みなみけ～おかわり～ Ep. 11

SPOILER Summary: Kana is about to leave school for home when she’s stopped by Keiko and realizes she’s supposed to clean. So she fakes illness and goes home. There, while Touma is visiting, Fujioka comes by to see how she’s doing. She remembers feigning illness and says she’s better and invites him in. However, she soon remembers that Touma is in the living room and still in her seifuku. Since Fujioka thinks Touma is a boy, this could be a disaster. Fujioka says he thinks it is cute that Touma is wearing a girl’s school uniform, and Touma flees to the empty bath, embarrassed by this. Kana decides to cover for her by getting Fujioka’s shirt off and trying to make him wear her seifuku, which she claims to have done with Touma.

Its evening and the following day is time for neighborhood cleanup. Kana doesn’t want to do this, so she feigns catching a cold. The next day, Haruka leaves Chiaki to look after the “ill” Kana while she goes on cleanup duty, promising Kana to make a special udon for lunch. She gives Kana a bell and tells her to ring it if she needs anything. Kana rings for a drink, which Chiaki provides. Then Kana rings for a new manga (a parody of Minami-ke). All the while, Chiaki has been eying Kana suspiciously, which when Kana notices, she starts a cough. After Haruka comes home, Chiaki has had enough and accuses Kana of faking, bashing her in the head with a pitch of the Fujioka teddy bear.

It is a Sunday and Kana is sleeping in. Chiaki is dressed to go out into the cold and asks Kana if she’s forgotten about the plan for the day — t0 go shopping and then to go to an all-you-can-eat rib joint. Kana gets up but then discovers that she is actually sick. Not wanting to let Haruka and Chiaki know this, Kana tells them that she can’t go shopping with them since she wants to do her homework so that she can enjoy dinner. Chiaki finds this amazing, but they buy it and are off to shop. Chiaki summons Uchida and Makoto (as Mako-chan) to come over. They bring medicines and such and try to help Kana get over her cold. Unfortunately, Kana gets worse so that by the time Chiaki and Haruka get home, Chiaki is quickly able to figure out that Kana is in fact truly sick.

Finally, Kana comes to consort with Chiaki-sama. She wants to make sure things between herself and Fujioka are peaceful, so Chiaki comes up with a plan for her. At school, Kana calls Fujioka out and demands to know why he addresses her as “Minami” when he addresses her sisters Haruka and Chiaki by their first names. As such, she demands he address her as “Kana-chan” since there are lots of “Minami” people in her house. This catching him completely off guard and he’s too embarrassed to suddenly change to a more intimate way of addressing her. Kana misreads this as him being angry and so she uses the ultimate play from Chiaki — she grabs him from behind and is going to do a wrestling move. The move fails but Fujioka is in heaven at being embraced from behind by Kana. Kana reports this to Chiaki, who’s amazed that she actually did it.

Thoughts: OK, Kana’s attempts to cover for Touma wearing a girl’s seifuku by trying to make Fujioka wear one as well (since Fujioka thinks Touma is a boy) was amusing to me. I was mildly amused by Kana’s faking being sick. The final story (which felt like something from the first series) with Kana and Fujioka was amusing as well. So this episode may have been the best of the lot, but considering how poorly I considered the other episodes, I guess that’s not saying much. Still, credit where credit is due. Since I’ve slammed this series so hard, praise for an overall amusing story is warranted.