I’d like to pretend last week’s episode of Binbougami never happened.  Fortunately, that’s a lot easier to do after this one.

If ever a comedy series needed a straightforward, stupidly funny episode, it was Binbougami Ga!  Coming off an ep where everything was out of balance and off-key – the first serious misstep in eight weeks – I’m very glad this one was such a change of pace.  Indeed, it was probably the least character-driven episode since Keita and his family were introduced, and although this series tends to do the serious mode better than you’d think, what it really needed now was a completely lighthearted baka explosion, and that’s exactly what we got.  As a bonus, we also got an episode that featured Momiji more heavily than any since the premiere.

There were an awful lot of parodies this week – I think I would have found the first chapter even funnier if I followed Prince of Tennis, though the “Prince” who ended up partnering with Tittyko actually looked like a sendup of Oscar from Rose of Versailles (and the legion of shoujo characters of the same stripe).  The tennis pretty much speaks for itself – Momiji and Sakura progressively raising the idiocy level while terrorizing Prince and his rival, “Gorihara” – though my favorite moment was Rindou’s fantasy sequence after she asked Keita to be her “partner”.  Any chance to hear Tomatsu Haruka do screwball comedy is something that should be savored like a fine wine.

The second sketch was definitely the funnier, as Tittyko decides to try her hand at cooking (thanks in part of a residual guilt trip from Suwano) with predictably disastrous results.  Into the fray steps Kuroyuri (Shiraishi Ryouko) a Binbougami rival of Momiji’s (though Momiji doesn’t seem too worried about it).  She has the hots for Yamabuki and sees Ichiko as an opportunity to steal Momiji’s thunder by doing what she couldn’t – steal Ichiko’s fortune – and in the process, to win the heart of Yamabuki.  But the poor thing really has no idea what she’s getting into, and she and her familiar Toady soon get a lesson in just what a true nightmark Ichiko is to deal with.

There are several top-notch comedic moments in this chapter, among them the moment where Momiji ends up getting Tittyko’s pizza all over face, and finds it delicious.  Pretty much every attempt by Tittyko to cook ends up in hilarity, especially her “darker than black” beef and potato stew.  The highlight, though, was the extended sequence of Kuroyuri’s reaction after trying a spoonful of it – a long off-screen symphony of increasingly violent vomiting, with appropriately deadpan reactions from Momiji and Tittyko.  If there were any worries that Binbougami had started to take itself too seriously after last week, I’d say that scene alone should put them to rest…