One thing about Nakamura-kun – never skip the ED.
On the one hand, there’s something to be said for not even trying to match last week’s tour de force episode of Ganbare! Kanamura-kun!!. That was about as good a first love romance ep as you’re going to get from anime. Even so, this week has to go down as kind of a letdown. It went about as far in the opposite direction as it could. That’s fine in principle, but I don’t think this series is as appealing in this mode. It also has a penchant for unfunny comic characters, and this episode was bogged down with two of them – one old, and one new.
The old one is Aokiyama-san, the horror/occult club girl. Didn’t find her funny when she showed up, didn’t find her funny here. And this whole business with wrapping Nakamura up in a sack and tying him to an altar for a human sacrifice (for demon summoning purpose) whiffed. I can’t reconcile that kind of idiocy with what we got last week – they really don’t belong in the same series. YMMV obviously but I don’t think the show does itself any favors with stunts like that.
Nakamura’s “savior” is Tamura-kun, the president of the drama/AV club (of which Ohmori-kun is a member), who’s likewise not very funny. He interrupts the akuma-summoning ceremony to announce that he wants Nakamura to star in the student horror film he plans to shoot during summer break (I can’t deny Nakamura does have the right energy). Nakamura is not especially keen on either club’s proposition but when Hirose-kun shows up with a bunch of other kids recruited to “act”, the fact that he finds it cool that Nakamura-kun is starring is enough to change his mind.
That’s the A-part. The B-part was better. That finds the kids coming back to school at night to film – Tamura has gotten no permissions of course. We get the usual rundown of the seven school mysteries and all that, and then a real ghost seemingly appears the group scatters to the four winds. Hirose and Nakamura end up at the science room, where it soon becomes clear that Hirose is very much a scaredy-cat. Nakamura of course finds this irresistible – and an irresistible opportunity to perhaps get some skinship with Hirose. But all he gets is belt-ship (though I suppose if his belt was leather…).
Eventually it turns out the “ghost” was Tamura, prodding Nakamura and Hirose into action. And then Otogiri-sensei and the hard-ass gym teacher show up and announce that everyone has to write apology letters for the first day of summer vacation. It’s a happy ending of sorts for Nakamura-kun though, as Hirose winds up holding his hand after all. Or does he? Again, it’s always good policy here but this is definitely a week not to skip the ED.
