みなみけ ただいま
Minami-ke Tadaima Episode 13 Review (final episode)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

At the infirmary, school nurse Kumada-sensei has hay fever, leading Uchida and Makoto to believe that their respective symptoms of watery eyes and itchy nose are also hay fever. They speak of this to Chiaki, all the while Uchida appears to be crying and Makoto has a finger up his nose, leading Chiaki to become quite annoyed by that. Chiaki says she doesn’t have hay fever, but every day when she gets home, she feels heavy, has ringing in her ear, and gets tired. Makoto, still picking his nose, wants to help, so he dresses as Mako-chan and with Uchida, pays Chiaki a visit. There, they discover the source of Chiaki’s problems is Kana, who drapes herself on Chiaki, begging to go on a hanami even though the flowers are not in bloom.

Kana is with Keiko, and Riko, bringing their lunches to her classroom, when Miyuki accidentally drops her small box of unopened milk.  Fujioka, bringing his lunch tray in the classroom, accidentally kicks it so that Kana smashes is, forcing her to go barefoot. Kana decides to test Fujioka’s kicking ability, so she crumples up her returned test and tosses it on the ground. Fujioka comes in, absentmindedly kicking it, so that it ends up in the trash. She tries it with Keiko’s eraser, and he accidentally kicks it so that it ends up with Keiko. She tries a volleyball, but he doesn’t kick that. However, in the hall as Kana is sitting and not cleaning, he kicks a bucket of water, soaking her skirt. Later, when the volleyball is accidentally sent into the hall, he accidentally kicks that her her face, leading her to call him a kicking banchou.

Hayami catches Haruka at the vending machines and asks what is in season. Haruka says fava beans, so Hayami puts Hosaka on the fava bean trail to make her a meal. After school, Chiaki is doing the grocery shopping for Haruka and is about to go get herself chocolate or chips when she sees the Curry/Vegetable Fairy (Hosaka) there. Hosaka speaks aloud of fava beans, even describing a pasta dish he wants to make. Chiaki convinced, buying fava beans and getting Haruka to make the pasta dish Hosaka mentioned. At school the next day, Haruka mentions to Hayami how Chiaki bought fava beans on her own and asked for a specific pasta dish. Hayami goes to see Hosaka, where she mentions this to Hosaka, who’s horrified since he brought in that very dish for Haruka.

Kana is on the balcony of their apartment, lamenting the fact that she could get no one to accept her hanami invitation. When she returns inside the apartment, Uchida lets out that Touma accidentally went into the boys bathroom. Touma is embarrassed, but says it is normal to make that kind of mistake. Uchida, Chiaki, and Yoshino don’t agree. Kana admits to going inside the boys bathroom three times one year, creeping out all the girls.  Sometime later at the middle school, Miyuki lets it out that Riko is a good knitter, having knitted a muffler for the boy she liked but couldn’t give it to him. Riko is embarrassed and Keiko has to explain to Miyuki what keeping a secret is.

At the Minami residence, Maki lets it out to Haruka and Kana that Atsuko has gained another bust size. Atsuko is embarrassed since it was supposed to be a secret between them two, but Kana and Haruka want to see (feel) the proof, whereupon they are convinced. Maki apologizes to Atsuko, saying that secrets make her want to tell them. Kana decides to use this “secret” business as a ploy to tell Maki about this great hanami spot for next Sunday.

Word spreads like Kana planned, so she’s excited for Sunday to come. Early Sunday morning, Kana grabs snacks and bottled green tea and heads to a lone, large sakura tree. However, she waits and waits but no one comes. She starts feeling depressed when Haruka and Chiaki show up. Chiaki insults Kana for not revealing this good hanami spot much sooner. After that, all of their various friends show up, save Hosaka, who’s on the other side of town.

Thoughts/Review:

And so, the latest Minami-ke comes to an end, but it is a good end.

The hay fever story was funny due to Makoto constantly having a finger up his nose. That kept getting funnier to me, and was topped when Uchida started questioning being friends with someone who had no shame in picking his nose in public.

I enjoyed the Fujioka kicking story, not only because of Fujioka’s absentminded kicks that ended up being good trick shots, but because Kana had Riko worried when she stated she was going to make Fujioka take responsibility, as in marrying her.  Then later, when he was about to tell her he’d take responsibility for getting her all wet, I couldn’t help but laugh when he accidentally kicked the ball in her face, ruining the mood.

The good part of the fava bean tale was Chiaki encountering Hosaka at the supermarket and becoming influenced by Hosaka’s verbal thinking concerning fava beans and making that pasta dish.

The keeping a secret stuff wasn’t that funny, but was amusing just the same. Still, I loved how Kana used the fact that everyone couldn’t keep a secret to get her hanami wish in.  Of course, it was very predictable what would happen, down to everyone eventually coming and Hosaka being elsewhere. Still, as they say, it is the journey that was the fun part.

Oh, I almost forgot; “Plain Yogurt” Shuuichi finally got his speaking cameo. Better late than never, eh?

I’ll write a final thoughts review in the very near future. In the meantime, I’ll close this by saying that Minami-ke Tadaima has not disappointed at all.