I was thinking that Kyoukai no Rinne might have given us a Sabato-themed double episode this week in celebration of Father’s Day.  But I suppose it would have made more sense to do that next weekend.  And TBH, I don’t remember anyone talking about Father’s Day much – and this is a country where no possible marketing opportunity for a holiday is ever missed.

And besides – Rokudo Sabato as a symbol of fatherhood?  Yeah, right…

As we know, Sabato is almost as bad a boss as he is a father, so the theme of the first chapter is hardly a surprise.  But I was mildly surprised that Renge (who’s the other headliner this week) was the ringleader in creating a union at Damishigami Inc..  Understand of course that in Japan, despite the chronic overwork culture there isn’t typically as adversarial a relationship between management and workers as there is in the States.  Thus, Sabato’s decision to order a boatload of bombs to deal with the problem (not to mention sending them to Rinne-kun COD) really amounts to an act of cartoon villainy.  Mostly, this was just your classic Rinne screwball comedy – my favorite bit being Renge’s touched reaction when the other workers showed up late to the meeting.  “They’re just stupid!”

This is a trend I’ve noticed this season with Kyoukai no Rinne – more and more I’m able to predict punchlines (as happened with the above) before they happen.  And that makes me enjoy it even more – it’s almost as if this show has turned into an anime version of English panto.  The second chapter is more of the same, right down to Renge-kun ending the episode curled up in bed sulking as her black cat (really more of a grey cat in her case) asks her (quite unnecessarily) how her day went.  If the characters in Rinne correspond to tropes from Yiddish theatre, Renge is definitely one of the main schlimazels.  I think there’s something there, actually – I bet you could slot everyone in this zany cast into schlemiel, schlimazel, boke or tsukkomi…

B-part-kun also marks the return of Annette-sensei in her biggest role since her introduction, and while that’s definitely welcome, I was disappointed not to get a single “MIII-E-RUUU!” (apart from last week’s preview).  Again, this is just pure Rumiko doesn’t GaF snark – Annette seeing her little glimpses of the future and manipulating everyone with them, as Mamiya Sakura stands off to the side and casts an occasional stone of bemused common sense into the dialogue pond.  Renge, Kain and Sabato are merely pawns on Annette’s chessboard here – although in her defense, it was Sabato who tried to steal the peep ball and started the whole chain of events.  Oddly, I think I like the “scapegoat” version of Kain better than the real one…