Kimi to Boku – 09

Kimi to Boku has really turned into a pretty decent slice-of-life series.  I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner, but Kaname is almost a perfect tsundere – I guess even a group of guys is allowed to have one, but he really fits the bill.  As the class president in charge of planning for the culture festival, he’s learning a valuable lesson early – those who work hard and efficiently get extra work dumped on them by those that don’t.  It’s the way of life in high school and it’s the way of life in the workplace, but at least it won’t come as a surprise.  While there wasn’t all that much actually happening here, the episode was filled with the amusing time-wasters that have become a specialty of the house – my favorite this week being Yuki and Chizuru’s misadventures with the copier.  Those two are becoming quite the baka rangers, also regaling us with a totally pointless box-rickshaw idea (half the train is made of kindness).  Not forgetting their core audience, JC Staff have also gone the inevitable cross-dressing route, as Yuta and Shun (natch) are participating in a maid café for the festival.

Maji de Watashi ni Koshinasai – 09

I’m still trying to figure out if Majikoi is trying to espouse a kind of nationalist political agenda here, or it’s just throwing random weirdness up against the wall to see if any of it sticks.  Periodically the show is peppered with odd and serious speeches about the state of affairs in Japan – especially in the last few episodes – and they seem out of place with the rest of the series. Fujiwars Keiji’s little screed about the JSDF and Switzerland was one such anomaly, dumped into the middle of the episode for no apparent reason, though I’m assuming it’s going to have a role in the concluding arc.  The story of Tachibana and Saki and the Four Devas continued, with Momoko dealing with her guilt over Yamato’s injuries.  But there was at least some humor injected this week, as Yamato’s various suitors generally made asses of themselves in competing over him as he lay in a hospital bed.  As always, Mayucchi was the funniest of the lot for me.

Tamayura Hitotose – 09

It must be some kind of requirement for slow-paced schoolgirl slice-of-life series to have a cat episode, because Tamayura has joined the ranks of Sketch Book and Kamichu with a Momoneko chapter.  And it’s pretty good, with some mannered but amusing silent movie techniques and amusing feline dialogue.  Momoneko’s test of courage is a wild boar (and those guys are nasty) and while he musters said courage to face the vegetable-poaching porker, it’s Ko-chan who comes to the rescue with some well-times rock tosses.  Second part covers a couple of very minor characters in a tale of binge eating and rejection, which is a bit emotionally overwrought for my tastes but has some nice moments.  Curiously, the animation style seemed radically different in the second chapter this week for some reason, but on the whole the entire episode at least had the merit of being different and slightly odd, which is as close to the edge as this series ever gets to the best of my knowledge.