Minami-ke Okawari 02
みなみけ～おかわり～ Ep. 02

SPOILER Summary:

Its time for breakfast and Kana is running behind schedule, but wants more rice just the same. This doesn’t make Chiaki or Haruka very happy, but she gets her seconds. At school, Haruka meets up with Maki and Atsuko where they talk about their winter vacation. In class, the home room teacher wants them to pick a new inchou (class room leader) and Haruka is now the lead candidate even though she doesn’t want to be. It is here that Atsuko recalls the Legend of Banchou and tells it to Maki, much to Haruka’s chagrin.

At Chiaki’s school, Chiaki, Makoto, Uchida, and Shuuichi discover they have a hamster in an Amazon.co.jp (parody) box. When Uchida tries to feed it a pencil (because her mother implied such when trying to get Uchida to stop chewing on pencils), Chiaki decides to take charge, telling them the proper care of animals as she thinks of Kana. She orders Uchida and Makoto out to get supplies, and they do so because the princess ordered it. Shuuichi avoids eye contact with Chiaki to keep from receiving orders. Fortunately for her, Touma makes the mistake of entering the classroom and takes the order instead, being reminded of who the princess is. As such, she finds herself officially in charge of the hamster from her teacher.

At home, Chiaki relays the news of her new job. Kana is surprised she’d take it and wonders if she can handle it. Chiaki says she has some experience dealing with animals and stares at Kana for a bit. Kana wonders about teaching tricks and things as Chiaki thinks she has found a way to get out of eating vegetables by telling Haruka that hamsters love carrots and spinach. However, it just means that there will be more of said vegetables now.

That night as Chiaki brushes her teeth and Kana gets ready for a bath, they hear Haruka on the phone with a suspicious call. The following day at school, Kana is frustrated, wondering how she can consume a large breakfast in three minutes. Two girls, Yuu (the former “Banchou”) and Hiroko enter Kana’s classroom having heard about the return of the Legendary Banchou and ask Kana about it. She remembers the phone call of Haruka’s and assumes it is regarding being a banchou again. Hiroko thinks of how Haruka can be the Great Banchou and lead an army from various schools. Kana is excited about this and gets on board with this effort.

Up on the roof, Kana, Yuu, Hiroko, and Keiko are waiting as Fujioka comes up after having been summoned by Kana. Kana tells him, whom she has declared is the current banchou of their school, that he’ll be Haruka’s right-hand banchou, much to his confusion. After school, Kana has him outside the school and wants him to break all the glass as Haruka was rumored to have done. Kana gets corrected about this, saying Haruka cleaned all the glass, so Kana makes Fujioka start cleaning glass. Kana’s frustrated at the efforts of Fujioka and it is suggested that she become banchou since she is the sister of Haruka.

At Haruka’s school, Hayami-senpai is begging Banchou to join the Volleyball Club. Haruka protests this as Hosaka-senpai watches with Maki. He decides he wants to serve the banchou with body, soul, and sweat, and much to Maki’s disgust, he begins to strip. At the Minami residence, Chiaki and Kana are playing the Japanese version of “Battleship” called “Submarine.” As they play, Kana thinks Chiaki should become a banchou to support Haruka. Chiaki isn’t convinced about Haruka being a banchou, but she gets convinced when she and Kana spy on her and see how she slices up some vegetables.

At school, Kana consults with Keiko on growing her army. Keiko suggest strong people, to be determined by an arm-wrestling contest. Kana is down with that and in an empty classroom, a group of students meet to hear this. Yuu is happy about this, but Kana tells her she won’t be participating in the contest since she’s already in the army. An anonymous girl asks about a prize for winning the contest, and Kana suggest the winner gets Fujioka, to do what they want with him. This gets Riko into very serious mode, demanding people take her on.

Meanwhile, Chiaki looks over her classroom and the people in her circle and decides none of them are acceptable to be the underlings in a banchou’s army. So she “remote apologizes” to Haruka-neesama for not being able to support her (she makes the apology, but not to Haruka in person). Elsewhere, Haruka turns down the inchou position. She comes home and Kana is going on about the Great Banchou. Haruka sets the record straight and Chiaki punches Kana as punishment. So the next day at school, Keiko asks about the banchou army and Kana tells her they are off that. Fujioka is declared “Banchou” again by Kana and her chief concern returns to how she can eat breakfast in three minutes.

Thoughts/Review:

OK, the black faces of background characters is annoying in Minami-ke Okawari 02. Its more annoying when they have a speaking role. Also, the traditional episode format just doesn’t work that will for this series. And the character designs makes Chiaki much less cool to me. I don’t like Haruka’s new classroom either.

For this specific episode, I only got one laugh, and that was when Chiaki was talking about caring for an animal while thinking of Kana. Otherwise, the episode was OK (my complaints not withstanding) but two episodes in, I’m really disappointed at how this series has fallen.