Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 10 – Happy Ending?

Hey, look everybody!  It’s… kind of like Ano Hana, except no one’s dead or dressing up as said dead person.  But honestly, I’m glad to see this show beginning to pull away from the ho-hum rom-com it’s been for the past nine episodes.  But still, it seemed kind of stupid to present the faux happy ending for all of the characters as if all their problems could be solved by creating even more awkwardness among them. It seems like a giant orgy would be the best solution; everybody would probably get some of what they want.  And when is this show going to explain how Kaito knew Ichika was an alien?

So let’s go over this.  Tetsuro knows that Mio likes him, Kanna knows that Tetsuro likes her, and Kaito knows that Kanna likes him.  So how is that not going to be awkward as all hell?  They still have to make their movie together, and they still have to go to school with each other, so I don’t really see how their lives are going to be any easier now that they know they all have someone who likes and that they don’t like them back.  In most cases that causes a rift in friendship, unless we’re talking some hardcore bonds between the people.  I could kind of see it working for Kanna and Tetsuro (if they’ve really been friends as long as they say they have) but for everyone else, it looks like long roads of awkwardness ahead.  That is except for Remon, who couldn’t give less of a damn about anything, other than making sure all of those crazy kids have the proper protection while they have their fun.

Most of this episode centered around Kaito and Ichika being a couple, and everyone else angsting like it’s going out of style.  Kanna has literally been crying for days over Kaito, Tetsuro is mad at himself for not liking the hot nudist girl, and Remon is still breaking into peoples homes in hopes of getting some footage to push her movie up to that “XXX” rating.  Although Mio had one of her best parts in this episode.  She finally called out Tetsuro on being a jackass and inviting Ichika to be in their movie so Kaito would get together with her, so that Kanna would be free for the taking.  Although Tetsuro denies her claim, it was pretty obvious that was his idea all along, and telling Kaito that she liked him was his way of spurring his master plan into high gear.  In reality, none of this would have happened if he hadn’t been so determined to get Kaito together with someone other than Kanna, so I guess he gets credit for the plot of the whole series.  At least he realizes that what he did was retarded, and that it only screwed stuff up even more for her.  But hey, now you have a reason to get together with the hot nudist girl, so you should probably get on that.

So, we’re presented this bullshit happy ending where everything is supposed to be fine and dandy now that everyone know how everyone feels.  Well, that’s obviously not how this story is going to end, but if you say so, I’ll go along with it for the time being.  It’s probably all just a setup for the new plot device that we now have – Ichika’s sister.

And with her appearance, that pretty much seals the plot of the last two episodes of this show.  I imagine they’ll consist of her sister telling Ichika to come home and Ichika telling her sister that she wants to stay.  Repeat about ten times and you have the plot for the last arc.  I’m willing to bet that some bullshit something-or-other will require Ichika to return to her home planet, she’ll be sad about leaving her lame-ass generic boyfriend of almost three days and then she’ll probably return in some little epilogue scene.  But really, how did she think this was all going to play out?  If she was just going to earth for a trip, then wouldn’t she understand that someone would eventually come for her?  Not to mention, deciding to live on another planet is a pretty big fucking decision, that’s like if you went on a vacation to France and liked it so much, you decided to live there; you didn’t bring anything form home, you didn’t tell anyone you knew – you just decided to live there because you liked some hot French girl.  Someone would eventually find you, because you can’t just move to another country (or another planet) whenever you want.  I’m almost certain that her plant, being as advanced as it is, would have some type of regulations and procedures for movie to another planet.  But then again, Ichika is a stupid, stupid person, so maybe it all just slipped her mind.

Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 9 – An Alien is Fine Too

Damn, Ano Natsu, you practically gave me that joke on a silver platter.  Okay, first and foremost, I have to say this about the alien reveal in this show: Bull-Fucking-Shit.  There is no way in hell anyone would ever react this way to a situation like this.  She finally tells them that she’s an alien, and all they can say is “Oh, that’s pretty cool, can we see your spaceship?”.  That’s- I don’t- how the… what the fuck is wrong with these people?  It makes sense for Remon to behave that way, but not everyone else in the show.  Someone you’ve known for months is a goddamn alien, and in case you were too busy crushing on each other form your entire lives to know, that isn’t really a very common thing here on planet Earth.  I’m sorry, but history proves that humans aren’t really that accepting of a species. And you’re telling me Kaito knew that she was an alien?  What the fuck, HOW?

What in the world does he mean that he knew?  He hasn’t done anything to suggest that he did, unlike Remon.  Now, I guess that would explain the plot hole of why he was completely unfazed by Rinon, and had no problems with fighting that alien bear, but it doesn’t explain how everyone else in the show was completely okay with Rinon and didn’t think that he was weird in the slightest.  But not only that, how did he know that if she didn’t remember her curing him the first three times?  Do I really care?  No, I don’t, because Kaito is still a shitty main character, with no real redeeming our outstanding qualities – at least noting that warrants two girls fighting for him.  And Kanna – for weeks I’ve been hoping this show would explain why she was so smitten with him, and it looks like they (kind of) answered that.  Apparently she loved him at first sight because he was smiling even though his parents were dead.  Yeah, sorry, but I’d rather not have a reason at all than a stupid one like that.

Now, as well as everyone accepted Ichika’s alien-ness, why is she acting like they all hate her for it?  Everyone was being completely accepting of her identity and Kaito was being very calm and understanding about it (though it could be because he’s just an idiot), but she acts like he told her he doesn’t want an alien living with him or something like that.  Of course this situation has forced her to think about returning home, but that seems kind of irresponsible on her part.  I’ve constantly asked about Kaito’s alien cancer, which hasn’t shown up since episode two, but hasn’t she kind of fucked him over with that?  If she leaves, and that stuff ever comes back, then he’s pretty much dead.  Maybe she’s completely cured it, but if it came back before doesn’t that mean it can come back again?

Anyway, all that stupid shit aside, we had a very happy ending this week didn’t we?  Kaito and Ichika have confessed their undying one month love for each other and everyone is going to live happily ever after… right?  No, sorry to say that there is almost no way that is going to happen, at least not wading thorough a river of other relationships and melodrama to get there.  Now, there are three episodes left, so obviously we aren’t just going to watch them tell each other how much they love each other for the next three weeks – something is going to get fucked up.  We still have everyone else’s plot lines to get through, and like Remon said, “Someone’s happiness means unhappiness for another”.  So through the next three episodes, we’re going to get to see all of these love-struck kids emotions get trampled on by each other, a lot more crying, and a lot more of searching for Ichika’s “special place” (as erotic as that sounds).  I don’t think it takes any stretch of the imagination to say that Ichika is probably going to have to end up leaving after everything is over, and possibly returning in some type of epilogue-thing.  The series is finally starting to feel a little bit more like Ano Hana, which I’m always fine with.  Hopefully I can take some pleasure from watching all these morons get shot through the heart over the next weeks and seeing if they can actually make this “meh” show emotional enough to somewhat salvage it.

Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 7 – Waiting for the Aliens

Man, the lives of these kids are just one big bowl of awkwardness aren’t they?  And the more this show goes on, the more I really want Kaito and Ichika to go die in a hole together, because they’re both so lame and forgettable.  Kaito is truly the cookie-cutter definition of a rom-com harem lead, and Ichika is just boring as shit.  But hey, at least she’s an alien… or at least I thought she was.  Honeslty, why do any of these girls like Kaito?  Kinoshita and the Rape Girl, who’s name I don’t recall, also both leave after being supposedly heartbroken.  I can kind of understand Kinoshita, but to the girl who was crying because Tetsuro didn’t let her rape him, go fuck yourself.  In reality, they only really served as a way to get Mio together with Tetsuro and Kaito together with Ichika.

The episode finishes of the beach arc, but unfortunately next week they’re going to a damn festival.  Again, how original.  Anway, most of this episode consists of Kaito and Ichika being stupid and lame, Remon getting Kanna drunk as shit, as well as Tetsuro continually getting harassed by that seemingly rape-minded girl from last week.  And goddamn, she sure was determined to catch Tetsuro, so much so she was willing to chase him into town from the beach.  Maybe some people don’t know this, but if you chase after someone and they continually run away form you in fear, then they probably don’t like you very much, especially if you’re a girl who’s pretty much throwing yourself at a boy – then he really doesn’t like you.  But as retarded as she is, she sure can read social cues fairly well, and she made a pretty intelligent observation about Mio, who, by the way, is a nudist.

First – hot.  Now onto everything else.  All my questions about her walking around naked in her house are answered, yet so many more have been created.  Exactly why does she need to be a nudist?  What does that add to the show, other than the obvious answer of fan-service.  That is seriously one of the weirdest plot devices to progress a relationship that I’ve seen in my entire life.  It’s supposed to give her a reason for being shy and somewhat withdrawn, but doesn’t that go against the very nature of nudism?  And for that matter, why would these parents raise her that way?  Now, I’ve never been a nudist, but it seems a little rude to force your child to follow along in such not-so-socially-acceptable (acts such as nudism) that could very likely have harsh social repercussions in their future.  I know nudism is supposed to be more about being natural and one with nature and shit, but in our modern world, you kind of have to wear clothes, so I don’t really see the point of it.  And she has to wear clothes to school and everywhere else she goes, and I’m assuming that her parents do as well, so does that mean that the only time that they’re naked is when they’re all at home together?  So do they just get home and throw off their clothes the moment they step in the house?  The dad walks by with his junk hanging out and greets his teenage daughter while she’s undressing by the front door?  I’m not gonna lie, that’s kind of weird.  But to each his own I suppose.

Other than Mio confessing to Tetsuro and being a fucking nudist, this episode was pretty meh.  But any scenes with Kaito and Ichika as expected to be bad so I can’t really complain too much.  Remon does attempt to apologize for that by getting Kanna drunk off of her ass and dressing her up like her own doll, but that can only balance out so much of Kaito and Ichika’s stupidity.  I mentioned before about how almost nothing in the series would be different if Ichika was just a foreigner, and by now no one can deny that fact.  There has seriously been no sci-fi stuff in the series since the first episode (and kind of the second), she has never used an ounce of her alien technology that she has in that bigass suitcase, other than to spy on Kaito and Tetsuro, and she’s an idoit.  Now, this wouldn’t annoy me so much if that element to the story hadn’t even been introduced in the first place.  Ichika has really got to be one of the most boring aliens ever in an anime, where the hell is Haruko when you need her?  But speaking of that, isn’t Ichika insanely strong?  Remember in the first episode when Kaito couldn’t even move the suitcase but she could carry it just fine?  Holy shit, maybe she is like Haruko, maybe she’ll pull a bass guitar out of that suitcase, put on a bunny suit and have a fight with a giant hand wearing a cowboy duster… but probably not.

However, at the end of this episode, there was a small suggestion that some alien stuff just might be coming.  After being squashed by the ass of the rapist girl, Rinon wakes up and starts flipping his shit for some reason.  At the end of the episode, he is seen standing by Remon, again flipping his shit as we cut to what I assume to be a spaceship flying though the sky.  That’s foreshadowing if it’s ever existed.  So hey, at least sci-fi stuff… might… be coming.  Oh, but not before we have some fun at the festival, that’s a lot more important.

Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 6 – New Players

You know, even though this show is a just huge teen-romance-drama thing, I can honestly say that I still like it.  Even though it still has a lot of annoying elements in it, the overall package is enough to allow me to overlook those certain shortcomings.  In this episode, we get more of everything; more Remon, more relationships, and even more characters.

Since the basic premise of this episode was a typical “We’re going to the beach” set-up, my expectations weren’t that high to begin with.  Jesus, older sisters in this show are really irresponsible aren’t they?  First, Kaito’s sister leaves him alone with a hot older girl in his house, and now Tetsuro’s sister pretty much says “You, Kaito, and all those hot girls go stay in a condo on the beach by yourself”.  Besides, what could that possibly lead to?  Although they do a lot of standard beach anime stuff, such being completely awestruck when they see girls in bikinis, and playing volleyball and such, Remon quickly gets everyone down to business of making their movie.  Two new characters also join our already confusing love octagon: Kinoshita, Kaito’s freind from elementary school, and Arisawa, Kinoshita’s friend who takes an unhealthy attraction to Tetsuro.  I’m not really sure, why this show felt the need to add anymore characters, especially since the show is now halfway through, but at the end they didn’t seem as forced as I first thought they would be.  Even if Arisawa existed for the sole purpose of raping Tetsuro, Kinoshita kind of had a purpose.  At least she gave something Kanna and Ichika to team up about.  Apparently when girls encounter a new threat, they put aside their differences to weed out the new threat and then go back to dueling each other.  Exactly why is Kaito being punished for simply knowing an attractive girl?  Who knows, it’s anime, girls are crazy enough anyway.

Oddly enough, Mio, who’s pretty much sat in the background the first five episodes gets some development as well.  And apparently, she likes Tetsuro… I guess.  That really didn’t make too much sense to me; in all the time she’s spent with him, she’s never insinuated that she has feelings for him, and has always tried to help him deal with his relationship with Kanna, but when nympho girl comes into the picture, she gets all flustered and embarrassed.  So, does that mean, she’d behave the same way if Kanna ever did anything with Tetsuro?  It seems like she’s her relationship with Tetsuro is similar to his with Kanna, in that, they both sense that the object of their desire doesn’t like them, so they’re not pursuing it any further.  Well, at least now we have two sensible people, or rather, a sensible guy and a sensible closet nudist.  Thank GOD that was finally (kind of) explained, because her constant unexplained nudity was really irking me.  Now, if that’s not a plot device for fan service, I don’t know what is.  But just because you feel that you have to sleep naked does that mean you have to go commando too?

Kaito and Ichika continue to be idiots, and for the most part, boring.  Is it just me, or does it seem that everyone else in this show is far more interesting than the obvious romantic interests?  Kaito still suffers from bland harem MC syndrome, and it still confuses me why so many people are smitten with him, especially a girl that he hasn’t seen in years.  He’s kind of an ass to Kinoshita too; he’s constantly telling her to leave him alone and to get away from him, though that may just be his survival instincts kicking in, because he can probably feel that Ichika and Kanna want to go yandere on his ass.  Ichika’s retarded self later contemplates how to handle Kaito’s indecisiveness, and pretty much says “If I had sex with him, then I would win” but doesn’t for some undisclosed reason, or at least that’s what I got out of it.  Maybe she meant some crazy alien technology, but judging by how she got embarrassed about it, I’ll assume the later.

The episode moved along fairly quickly, but that last minute or so, where Tetsuro’s getting raped, Mio’s exposing herself, Ichika and Kanna are running through the jungle, and Kaito is making a hot girl cry was pretty damn good.  Everything was built up pretty good, even if Ichika and Kanna’s motives were to stop Kaito and Kinoshita from having sex.  Really?  Do you really think that indecisive little generic-ass MC would ever do something like that?  Even if he did, it’s his own business, leave him alone and let him do what he wants.  Who in the world would have sex in a jungle when you have a house on the beach near you anyway, why in God’s name would you stop there?  Anyway, everyone is caught in extremely awkward situations, making thousands of gay babies, and Remon epically stands on a cliff.

Remon also returns in full force this episode to continue to push everything along and keep things in her life interesting.  Even though she probably had every single thing that she wanted to happen planned out in her mind, as soon as Kinoshita came along, she decided that such an opportunity was too good to pass up, and instantly reworked her entire trollish scheme, God love her.  Also, form the preview, it seems as if she’s going to get some people drunk again.  She’s still ridiculously enigmatic and doesn’t show even a slight sign of her own motives, but that’s part of what makes her so awesome.  Perhaps she’s deliberately spurring everyone’s relationship on so they don’t spend their youth wallowing in teenage angst and unrequited love.  Or maybe she’s just doing it for the lulz.

Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 4 – Ichika the Yandere

Angst, misunderstandings, and more angst; seems like this show has it’s plan and it’s sticking to it.  I’m still kind of holding out hope that this series didn’t forget that the main characters are supposed to be making a movie, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be taking a backseat to everything else in the show.  I still don’t fully understand how Ichika can be so intelligent, yet have such an utterly ridiculous imagination.  How the hell does she even know all of this stuff?  She just transferred to the school a few weeks ago, yet she knows enough about earth school subjects to help Kaito pass his final exams.  That better get explained, or I’m calling some bullshit.

So after Kaito indirectly “confesses” to Ichika, she pulls a complete bitch move; simply walks onto the train and leaves him there without giving him even a word of an answer.  Come on, that’s pretty rude, surely they have manners on whatever planet she’s from.  So as you’d expect, She and Kaito worry and angst over the situation the whole episode, and don’t even really resolve it in the end, but they sure do fantasize about it.  Honestly, Kaito has got to have some kind of disease where he completely removes himself from reality enough to replace people in his fantasies with real humans.  Oh, and Tetsuro isn’t gay, just so all you yaoi fangirls know.  But seriously, he’s talked to Ichika when he didn’t realize that he actually was, he’s hugged Tetsuro thinking that he was Ichika, and he’s announced his plans to repair their relationship for the whole world to hear.  I really hope this is because of his beehive cancer, otherwise I’d say he has some serious mental problems.

They each ask their respective friends (Kaito – Testuro and Ichika – Remon) what they should do about their “hypothetical” situation.  Really, does anyone ever think a “hypothetical” situation is really hypothetical?  Tetsuro tells Katio that he shouldn’t rush her decision, and Remon, as expected of her, pretty much says “Answer him, you dipshit”.  Seriously, “A boy told me that he likes me, what should I do?” well, how about fucking answer him?  Remind me again how she’s so smart?  I don’t really see how Kaito has any responsibility regarding any of this, after all (as shallow and premature as they may be), those are his feelings, so why should he have to do anything? Either way, Ichika was the one who brought the whole thing up, so everything ultimately falls on her.

Later, after Kaito has decides to tell her everything was a misunderstanding and attempt to return their relationship to what it once was, some nympho looking girl pulls up beside him and whisks him away to go shopping or some other girly thing.  However, when Ichika sees this, she instantly assumes that they are going to have sex, not a single alternate thought goes to her head.  Kaito with a girl?  They’re going to fuck, what else would a guy and a girl do?  Now Ichika shows her true yandere side.  This isn’t any of her business, she doesn’t even know the girl he’s with, but it is now her mission in life to find and stop these two from their inevitable sexual intercourse.  But only because she promised his sister she would look after him.  Now, I’m no mind reader, but I think if Kaito’s sister left him alone with a girl only a year older than him, she was probably well aware of the possibility of the two having sex, so I don’t really think what Ichika’s doing is related to doing what his sister said.  And call me crazy, but I don’t think that that’s her only reason for going after him.

Kaito and Big Boobed What’s Her Name do a bunch of standard anime shopping stuff (including lingerie shopping, oh, so funny), as well as to go see High School of the Dead (in a theater) before returning to her home to, obviously, have sex.  At least that’s what Ichika assumes.  So she teleports behind him, which would scare the shit out of any normal person, and attempts to drag him out of there.  But, lookie here, more misunderstanding; the nympho girl is really Tetsuro’s sister who’s having a fight with her husband because she deleted something from her Tivo.  Now, I can really get behind that, one time my mom deleted a  Dexter episode that I didn’t watch, and I was ready to tear the fucking house apart, but I digress.   So Kaito and Ichika somehow overcome their differences by studying together and everything seems happy and wonderful as they head into their summer together.

First off, if you’d like to read a much more detailed review of this episode, you can go check out Kelfio’s post on Otakuness.  So one thing that’s really becoming noticeable is how unnecessary Ichika being an alien seems.  At the moment, nothing about what she is matters to the plot, in fact, the fact that she is an alien is kind of distracting at this point in the series.  Although she mentioned to Remon about how she’ll have to return home after she’s found her magical-special-final-episode-place, that could work the same if she was simply a foreigner.  I really hope that the series actually does something with that, because it could bring this show up form being a standard teen summer love drama.  I’m not quite expecting some FLCL aliens to start popping up out of nowhere, but if you’re going to have sci-fi in the show, at least make it part of the plot, and not just her reason to leave.

Kanna really seemed a lot better in this episode too.  Considering how obviously she wants Kaito’s junk, she reacted fairly well to them making up, though Tetsuro claimed it’s because she’s dense.  She was even pretty chill when she was just talking to Kaito during P.E., and didn’t really seem uptight like she has been in the rest of the episodes.  But really, after three episodes of being paranoid about he and Ichika, it’s pretty weird to see her so accepting at the two of them spending more time together.  It might not be consistent with how she’s been acting, but I like this version of her much more than the bitchy obnoxious version.  I also found the lack of Remon to be disappointing.  She was in it, but she didn’t really have that much to do, other than to tell Ichika to not be such and idiot and give Kaito an answer, and to look a lot like Taiga when they’re swimming (I’m not so sure voluptuous is the right word).  I really want to know what her deal is; she HAS to know that Ichika is an alien, but she doesn’t really seem to give too much of a shit that she is.

I’m still wasn’t really buying the whole romance angle, but now that Kaito has pretty much returned their relationship to normal, it seems like is going to progress as it should.  They’re going to keep hanging out as they shoot, or attempt to shoot the movie, they’ll fall in love, Ichika’ll have to leave, but she’ll come back, and everyone (except Kanna) will be happy.  I’m all for that as long as they don’t have Kaito continually being an angsty teen love sick pansy around Ichika the whole series.

Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 3 – Successful Troll is Successful

Okay, so I’m still talking about this series because… well, I have to watch something other than Nisemonogatari.  But honestly, next weeks episode will probably be the make it or break it point for me continuing to write about it.  I just really hope it doesn’t just continue down the angsty teen summer romance line.   This show now more than ever really seems to be Ano Hana crossed with Onegai Teacher, with all the romantic triangles going back and forth and such.  While neither of those shows are bad by any means, it’s still kind of surreal to think that this director is so openly committing self-plagiarism.  So let’s say Quentin Tarantino makes a movie about Uma Thurman taking revenge on the people who tried to kill her on her wedding day, but she OD’s on coke forced on her by Vivica Fox and John Travolta has to shoot her up with adrenaline.  Sound familiar?  I really don’t understand how you could thing that cramming two shows you’ve already made together make it into something new, but as long as Remon continues to troll the fuck out of everyone, then I’ll probably stick along for the ride (And yes, I’m going to call her Remon even if MAL and everyone else in the world says her name is Lemon, because a Lemon is a fucking fruit, not a name).

We begin this episode by cementing Kaito’s status as an angsty spineless wimp protagonist, because those are rather scarce in anime these days.  Kaito continues to fantasize about Ichika, only now he’s being more realistic with his fantasies.  He imagines telling her that he “loves” her (since he’s known her for a whole entire day) and her laughing in his face.  A pretty reasonable guess as to what would happen if Ichika was a normal person.  So Kaito decides to sit in his room and cry about how he thinks he got rejected by Ichika the night before.  I don’t really know why he’s avoiding her at school, because she lives with him, so it’s just a matter of picking your poison really.  He doesn’t even have to balls to talk to her, and ends up writing notes to her through the door to tell her he’s skipping school.  Now, I know that he thinks he just got rejected, but for the love of God, you’ve only known her for two days at the most, it’s not like you had worked at improving your relationship to “couple” status a whole lot.  Anyway, Kaito stays home to cry and Ichika goes on to school.

At school, Remon begins to plan her tirade of ultimate trolling.  After Ichika tells her about Kaito, she effortlessly pulls information about what happened with Kaito from Ichika.  However, she isn’t content with the minute level of humor gained from this situation, and moves on to bigger and better things.  Over in the younger characters classroom, Mio and Kanna try to remember what they did, though they seemed completely unfazed by the fact that neither of them can remember anything they did yesterday.  Tetsuro comes in, equally fine with the idea that he may have short term memory loss, and hands Kanna a picture that Remon told him to give her.  Knowing Remon, there is only on thing this picture could possibly be, Kanna doing that erotic sex-pose-thing.  You truly have to admire a troll of her caliber; a troll who is willing to troll yet not be in the presence of the trollee when they are trolled is someone who truly appreciates trolling.  I think she and Mai would get along very well.  So Kanna has to keep up her tusndere appearances and flips the fuck out, still wondering what happens yesterday.

After class, Kanna leaves to go see Kaito, because she thinks that He and Ichika are having sex or something.  When she leaves, Mio asks Tetsuro if he’s okay with “it”.  Of course “it” means that he likes Kanna, but she never really comes out and says it.  Tetsuro never really owns up to it either, but still says that he’s okay with her feeling that way.  So while Kanna is a complete bitch to Ichika just because she thinks she and Kaito are banging, Tetsuro is completely calm (at least externally) about Kanna liking Kaito.  It seems like he doesn’t see any reason to pursue his feelings for her, because she obviously doesn’t feel the same way about him.  Now if only someone else could apply that same concept to her life.  Seriously, why does Kanna have to be such a idiot in this situation?  If Tetsuro can get over how he feels because he can read social cues and knows that there’s no point to it, why can’t this closed minded bitch do the same?  Remon shows up with a huge-ass 8mm camera and suggests that they go and follow Kanna and see what happens.

Kanna goes to Kaito’s house, and in a surprising turn of events, doesn’t bitch him out for skipping school, though it was probably due to the relief she felt when she found out that he wasn’t getting it on with Ichika.  At first Kaito invites her in, but his ever running mind imagines Ichika finding them together at home and her calling him a manslut, so he decides that they should go somewhere.  Kaito decides to go site hunting for their movie, and Remon, Tetsuro, and Mio, who have been watching the whole time, decide to follow them.   Meanwhile Ichika is having fantasies of her own and thinks that Kaito has discovered that she is an alien, and after seeing Katio and Kanna on the train, decides that they are going to report her to the authorities.  Now, if she is this paranoid about being found out by Kaito and the others, why in the hell was she so loosed lipped about her true identity in the second episode?  Oh plot holes, how I love thee.  So Ichika has a spaz attack and decides to follow Kaito and Kanna as well.

Kaito and Kanna continue on their faux date-thingy, with Remon and her lackeys following behind.  They do a bunch of random pointless stuff for a while until Mio asks Tetsuro to go get a drink with her.  Again, we are beat in the head with the fact that Tetsuro likes Kanna, and then beat in the stomach with the fact that he doesn’t mind it.  Finally Kaito and Kanna arrive at a standardly romantic bridge overlooking a sunset, and Kanna brazenly asks Kaito about Ichika, still attempting to establish the fact that she is a jealous bitch.  Kaito, however, tries to convince her (and probably himself) that he doesn’t really feel anything for her, because of how different they are.  Actually, he says that they “Don’t understand each other sometimes”.  Sometimes my ass.  Once again, I’d like to reiterate: He has known her for at the most two days.  TWO FUCKING DAYS.  Where in the hell does he get off, talking like they’ve known each other for months or something.  Although he’s just trying to justify why she “rejected” him, Kanna sees it as a go-ahead for telling him that she loves him.  She begins to, but unfortunately, Remon was trolling slightly too hard (well, way too hard, she as about five yards away) and Kanna stops halfway through, once again flipping her shit.  However, she does manage to get a jab about Kanna’s obvious feeling for Kaito in, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Remon runs away and Kanna chases her leaving Kaito alone.  He wanders around for a while before running into Ichika.  He once again starts to cry about how she “rejected” him and runs away form her like a pussy.  She then chases after him because she thinks that he knows she is an alien.  Oh misunderstandings.  After they both catch up with each other, they have a conversation about what they think the other knows about them, but it ends with neither of them really knowing what the other meant.  Instead, they just hang around for a while and talk about stuff that was apparently not important enough to show before they begin to go home.  At the station, Katio is filming Ichika (no doubt so he can jerk off to it later) and she conducts a fake interview with him, asking him if he has someone that he likes.  She runs through the list of girls that Kaito know, each to which he curtly replies “No”.  She then playfully suggests herself, and he freezes up like a complete social retard.  It seems people in anime aren’t too good at making jokes out of situations (well except Remon).  A ridiculously awkward moment occurs, bringing several gay babies into the world, and the episode ends with Ichika wearing a dumbfounded look on her face.

Honestly, what I wanted from this show was nothing more than a bunch of friends making a movie.  Esentially, I wanted it to be Super 8 without the alien, which is what Super 8 should have been in the first place.  Unfortunately, I’m obviously not getting that, but my hopes of that died pretty early in the first episode, so I can’t say it was very realistic to hold onto that hope.  But I know that I don’t want a bunch of high-school crush drama with aliens thrown in either.  I don’t really want to blog this show if it’s just going to be a summer romance anime, but I’ll end up watching it nonetheless.  After all, this show has Remon.  Remon, is definitely the best thing about this show.  It pretty awesome to see someone so blatantly laughing at these high school student’s crushes and such, not to mention that she more than likely knows that Ichika is an alien and doesn’t give a damn about it.  I’m sure she’ll continue to be a very successful troll throughout this entire series, so even if everything goes to shit, I’ll still have Remon to cling onto for dear life.

I would still very much like to know about Ichika’s plant, her race, and lots of other stuff that the show has failed to discuss, like Kaito’s “illness” which took a leave of absence this episode.  I think his illness is probably something caused by Ichika bringing him back to life or something, because she obviously killed him when she landed.  Maybe the technology they have to do that isn’t compatible with human cells or something, makes about a much sense as a teletubby with a plant growing from its head.  Speaking of her teletubby, Kaito seemed pretty relaxed around it, even though it looks like no animal on earth at all.  Seriously what goes through these characters heads?  Kaito has enough brainpower to decide not to stay at home with Kanna for fear Ichika might see him, but isn’t bother by Rinon, something that so obviously isn’t from earth?  Ichika thinks multiple times about how Kaito could have found out she’s an alien, yet doesn’t remember saying anything that would implicate such things at all?  These are the main characters people, sometimes you gotta take what you can get.  I’ll take Remon.

Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 2 – Beer Before Liquor

I’m still unsure as to whether I want to continue talking about this series (weekly at least), but I thought this episode had enough to talk about, or rather enough jokes to make, to condone a post about it.  I’m also still kind of unsure about if this show will be any good or not, because this episode didn’t particularly do anything to change my initial opinion about this being Onegai Teacher with some Ano Hana thrown in.

It begins with Kaito and Ichika attempting to explain what happened when his sister and Tanigawa walked in.  As you’d expect, the sister is overly understanding and Tanigawa is overly suspicious which I guess kind of has to happen if Ichika is going to end up living at Kaito’s house.  First of all, if you saw a girl clothed in  nothing but a towel kissing your brother, why in the name of Jesus would you allow that girl to live with him, especially while you’re away?  What could possibly happen, they surely couldn’t have sex or anything like that.  It seems that older women in anime are unusually civil when situations like this arise.  Tanigawa is also a real bitch in this scene (and throughout the episode), constantly question Ichika about her situation and whatnot.  I guess it’s understandable because everyone on the planet earth knows that she want’s Kaito’s dick, that is except for Kaito himself.  Ichika also drops a lot of information about her being from outer space, but no one really seems to pay much mind to it for whatever reason.  Why do extra terrestrials in situations like this in anime always randomly spout off stuff like that as if they didn’t know they were supposed to keep it a secret, as if they have no filter on what they say?  I mean, you have to really not be thinking to just blurt out lines like “our planet” and stuff.  Surely if her race is intelligent enough to build the technology that she has, they know not to say stuff like that when you don’t have to.

So because Katio’s sister is afraid that he’ll starve to death or something if she isn’t there to feed him, she allows Ichika to live at their house while she’s away to “take care” of Kaito.  Or maybe she just thinks he needs to get laid, he is a little high stung, so it wouldn’t surprise me.  They call the waaaaaaaambulance to take Tanigawa home who decides that she hasn’t been enough of a bitch for the night and calls everyone she knows to tell them that Ichika is living with Kaito.  Man, fuck her, that’s such a asshole-ish thing to do, do you really care about their personal privacy so little that you’d go and gossip to everyone about something so personal, something that doesn’t even involve you in the slightest.  She calls Tetsuro, Remon, and Kitihara to whine to them and they all decide to have a meeting at Katio’s house (with out his permission, of course).  And apparently, shy girls with big boobs like to walk around their room naked… seems kind of contradictory but, hey, fine by me.

Katio and Ichika go and see his sister off the next day.  His sister is crying the whole time like she’s going off to her death, probably because she’s finally realized that she’s given her little brother a free pass to have sex the entire summer.  They both go shopping and return home, only to find that Remon and their movie crew have broken into it to have a meeting.  They briefly discuss the movie, but then move on to the real reason Remon brought them their: to get shit-faced drunk.  So Remon brings out her spiked lemonade, but doesn’t have too much of a mind to tell everyone what’s really in it.  They quickly get intoxicated and have lots of drunk fun by playing Jenga and a King’s Game; too bad Sengoku wasn’t there.  Soon, Tanigawa realizes that she hasn’t been enough of a bitch today, so with the aid of alcohol, she calls out Ichika and Kaito’s situation and asks Ichika how she feels about Katio.  Thankfully, Ichika’s pet tele-tubby thing makes his public debut and they all have a good drunk hoopla about it.  All except  Remon, who seems to be quite content that she has found out more about Ichika, because she obviously knew something was up with her before.  So she pretty much exposed everyone to a potential life of alcoholism just to find out more about Ichika.  What a boss.

Kaito’s beehive hickey reappears on his forehead and Ichika cures it by kissing it.  But wait, why didn’t she kiss his neck when it appeared there the first time?  Whatever, I don’t think there’s really any point to take the logic of this show too seriously if it’s going to have such an obvious plot hole so early in the series.  Kaito, in his drunken state, is about to tell Ichika how much he wants to bone her, but Ichika stops him because I guess whatever race she’s part of has a higher tolerance to alcohol.

Well, like I said, I’m still not sure about how I feel about this show yet, but at least this show did one think that I though it would fail at: keeping it’s ecchi in it’s pants.  There were two scenes in this episode where I thought “Oh shit, here comes the ecchi” but surprisingly, it didn’t come.  The first was when Kaito was taking a bath.  Now, everyone knows that when a male character in a rom-com anime is taking a bath and there is a female in the house, that female is bound by nature to take off her clothes and come into the bathroom; either to take a bath with the male lead, or because she thought no one was there.  But that actually didn’t happen here, so props for that.  The second was when Kaito took Ichika to buy her some clothes.  Okay, so what do you think would be the main scene in this segment?  The underwear store, right?  Well, you’d be wrong, because it only appears for a second, and Kaito isn’t even inside, so once again, props to that.  I’m glad this show is deciding to to be to overbearing with it’s ecchi, even though there was one scene, and it was pretty unnecessary.

Now, before I talk about this, let me explain something first.  There are a few different versions of the first episode (sub-wise I mean).  In one, Remon doesn’t really say anything too special, but in another, she drops hints that she knows something that everyone else doesn’t about Ichika.  So, it stands to reason that she only got everyone drunk, and that she’s only helping with the movie to find out about Ichika.  But how much does actually know about everything, because she seemed pretty unfazed when Rinon starts dancing for everyone.  So I guess she… does… know that Ichika is an alien?  But if she does, she doesn’t really act like it’s too big of a deal.

All in all, decent episode, though I didn’t care for Ichika’s whole “magical place” thing too much.  So she wants to find some place that she dreams about, is that the whole purpose of her trip to earth?  How often do anime characters in things that are supposed to be emotional have some place that they know, but don’t know where or what it is, and they want to find that place?  Now that I think about it, it’s kind of like Ano Han… never mind.

Ano Natsu de Matteru Episode 1 – First Impressions

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Above is an example of a general reaction to the first episode of Ano Natsu de Matteru, or more specifically Onegai Teacher 2.0; actually, no, I think I’ll call this show Onegai Senpai from now on.  The first time I saw this show on the anime winter 2012 season visual guide, I took one glance and quickly dismissed it as being some generic harem rom-com.  However, a few weeks later I saw a PV for it and thought at the very least the animation looked decent.  Doing some research, I also discovered it was directed by the same person who headed Ano Hana and Toradora.  Then I actually began to think that this would be a very good show, as it seemed to elements of both those shows (and a little of Super 8) combined.  But I and several other people seemed to overlook the fact that this director also directed both Onegai Teacher and Onegai Twins, and that’s where opinions on this show will begin to differ.  

Although the basic premise and plot of Onegai Teacher are generic as all hell, and the show has tropes out the ass, I still think it’s better than a lot of people give it credit for. It’s characters are actually pretty good, considering that it’s an anime rom-com, and the fact that I saw it about 5 years ago may also play into my approval of it.  But no matter what anyone says, this is a remake of Onegai Teacher, so if you absolutely hated that show, then your feelings will probably be mutual to this one.  The plot and characters seem, for the most part, beat for beat with Teacher, except that the “teacher” is more age appropriate for the male lead this time around (probably because of how touchy a subject that would be in these times).  And I know it’s common for a director to have common tropes and themes in his works, but come on, surely you can think of something better than remaking a show that you’ve already made.  I guess that’s one way to avoid copyright claims though.

The story this time around follows Kaito Kirishima, the child of Jinta and Menma, and I’m not just making that joke because the shows have the same director.  Look at the guy; he looks exactly like a younger Jinta and has the appropriate hair color to be their child.  I’m not really sure if black or white hair is the dominant trait, but it looks like his just got caught in the middle at a nice dark grey.  He also inherited some of Jinta’s shut in traits (though I didn’t know that was genetic) and seems to enjoy movies, or at least I assume he does.  Speaking of that, when the hell is this supposed to take place?  I mean, he’s walking around with a damn Super 8 camera, and those things first came out in the late 60′s and early 70′s, but it doesn’t look anything like that time period.  And assuming this does take place in modern times, this is Japan, surely they have a better camera than this to make their movie with, and what the fuck kind of high school kid in these times knows how to splice and edit film and re-sync the audio?

Well, leaving behind this show’s fantasy timeline, the plot, like Onegai Teacher, involves Kaito accidentaly encountering an alien girl  and then some standard rom-com stuff happens (including a rather cringe-worthy scene at the end).  I, like a lot of other people, didn’t expect the sci-fi element of this show in the slightest, because the trailers made it seem more like the directors latest works.  However, I wasn’t as turned off as some other people, due to the fact that I’ve seen the show’s original version.  But, even though I didn’t really mind it that much, it seemed kind of unnecessary given the fact that the synopsis makes it seem like it’s going to be a lot more similar to Ano Hana.  A bunch of friends hanging out, being kids, and making a movie; doesn’t exactly seem like it needs any sci-fi.

I’m really not too sure how I feel about this show, and the fact that it’s produced by J.C. Staff doesn’t help much either.  But, for J.C. Staff, the animation looks pretty good, especially consider the fact that they literally have four shows airing this season – no joke. As far as rom-coms go, I’ve seen far, far worse, but I’ve also seen better.  However, considering that one of those “better” ones was directed by the same man who’s doing this, I still have some hope for this show.  I’ll just go ahead and assume that that last scene was put in there by J.C. Staff against the directors will, because that seems like something they’d do.  Anything to keep the ecchi alive boys.