That was a new spin on identity theft.

Witch Craft Works – 05

The danger of any show whose primary appeal (for me, anyway) is randomness is that when it focuses on plot or character – or, God forbid, starts to make sense – some of the magic is gone.  That was what this episode kind of felt like – there was some nice zaniness in the first five minutes, but the rest of it was kind of a miss.

What I liked?  Well, the whole business with Takamiya-mama (Kawasumi Ayako) spinning her tale of falling in love with Kagari’s mother (Oohara Sayaka) and because they couldn’t get married (and still couldn’t in Japan) promising to have their kids get married – and her children’s (and teddy bear’s) reactions.  The limo with the red bean soup in champagne bottles and Honoka wine stoppers.  Said Teddy’s “New Yorkie” T-shirt.  Team Rocket getting called up to fight and being summarily dismissed by Kagari in literally less than two seconds.

As for the rest of it?  All necessary plot, no doubt, but nothing too memorable.  Medusa is played by Sawashiro Miyuki (who thankfully seems to have marginally slowed down in her quest to appear in every series, ceding that spot to KanaHana this season) and the demon who apparently lives inside of Honoka (Evermillion) by Noto Mamiko (it’s a veritable flood of famous female seiyuu who’re all grown up).  She is white – is she the “white stuff” we’ve been hearing so much about?  We’ll see – but if they just keep the crazy coming, I’m not going to be too bothered about the rest of it.

Tonari no Seki-kun – 05

I always enjoy it when a character perfectly sums up their own show in a single line of dialogue.  “Boys love doing stuff like that.”  That line said by that character is pretty much Tonari no Seki-kun in a nutshell.

The curveball this week was Uzawa-kun (Shiraishi Minoru), the boy sitting next to Seki-kun in chemistry class, and indeed, it was a pitch that shows Seki too can be thrown off his game.  Seki-kun’s caper this time was rather sedate by his standards – carving first a hanko, and than an inkan (and a case) out of his eraser (in a society where names are in Kanji and signatures thus effectively non-existent for natives, these are a hugely important part of daily life for the Japanese).  This proves no challenge, who is indeed a “master craftsman” as Yokoi puts it.

The trouble comes from Uzawa-kun, who seems to have no sense of personal boundaries whatsoever – and Seki clearly doesn’t function especially well when it comes to uninvited (or perhaps any, who knows) direct personal interaction.  Uzawa’s abuses actually pull Yokoi’s sympathies into his corner, especially after Uzawa inadvertently destroys Seki-kun’s creation.  But only until she realizes that he’s made her miss a “this will be on the test” lecture yet again.  Interestingly that never seems to give Seki-kun himself a moment’s hesitation – which leads me to believe he knows everything that’s going to be on the tests already…