This series has something of a split personality. As a sketch series, I suppose that makes sense – we’ve really had 7 mini-episodes in the first 2 weeks, and so far, we’re batting about .500.

As with the premiere, the final sketch was far and away the best. Mitsuba’s dilemma was hilarious – stuck in a tree showing her kindergartner’s panties to her male classmates. And her tsundere concern for the cicada cast her character in a somewhat different light.

As for the rest of it – well, to be honest it was pretty grim to my eyes. The snot and urine gags had nothing of the wit and grace of the “Nipples” sketch in the first episode – it was just crude bodily function humor that was supposed to be funny for that reason alone. I admit, it had me wincing – but is that a good thing? And this week’s Nipples sketch – while better than the first two this week – was more creepy and disturbing than funny.

Which leads into a problem I’m having here. None of these triplets is really likable. I had hopes that Hitoha was going to be something like a harsher version of Hiiragi from Hanamru Kindergarten, or Hotaru from Gakuen Alice. But so far she’s downright nasty – other than the hamster, she seems to pretty much hate everyone. Futaba is just batshit-crazy – she seems nice enough, but peeling the skin off live frogs? I really disliked Mitsuba after the first week – but oddly, this time she came off as the most sympathetic. It seemed as if her belligerent facade cracked just a bit, revealing… Well – a tsundere anyway, if not a pussycat. And unlike either of her sisters she seems to have a small dash of common sense.

So what do we need here? Yabe isn’t much help – he’s nice enough, but too ineffectual to rally around. As others have said, if you want warm and fuzzy you’re watching the wrong series. But I do want some rooting interest, and a little variety – if everyone is just plain hideous all the time, the welcome wears thin quickly. We’ve seen this material can be hilarious at its best – but how often are we going to get that? If it’s going to be crude and slapstick humor, great – but it needs to be clever and not just gross for grossness’ sake. No show has made me laugh as hard as the “Nipples” sketch this season, so I still have hopes for what Mitsudomoe can be.