Note: Sorry about the lack of caps, but Blogger is having issues yet again. I’m tired of waiting – I’ll post them as soon as the glitch is fixed.

Money makes the underworld go round, apparently.

At this point I think it would take less time to list the things that don’t make me laugh about Kyoukai no Rinne than the things that do, to be honest.  This week’s gems:

• These idiotic traps Masato keeps setting for Rinne… Bananas, seriously – so he can get by the ticket agent at the gate?
• Even Hell has a convenient smart card.  But who’d have thought it was so tough to get in?  ¥1800!
• Rinne was still eating the bananas when he caught up to Masato on the shopping floor.  Bimbogami can’t afford to waste a free meal, even in the middle of a fight.
• The Tsukumogami sticker on the light pole, which enabled it to complain about being peed on all day.  If you were a light pole, I imagine that’s the first thing you’d want to talk about, too.
• The fact that this entire silly escapade boils down to money.  Masato is mainly interested in getting Rinne into debt and doesn’t give a damn (literally) about Reiji.  And Tomoya’s “concern” is entirely because Reiji owes him money for the pair rings.
• Trying to get paid in Hell is hell.

Once again, is’s the sheer stupidity of all this – and the reactions of the characters, especially Mamiya Sakura – that close the sale.  I mean, Masato writes “real” on one of the fake cards…  And Rinne’s “It feels like a trap” uttered with such utter solemnity…  There’s some definitely social commentary about “Hell” and modern Japanese bureaucracy and materialism from Rumiko here, but she’s so gleefully embracing her inner baka here that I find the whole package really appealing.