かんなぎ Episode 05
Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens 05

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Tsugumi is excited to be with a real celebrity, but that changes when Zange-chan comes onto Jin, then produces her elaborate bento. Nagi samples it, finding the food good and when Jin has some, it is good. Zange continues to come onto Jin, forcing Tsugumi to try to put a stop to it. Nagi joins Tsugumi, so Zange decides that to settle it, they’ll have a food-preparation contest and the winner gets Jin. Nagi agrees and gets an unconvinced Tsugumi to go along. Tsugumi notices that Zange at times talks to herself (actually speaking to Hakua) and that she seems to suck at making food. Nagi, on the other hand, looks great. The dishes prepared, Zange’s are all burnt, Tsugumi only has fried vegetables and an omelet, and Nagi has an elaborate dish. It looks like Nagi is the winner, but her food tastes like crap.

At school, Jin discovers a wallet with a “Nagi-sama Official Fan Club” card inside. He demands answers from his art club classmates. They show Jin the official website for “Nagi-sama” with testimonials and the like. The site even lists Jin as Nagi’s younger brother and Zange as the little sister. The site even lists rules for “Nagi-sama,” as the goal is to protect her from being discovered by the faculty of the school. Jin wonders why Takako knows so much about Nagi’s fan club, so she brandishes her own membership card. Meanwhile, Hagashima-sensei and Suzushiro-sensei discuss the rumors of a girl who’s not a member of the school running around the campus.

At home that evening, Jin demands to know why Nagi even needs to be at the school. In addition to the impurities there, Nagi states that her powers are now starting to come back thanks to her idol status. Zange has noticed this as well, having just learned about the Nagi-sama website, so she calls Nagi over for a meeting at school the next day. Nagi is prepared for another attack, but since Nagi has her staff, Zange isn’t going to do that. Instead, she wants Nagi to leave since Nagi is taking from Zange’s popularity. Nagi realizes that Zange is bluffing since it is already out that Hakua/Zange-chan is the younger sister of Nagi. Zange leaves with Suzushiro-sensei’s arrival, leaving Nagi to deal with the teacher.

News spreads that Nagi-sama has been caught by the teachers and a crowd gathers outside the teacher’s room. Nagi adopts her formal speech again as she deals with Hagashima-sensei, who’s older and bald. Jin is informed and makes his way there too. Hagashima-sensei is grilling Nagi who’s in a bad spot considering the lies she’s told about whom she is related to. However, the gathered students begin to demand Nagi-sama be freed and begin chanting her name. Nagi feels her powers coming back and thinks she has enough to do something. She whips out her baton and the power from it shoots out like a beam, but is reflected by Hagashima-sensei’s bald head.

It is days later and the official Nagi-sama site has changed now that Nagi is a student at the school. Suzushiro-sensei made the way for this to happen and as a religious studies teacher, Nagi states that a paper she wrote caught his attention. So, she’s not only in this high school, but she pays no tuition either. In a flashback, we see Suzushiro-sensei’s talk with Nagi, where he reveals he knows she’s not human and that his daughter Hakua is possessed. He doesn’t believe Zange is evil, nor does he believe Nagi is evil. He is happy to hear that Nagi wants Zange out of Hakua’s body though and tells Nagi that he’ll take care of making her an official student so she doesn’t have to hide.

At home, Jin is surprised to learn that Suzushiro-sensei and Hakua are father-daughter. Nagi is not happy that Jin is so useless when it comes to information. Irritated, Jin gets onto Nagi for what she puts into her miso soup. Nagi retorts that she doesn’t want to hear this from someone who puts soy Worcestershire sauce on everything, calling him “Sauce Maji.” He gets angry by that, so she teases him about leaving and moving in with Takako. Jin protests this angrily, leading Nagi to tell him she was just joking. Jin is left to wonder why he was so insistent that she stay with him.

After dinner, Jin heads out to go to the convenience store and Nagi joins him with her baton. She shows off its new power, the star-shaped beam of light coming from the baton top. Jin is not happy she’s using the baton as a flashlight now as they run into Zange. She has groceries and is planning on coming over to Jin’s house to make him food. Because of her clinging to Jin, Nagi gets irritated and she and Zange bicker as the light from Nagi’s baton gets brighter and brighter, like a floodlight.

Thoughts/Review:

Nagi-sama. *lol* OK, the idol thing has turned out to be pretty funny. The production team has done a fantastic job (and I’m guessing a lot of credit goes to Takenashi-sensei as well) with the humor. I’ve always stated that the funniest things are the ones you don’t expect. If you are going to do the expected, shift things to make it unexpected, which is where the comedic timing has been coming into play. Food jokes are old as the hills, yet this episode made a food joke that just had me in stitches. Nagi’s power-up moment — another laugh out loud situation. Her new use for her baton — funny. Her way of eating miso soup (and her slamming Jin for his love of soy sauce) — funny. I had to stop watching because I laughed so hard, I had a coughing fit. Just great stuff.

With Nagi having a bit more power and even taking out an impurity without Jin (I loved the RPG reference regarding this), I wonder how much more the impurity issue will play in the series. After all, since Suzushiro-sensei is the father of Hakua and he not only knows his daughter is possessed, but Nagi is not human too, Nagi’s mission seems to have shifted from the impurities to freeing Hakua from Zange.

This episode had some interesting twists. I had thought that Zange might actually move in with Nagi and Jin, but that’s not happening (though it does appear she’ll be showing up a lot). Also, officially Jin is now related to both Hakua/Zange and Nagi. This little tricky situation is being given a “don’t think about it too much” approach. After all, it is pretty tough to explain how Suzushiro-sensei has two daughters. No wonder the Nagi-sama website said that due to the complicated nature of her family situation, no one is to probe into it. *lol*

Another thing is that this episode is laid out a bit differently, with some very clear breaks so that we had a few different but linked stories. That works too, especially in a comedic way as Azumanga Daioh and Minami-ke proved (and Minami-ke Okawari proved in a negative way).

The comedy of this episode made up for the smaller amounts of it last episode. I really am enjoying Kannagi and may even try to read the manga at some point. Here’s hoping for more Nagi nuttiness. ^_^