みなみけ ただいま

Minami-ke Tadaima Episode 09 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

A depressed Takeru gives Haruka a pair of tickets to what is billed as the most romantic movie ever. However, Haruka doesn’t really want them, so at school, she looks for someone to give the tickets to.  Hayami tells Hosaka that Haruka likes movies, leading him to imagine taking Haruka and her “daughters” to the theater. Meanwhile, Haruka gives the tickets to Natsuki as thanks for being the cook at their recent barbeque.  The tickets are pressed together, so he thinks there’s only one and he’s being asked out. However, as he ponders this in class, he overhears Hitomi and Miki discuss the movie and has second thoughts.

Hitomi notices Natsuki’s eyes, so she comes by his desk. He gives her the tickets (as a single ticket), so she races to the female Minami residence to discuss this turn of events. Kana discovers there are two tickets, causing Hitomi to become confused. However, Kana and Chiaki have figured out what happened and that the tickets were identical to the ones Haruka had given away. The next day, Hitomi returns to the Minami residence, having no clue what to do. Kana decides they need a male perspective and on cue, Fujioka arrives on the scene. Hitomi and Fujioka react to each other, since it seems they are always running into each other, something Kana says leads to love.

Kana and Chiaki watch in total fascination as Hitomi and Fujioka are in complete synch with each other, whether it is how they drink their tea or how they say things at the same time.  They even need to use the toilet at the same time, so they end up doing rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to use it first, but that always ends in a tie.  Haruka mentions there’s a nearby public toilet, so naturally, both decide to race to use it just as Maki pops in for a visit. When the pair return, Kana asks who won, but of course, it was a tie. Hitomi and Fujioka shake hands in respect for the other, leading Kana to cite this blossoming friendship as the grounds for love, which the two deny.

Kana suggests giving a ticket to Maki since she wants to see the movie, but Hitomi rejects this since a romance movie should be seen by one guy and one girl on a date. This leads the discussion to Fujioka and his love life, since they are sure he has someone he likes. Maki feels that the guy should do the confessing and be straight forward about it. Fujioka says he’s already tried that, but it didn’t get through. Kana and Maki agree that Fujioka is at fault here, so they ask Hitomi how she wants to be confessed to, telling Fujioka to take notes. He agrees and Hitomi lays it out there.

At school, Natsuki is pondering how he can express his feelings to Touma over her not doing her chores. Hitomi sees his eyes and thinks he’s thinking love feelings. So they chat about expressing feelings as Hitomi says that hovering around the person, wait for their eyes to meet, and hope that her feelings got through to the other party. If that doesn’t work, then she’d say she loved the person in question. Natsuki is confused by this, but at home, he starts hovering around Touma as she tries to read a manga. Their eyes meet and Touma demands to know what’s up. After a struggle, Natsuki loudly decides there’s no way he can say he loves his sister.

At the junior high school, Riko talks to Keiko about the difficulties in expressing one’s feelings. Keiko suggests some things, including a handmade present, when Kana invites the pair to come to a study party at her place along with Fujioka. On the way home with Keiko, Riko decides to make cookies and picks up a recipe book, where she starts fretting because it calls for an unspecified “small” amount of salt. The afternoon of the study party arrives and Riko brings her cookies, which Kana sniffs out. Sharing them with the group, Riko is pleased that Fujioka likes them. Kana states that they need a little more salt, causing Riko to demand how much “a little” is.

Thoughts/Review:

Thanks to being so sick, I had to watch this twice for my late review, but being a Minami-ke episode, that was not a bad thing at all. ^_^

Unrequited love has always been a major part of the franchise, but here, it was taken to a different level, thanks to the passing around of the romantic movie tickets.  Natsuki loves Haruka, so her giving him tickets initially is good, then he realizes the truth and pawns them to Hitomi. She’s excited to get tickets from the guy she loves, but then can’t figure out why he gave her two ticket. I would have laughed if Haruka had ended up with the tickets again, but the ticket aspect of the story just got dropped unresolved. Regardless, Haruka has no clue that Natsuki likes her and Natsuki has no clue that Hitomi likes him, even after she gave away her secret method for expressing her feelings to him.

Speaking of Hitomi, it was rather cute and humorous how she and Fujioka are so in synch. It would be funny if a few years from now when Fujioka has graduated, he ends up marrying Hitomi even though she’s a few years older than him.

Being somewhat of a cook, when I feel like being bothered that is, I was amused at Riko’s worrying about how much salt constitutes “a little” amount. Well, when one is new to cooking and wants to make everything just right, a non-specific measurement of an ingredient can be frustrating. Of course, this being Minami-ke, suddenly every conversation around Riko was about “a little” of this or “a little” of that (sukoshi – すこし).

Well, since I’m already way behind, I’ll go ahead and wrap this up. That said, I really did enjoy this episode a lot.