Minami-ke Okaeri 05
みなみけ おかえり Episode 05

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: 

It’s summer which means pool time at school and Chiaki isn’t happy. Makoto spots Chiaki not cleaning and gets onto her for it. She insults him in return, since getting the pool clean would mean then having to use it. Since she has control over the water hose, she can bring their cleaning to a halt. Makoto, Yoshino, and Uchida confer and come up with a plan whereby Makoto gets the water hose. In celebration, he ends up soaking Chiaki, who gets the hose back and plans for some revenge. However, spraying Yoshino and Uchida is something they enjoy, which frustrates Chiaki. Makoto notices all three girls now have wet shirts, and since he looked, Chiaki must hand down punishment involving buckets of water and brooms.

Its another hot class day with Uchida and Yoshino looking forward to the pool. Chiaki is tired of them saying how hot it is but their plan is to keep saying it so that the pool will be that much better. Chiaki decides that since the human body is 70% water, if she can get it up to 80%, she’ll be more like water and thus OK. So she goes to start consuming water where she hears that another non-swimmer from another class now can swim. Since getting her water percentage to 80 is out of the question, she heads to see the nurse Kumada-sensei, since she feels pudgy after drinking so much. Her plan is to get a bandage for her finger to distract people from looking at her pudginess. It fails to work. However, since Yoshino and Uchida think she’s cut her finger, they keep her out of the pool. Now Chiaki has to suffer the heat.

At Kana’s school, they’ve just finished with pool and Kana decides she needs more pool on her day off. So she invited Riko, who is really excited to go, and Keiko, who agrees but really doesn’t want to go. Riko is surprised that Kana didn’t also invite Fujioka (whom she wants to get closer to), so she starts hinting about inviting others. Fujioka, who’d overheard the pool plans, also starts hinting about wanting to go to the pool again. Only Keiko knows that this tactic won’t work. When Riko mentions boys and girls, Kana finally gets the picture, then backs out of her invites, saying that maybe she’ll invite her sisters and their friends instead.

Chiaki awakens to find Kana already up. That’s because Kana has a pool day planned, where she meets up with Keiko, Riko, and Fujioka. She gets upset with Fujioka at the pool for not doing what she wanted, so much so that on the walk home, she kicks him in the shins. Once home, Kana still sulks and no one, including visitors Touma and “Mako-chan” can figure it out. So Touma asks Fujioka, who explains that they were playing a game of “tag” (“touch” as the Japanese call it). However, being the only guy in the group, touching a girl for tag isn’t proper.

Touma understands and decides to teach him how easy it can be. So she tags Chiaki, who tags Kana, who tags Mako-chan, who tags Fujioka, who then tags Touma very near her breast. Touma recoils at this and they have a second round. Again, Fujioka touches her near the breast and Touma really isn’t happy about that. Fujioka, thinking Touma is a guy and wants to increase the roughness of the game, gives chase to Touma.

Thoughts/Review:

Minami-ke Okaeri 05 saw the return of many, many forgotten characters including the long-forgotten Shuuichi. When was he last around anyway? I think it was episode 9 of Minami-ke Okawari. Also returning were Yoshino, Makoto (and Mako-chan), as well as Riko (who’s had a cameo recently but little else). So it was really nice to see all of these other supporting characters once again. Hopefully, they aren’t forgotten again for ages. Just don’t bring back Fuyuki-kun, please!

Episode-wise, the first story was pretty amusing with Chiaki busting out her trademark “bakayarou” on Makoto for being stupid in suggesting Chiaki clean the pool. It was funny to then turn around and praise him for being ready with the buckets for his punishment.

I enjoyed the second story as well, though as Chiaki started drinking the water, I thought about that young woman who died from water poisoning (water intoxication) from having drunk too much water in a radio contest. So I was actually relieved when Chiaki soon abandoned that plan.

Story three made me laugh at how desperately Riko tried to hint at getting Fujioka invited to the pool trip so she can spend time with him while at the same time, Fujioka is doing the same thing to be with Kana. Kana is so thick sometimes but eventually she caught on. Heh!

The fourth story was the funniest, though not really big time funny. Still, I laughed at Kana’s anger and her taking it out on Fujioka’s shin. Of course poor Fujioka doesn’t know Touma is a girl so tagging her on the chest isn’t a problem for him but sure is for her. Plus, we got to see “Mako-chan” in this episode, though some people’s favorite “trap” didn’t have much to do.

So while this episode wasn’t deeply funny, it did have its moments and can be best described as “fun.” Next episode is a beach-related one.