I was a little unsure at first, but I’ve pretty much joined Team Hajime at this point (and I was already a member of team Beniyukata).  It’s not like I don’t miss Hotaru, but things are really going along quite swimmingly if you ask me – both the konbini manager and the new part-timer at Shikada Dagashi bring different comic elements to the table than what we got in the first season.  And Hajime especially has had a chance to shine the past couple of episodes.

Line delivery means a lot with comedy.  And for whatever reason, the whole “interNETS” gag had me rolling on the floor.  First Sugita Tomokazu and then Atsushi Abe hit that one out of the park.  That was a clever nod to memes, it’s true, but it’s easy enough to see a gomer like Beniyukata-san actually using that word – and who knows is small-town children like Coconuts are tech-savvy enough to know how stupid interNETS sounds?

I loved that whole website-building gag, pretty much – “This is the legendary HTML”, et al, that look Hajime gave Kokonotsu when he suggested they put “We sell dagashi” on the website.  I also really like the fact that (as I suspected) there’s more to Hajime than meets the eye – yeah she’s an airhead, but she actually knows stuff (quite a lot, as we’ve seen) and she sort of cares what happens to the shop (even if it’s mostly for selfish reasons at this point).  That was some nice chemistry between she and Coconuts there, actually – although the last thing we need in Dagashi Kashi is that whole thing getting more complicated.

The second chapter was a also a showcase for Hajime’s hidden talents – in this case, making super balls (which she’d forgotten to order) out of water, salt, laundry starch and food coloring (who knew?  Hajime the alchemist, that’s who).  Yeah, she screwed up as usual – but she actually thought of a novel solution, had the knowledge to implement it, and cared enough about not losing the business to not just make three superballs for the shounentachi who stopped by, but for several days supply as well.  She’s a woman of contrasts, is Hajime – and that makes her a rather interesting addition to the cast.