夏のあらし！春夏冬中 Episode 13 Review
Summer Storm! Open for Business Ep. 13 (Final Episode)
Natsu no Arashi! Akinai-chuu – 13

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Hajime works on a story where five years in the future, Arashi kisses him as completion of her promise after he helped her when she was a child. In the present, Master has Murata bring in a case of kiwi fruit, leading Hajime to decide to pull a prank on Takeshi for flirting with Arashi so much by creating his Cutie Q-chan — a kiwi filled with the hottest spices. Little does he know that Kaja is preparing the same thing, naming her’s “Lovely Kiwi-kun,” just to pay back Hajime for the Cutie Strawberry-chan and the Cutie Cherry-chan incidents she had to endure. Arashi discovers what Hajime is up to and decides to get in on the act, making her own kiwi bomb, calling it “Pretty Kiki-san-nana-go.”

An accident causes Kaja, Arashi, and Hajime to discover what had been done and when Murata has a bombed Kiwi Sundae, it is time to go back into the past to recover the other two. This is done, meaning the kiki creme puffs Kaja wants to eat are safe. Unfortunately, the one she eats is not and she’s foiled for the third time. Murata makes Hajime eat the Cutie Papaya-chan Murata had prepared and afterward, they are at a loss to account for the extra spiked kiwi (done innocently by Yayoi and Kanako when they added Wasabi to Murata’s sundae). Arashi helps Hajime get cleaned up outside and when he’s called back into the cafe, Arashi absentmindedly takes a drink from his glass, thereby getting an indirect kiss from Hajime.

Thoughts/Review:

SHAFT, obviously desperate to go out with a laugh, decides to go back to the well one more time and run with the spiked fruit joke. Fortunately, it still works but only because of the circumstances. Hajime wants to nail Takeshi from the first episode of the first series. That’s understandable. Kaja wants to nail Hajime since she’s eaten two of his spiked fruits. That’s understandable. Arashi wants to have a bit of mischievous fun and that’s understandable. So with the premise set, things work out pretty well.

The funniest part of the episode happened to poor Murata. It was pretty obvious that he was going to have a spiked sundae but what made it funny is how he’s unconscious at the bar, head back and arms dangling, and the staff continue on as if nothing happened, even serving a new customer (Takeshi). So, we keep seeing Murata out cold and every time he’s shown from a different angle as everyone else acts normal, it got funnier and funnier to me. Heck, I’m laughing now at the memory of it.

The next funniest moment came from Kaja using cellophane tape to close up her kiwi whereas Hajime’s and Arashi’s had no such resealing issue.

While the episode leaves the door open for another series (because the manga is still ongoing as I understand it), I did like how SHAFT built upon the earlier story of Hajime being Arashi’s first love. There was the nod to it during Hajime’s story at the beginning and then the romantic feelings Arashi has for Hajime came out when she drank from his glass and noticed the tingling in her own lips from the pepper-heat in his lips when he drank some water. The whole “indirect kiss” thing has come up before in romantic comedy anime titles so that’s not new, but it is still a sweet moment.

The salt guy got his salt, which amazed me. If SHAFT does another series, no more salt jokes, please.

Kanako and Yayoi’s “there was a food” skit kinda worked this episode and that’s a first. The only reason it worked is that Murata had been forced to get his order wrong throughout the series and not find out until it is delivered. Here, he gets to witness Kanako and Yayaoi’s stupidity in action and tries to protest it, but naturally they ignore him as they are lost in their own ramblings. When the order appears correct, he’s shocked and that was funny, especially knowing that it would be spiked. I didn’t think that they’d spike it with wasabi paste to make it more green though, so that was amusing.

I liked the references to TAKAKURA Ken. I’ve only seen him in one movie, which was shot in Japan when I was over there — Mr. Baseball. He plays the manager of the Japanese baseball team that has acquired Tom Selleck’s character. It is a pretty good movie and since it is all about Japan, maybe I should rewatch it and review it for the blog. In Japan, he’s a huge movie star, though he’s almost 79 now.

I’ll write some final thoughts later, but for now, the episode ends up showing what a decent episode SHAFT can make when they put their mind to it.