Well, that wasn’t how I expected the next “MIII-E-RUUUU!” to appear, but I’ll take it…

You know, I think maybe we spend too much time bashing Sabato Rinne.  Is he the worst father ever?  Absolutely.  But what about Grandma Tamako – oh fuck it, Grandma?  She should certainly know better, yet she continues to let her grandson live in poverty while she has a closet full of perfectly usable junk and a forgotten bank account with 500,000 Yen (plus interest, no doubt) in it.  I keep thinking Mamiya Sakura will say something to try and shame her, but she never does.  Damn this Japanese respect for elders!

That said, Sabato certainly is a cad – as awful a son as he is a father.   Here we see him stealing the golden can of fish his mother has placed on her husband’s grave (remember, he’s a mackerel now) – which she did as a trap for Sabato.  Honestly, these two deserve each other – though the idea of making Sabato do a little penance certainly isn’t a bad one.  What’s really sad here is that we can see desperation causing Rokudou-kun to become more and more like his father (as astute viewers have noted) this season.  He’s only too willing to do whatever it takes to scrape together a few Yen to get by on.  But can you blame him?

Fish is certainly a theme here, as our second mini-episode finds Tsubasa-kun using a plate of maguro (delicious as it is, we really shouldn’t be eating it) to occupy Rinne while he puts the moves on Mamiya Sakura during a study session.  This is really a win-win on paper – Rinne gets yummy tuna and Mamiya Sakura is way too cynical to be taken in – but a care package from Tsubasa’s dad put the kibosh on it for everybody.  Mamiya Sakura’s baka friends Miho and Rika have invited themselves along for the ride anyway, so poor Tsubasa never really had a chance – and it’s interesting to see that their usual scaredy-cat tendencies are put on-hold when the prospect of getting smarter (DHA takes too long) is dangled in front of them.

Finally it’s another shinigami cleanup exercise.  This time they close off the flow of the Sanzu River and have the young shinigami and their black cat contractors clean it up, the lure being that they get to keep whatever valuables the deceased have been forced to dump so they can cross it.  Really, this is such a dark premise for comedy – but then, that’s why Kyoukai no Rinne works, isn’t it?  A bar of gold is enough to get Rokumon-chan to betray Rinne – though you know, of course, that quest is going to be fruitless.

Looks like we finally have a deviation from pattern coming – next week is a two-chapter episode.