みなみけ～おかわり～ Ep. 13 (final episode)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Kana tells Chiaki what she learned from Haruka’s friends — Haruka is leaving to go study abroad. Chiaki wants to confront Haruka about this, but after Kana pleads with her not to do so, Chiaki relents. At school, Chiaki learns her friends are aware of Haruka’s plans to leave the country and are excited for her (save for Makoto). Kana has a talk with Keiko at school about the situation, leading her to tell Chiaki, Yoshino, and Uchida of her plan to prove that she and Chiaki can be self-reliant when it comes to cooking and cleaning. Makoto and Touma arrive and all are enlisted to help.

With Haruka gone to a volleyball club event, Chiaki and Kana try their hand at food preparation. Makoto and Touma are designated as food tasters, Chiaki and Uchida work on preparation (with some help from Yoshino), and Kana works on cooking, supervised by Yoshino. Their results end up failing repeatedly and the food tasters end up sick. Eventually, Chiaki and Yoshino discover the proper way to make the patties (which are being made for hamburger steak) and they work fine this time.

The following day, Haruka is awakened by Chiaki and Kana vacuuming and cleaning. She’s surprised by their efforts as Kana shoos her back to bed. The two then work on the laundry and then on making lunch, which pleases Haruka. Naturally, lunch is hamburger steak and when presented to Haruka to eat, she finds it is very good. She praises her younger sisters for all their hard work. Chiaki breaks down and tells Haruka that she doesn’t want Haruka to leave. Kana isn’t happy by this at first, but she too joins Chiaki in telling Haruka not to leave. After learning where the girls learned about her leaving, she promises them that she’s not going to leave and never was.

Thoughts/Review: Bloody Black-san characters are back. I swear, for the 3rd series, I hope those things aren’t brought back.

That aside, I liked how Chiaki and Kana worked hard to learn to cook and to prove to Haruka that they could also clean as well so that she could go to school overseas with no problems. Poor Touma and Makoto though. Whew. I think that was the only funny moment to this episode. I really wasn’t sure if the writers would have Haruka leave or not, but somehow I never really believed that they would. Maybe that was aided by knowing there’s a 3rd series being created.

I do have to ask why the production team decided that the scene of Chiaki, Uchida, and Yoshino are cutting onions is done sideways. That actually made me a little queasy somehow.

Beyond that, there’s not much to comment on — Chiaki and Kana want to prove they can live without Haruka and their friends help them on their quest. That’s the episode in a nutshell. There are nice moments and one funny moment but nothing that special as I saw it.