Minami-ke Okaeri 09
みなみけ おかえり Episode 09

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: 

Its nearly time for Christmas and Kana grabs some mandarin oranges from a case of them in the Minami residence for consumption. Eying the oranges on the table, Touma and Chiaki go for them at the same time. The next day at school, Uchida reports to Makoto that Touma and Chiaki are fighting. Uchida wants Makoto to do something, but he’s not getting between those two to stop a fight. Instead, he proposes a visit to the Minami residence and he has his transformation outfit to Mako-chan ready.

Once there, they ask Kana about the fight, but Kana doesn’t know anything. Kana has a bunch of oranges on the table and when Makoto and Uchida try to take one, Kana slaps their hands back. Touma and Chiaki arrive, talking about apologizing to Kana for taking her oranges when the see the fight, which results in a complete orange peel smacking Chiaki in the head. This leads to some Chiaki wrath on Kana.

Chiaki has made a giant stocking for Christmas but she won’t tell Haruka or Kana what she wants for Christmas. Haruka talks with Maki and Atsuko about this, then invites Fujioka over for a consultation since Fujioka’s teddy bear gift is so well loved by Chiaki. Fujioka takes advantage of his visit to give Kana and Haruka presents — mittens. He has the same gift for Chiaki, so Kana proposes just placing Fujioka’s gift into Chiaki’s stocking. Kana wakes Chiaki up on Christmas morning with her head inside the giant stocking. Since it has snowed, Haruka and Kana go out to make a snowman and are joined by Chiaki, who loves her mittens. When asked why she made such a large stocking, Chiaki says that she just made it and that any present was OK with her.

Its Christmas day and the other Minami residence and the three brothers talk about how Natsuki failed to leave Touma’s present beside her bed. Meanwhile, Touma has gone to visit the female Minami residence and when Haruka learns that Touma’s brothers didn’t leave a present for Touma (despite Touma’s insistence that she didn’t want another of their dumb presents), she calls Natsuki to chastise him. As such, Natsuki takes Touma’s present and leaves it on the table with a note to remind him to put the present by Touma’s bed that night.

Touma comes home and finds the present and the note, so she tosses the note and goes to Natsuki’s room to thank him in spite of everything. She tries to pretend that she’d simply overlooked the present when she got up the the morning, but Natsuki doesn’t play along with this lie, causing Touma to get angry with him.

Its before Christmas when Haruka spoke with Atsuko and Maki about Chiaki’s present. Hosaka overhears the conversation and when Natsuki comes up, the two have a short, frank conversation about Santa. After school, Hosaka wanders the shopping district and takes a job selling Christmas cakes. Women respond to Hosaka’s good looks and as he basks in their adoration, he fantasizes about Haruka coming to the shopping district cold and alone. Therefor, Hosaka seeing her, gives her a large Christmas cake and she kisses him in gratitude.

In reality, Hosaka is making out with a Christmas cake which results in him having a whipped cream beard and mustache. At that same time, Haruka, Kana, and Chiaki pass through and Kana wants to stop and buy a Christmas cake. Haruka refuses but she reveals the reason — she’s already bought one. They go home and have a Christmas dinner (roast chicken, salad, Christmas cake, pizza, and bread) with Mako-chan, Uchida, Yoshino, & Touma. Back at the shopping district, Hosaka refuses to wash his face, declaring himself to be Santa Claus and telling Haruka to come to him.

Thoughts/Review:

Chiaki was on a “bakayarou” roll this episode, slamming out the insult several times. While still amusing to me, the delivery of the word doesn’t come off quite as funny as it once did.

Fortunately, there were a lot of nice, amusing moments in this episode. Makoto proudly speaking of having his henshin outfit ready to transform himself into “Mako-chan” cracked me up. I liked how the writers made it appear that Touma and Chiaki were having a fight, only to let us know that they’d actually fought with Kana.

The story about Chiaki’s Christmas present wasn’t amusing to me but it was a sweet one. I really liked how Chiaki truly liked her Christmas present. However, I did not like the fact that Haruka didn’t even bother buying Chiaki something. Instead, she went with Kana’s suggestion of leaving Fujioka’s present in Chiaki’s stocking (though I suppose that one of the presents shown at the end of the episode could have been something Haruka bought for Chiaki). Score one for Kana, who’s really been on a roll this series.

I don’t know why, but I’m finding Natsuki more and more amusing as a character. His blunt, straight forward, get to the point attitude gets funnier to me with each episode. I couldn’t help but chuckle as he bulldozed through Touma’s attempt to pretend that no one forgot her present. When he and Hosaka had a conversation about Santa, I may not have been belly-laughing, but I was chuckling and grinning the entire time.

For Hosaka though, I can’t help but laugh whenever he goes into fantasy land. His making out with the Christmas cake is funny and smacks of wrong at the same time. Of course what’s great is how none of this impacts Hosaka at all. While his co-worker (boss?) is freaked out by Hosaka with a beard and mustache of whipped cream from the cake, Hosaka is playing Santa. Funny stuff, y’all.

So a good episode had here. I have no problem with series having Christmas episodes when it isn’t Christmas time.