takeru standing outside in a Santa outfit, the Minami girls have stepped out for a while. Takeru and Fujioka end up waiting for a long while the Minami sisters enjoy a good meal in a restaurant, in the end they both have to leave because Takeru has to work the next day and Fujioka has club practice the next morning. The next day Touma is over their house and she’s wonders if she should pay for the food she eats there, of course Kana says yes, but Haruka says not to worry about it. Over the next several days Fujioka struggles with how to give his gift to Kana, in the end he gives Kana a gift of food instead of the really cute Christmas hair bows he originally intended to give her. Well, that’s all for this episode, below are some screen shots. 

Screen shots of tomboy Touma with her good for nothing brothers, I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s pretty cute when being a tomboy. 

My impressions of episode 12

@ Yes Kana’s tomboy behavior is caused by her “good for nothing brothers”

@ It’s really cute how Chiaki can be so sarcastic and logical and still believe in Santa Claus.

@ Kana really does care for Chiaki even though they always argue, it would be nice if Chiaki would show her the same once in a while.

@ Fujioka’s vision of a cute Christmas Kana is very nice, but I think changing his gift to food might actually get him farther than the hair bows.

@ Touma really is the invisible girl, her brothers talk about her, and whats good for her, but never listen to what she has to say. They would rather look at pictures of her than actually talk to her in person.

Now a picture of Fujioka’s vision of Christmas Kana, actually his  impression of this Kana is very cute.

 

Minami-ke 11, Boys please take your iron before viewing.

     Back at Touma’s house her three brothers wonder what the other Minami household is like, are they good people or not. They wonder if the reason she’s become more foul mouthed and boy-like is caused by them or the influence of the other household. So the eldest brother orders the youngest brother (Akira) to follow her there and check out the other household. So once he’s there they decide to treat him like Touma to ease his fears. Later at school Kana is talking with Akira about what kind of girls he likes and he tells her he like long hair, so Kana says the perfect girl for him is Riko. Fujioka sees Akira talking with Kana and gets very jealous and goes over to them, Kana tells Akira when he asks who’s that, she tells him he’s the bancho, frightening Akira greatly. Akira gets the wrong impression and thinks that Riko is Fujioka’s girlfriend so he tells him he like Kana instead, making the situation worst. After school we spend about three minutes of the show watching Chiaki kicking a stone around and when she almost gets it home Kana ruins her game without even knowing it. At Haruka’s school the other brother Natsuki wants to thank Haruka for caring for his younger brother and sister, as he’s walking up to Haruka one of her friends pushes him into Haruka’s twin peaks, she’s knows it’s a mistake but he has to take punishment or she’ll loses face. Later Natsuki goes to the other household to thank her properly for caring for Touma and Akira which leads to a funny skit about breasts, nose bleeds, and taking your iron. Well, that’s all for this episode, below are some screen shots.

     Well, eleven episodes of Minami-ke down and two to go for the first Minami-ke series, so were back to the issues of mistaken perceptions and miscommunication between boys and girls. The other Minami household wants to check out the influence that the other Minami household has on their sister and they end up getting sucked into the black hole of cuteness that is the Minami-ke household, once you cross the event horizon of the Minami household (their front door) your never want to leave, just ask Makoto and Touma. A lot of pretty standard anime perceptions are covered here, virgin guys getting nosebleeds when aroused, well I guess it’s better than showing what happens when horny middle school and high school guys stare and hot chicks for too long. I know what their trying to get at about taking your iron to prevent nosebleeds, that might actually work if the cause of the bleeds is anemia, but when the cause of the nosebleeds is sexual frustration, well over half of Japanese and American teen aged guys would be bleeding over their school desks everyday whether they took their iron or not, it would get quite messy. Where they get it perfectly right is in the skit about Chiaki kicking to rock, I’ve seen my niece who’s about the same age as Chiaki get totally involved in some silly game that can last for a long time, oblivious to everything else. Overall this was a very relaxing episode of anime.