That was a pretty major change of course for Soredemo this week. By far the most serious ep so far, it featured Shizuka (the antiques shop lady) as the major character, time travel, and the craziest ping-pong match since Mayoi Neko Overrun‘s onsen episode.

For starters, we had a pretty funny short pre-OP piece where a wife keeps selling her husband’s vase, and he he keeps buying it back. This works just fine for Shizuka of course, as she’s happy to ring up some profit with every sale. The first full-length sketch was a pretty basic gym-class scene until Hotori challenged Tatsuno to a ping-pong match. Turns out Tatsuno is a shark, but no less so than Haribara – the horse-faced girl finally getting some screen time these last two weeks. They were known as the “Faerie and Reaper” on their middle-school ping-pong club and once Hotori has been brushed aside, they engage in a rather spectacular match – a match “Eroyuki” Sanada is watching rapt, his eyes squarely focused on Tatsun’s admittedly spectacular boobs. Could this be the start of an attraction?

The most fascinating part of the ep, though, was an almost-dead serious sketch about Shizuka and a mysterious Japanese sweet cracker called the “Rainbow Delight”. A man buys out the stock from the old lady who runs Mori, the little shop about to close because no one is buying the odd-colored snacks anymore. He apparently hands them out at random to strangers on the street, as Shizuka’s grandfather gives her one. Enthralled, she becomes obsessed with tracking them down but finds only dead ends – a bogus city and phone number on the wrapper and no one who knows of the shop. Returning to Seaside in dejection, she tried to have them recreate the snack. Of course they can’t, and Hotori makes the absurd suggestion that the snack is actually from the future – only the “10” part of the year is printed in the expiration date. Ridiculous. Except – turns out she’s right. The guy was a time traveler from 2310, and he seeded the past with his favorite snack – which became hugely popular and was still around when he got back to his own time.

That wasn’t especially funny, but it sure was interesting – and damn thought-provoking for a comedy show. Yet another Natsu no Arashi similarity – though time-travel was sure used in a different way here…