みなみけ～おかわり～ Ep. 07

SPOILER Summary: Its nearly Valentine’s Day and so its time to learn how to make chocolate with Haruka teaching and Kana deciding to turn it into a festival, thusly inviting over Touma, Makoto (as Mako-chan), Uchida, and Yoshino. Kana forces Makoto to dress in a maid costume, which he does in order to stay over, much to Uchida’s amusement. Kana doesn’t do much but eat chocolate, so when she goes to raid the fridge for more chocolate that’s currently cooling, she takes the one with Chiaki’s name on the slip, only to find it had been spiked.

When Haruka asks whom the girls will give the chocolate too, Mako-chan says Haruka, but Chiaki objects strongly, not once but twice. Haruka suggests a boy and as they all eagerly await Mako-chan’s answer, he reluctantly suggest “Makoto-kun,” which Uchida finds very funny. When Chiaki is prompted, Kana suggests Fuyuki-kun, which Chiaki does not agree with. For her part, Kana plans to give out no chocolate, but does plan to consume them where she can.

At school, Fuyuki-kun delivers some papers and finds himself the recipient of chocolates for his efforts. Touma also finds herself the recipient of chocolates from other girls because as they put it, she’s cooler than most guys. Chiaki remarks to her that this officially makes Touma a boy. At this high school, Hosaka-senpai has jumped the gun and made a White Day chocolate for Haruka, even though (1) he never received a chocolate from Haruka and (2) its Valentine’s Day, not White Day.

At the middle school, Fujioka is anticipating a chocolate from Kana. However, he finds a lot of other girls have given him chocolates already and he doesn’t want Kana to know for fear she’d be hurt. However, when Kana comes by, she’s looking to score chocolates off him, not give any. So when he denies having any, she hangs around, which irritates other girls wanting to give him chocolates as they perceive Kana as a blocking force. Eventually, Kana is tired of waiting and so consults with Keiko on which guy is likely to get the most chocolate. When Keiko states the name, Kana is off and eventually returns with an arm full of chocolate. Since Fujioka ditched all the chocolate he had previously received, Kana perceives his look to be one of someone who’d gotten no chocolate. So she gives him one she’d collected, for which he’s grateful.

Back at home, Haruka gives chocolates to both Kana and Chiaki. Chiaki gives one back to Haruka, who tells her she really should have given it to a boy. However, no boy will apparently come close to “Haruka-neesama.” Kana wants a chocolate from Chiaki but there is none. Kana eventually steals the chocolate Haruka gave Chiaki, which leads to the two getting into a fight.

Thoughts: This was mostly a tedious episode to me with a couple of OK parts. The Black-san characters are REALLY annoying, though the animators are now allowing some extremely shadowed faces to sometimes come through (with black hands though). Regardless, its still highly annoying.

So what was good? Mako-chan being forced to chose a boy to give “her” chocolate to (naturally Makoto-kun) was amusing. We finally got a taste of the old Chiaki when she spiked a chocolate with her name on it, knowing Kana would steal it, complete with the “bakayarou” written on a slip behind Chiaki’s name as a message for Kana. I miss the good old Chiaki. Heck, I miss everything about the original Minami-ke.