かんなぎ Episode 14 (DVD extra episode)
Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens 14
Kannagi – 14

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Takako and Shino find a bundle of money on the street and turning it in nets Kanako a ¥100,000 reward. As such, she wants the art club to do a movie. Zange-chan invites herself into the picture and is declared a heroine. However, Takako wants story ideas from the other members and everyone has their own notion of what they want the movie to be about.

Takako assigns Akiba the task of writing a script, which he does in 15-minutes. The members of the club read it as a group and love what they see; so the movie is on with Akiba directing. However, because of their budgetary shortcomings, the movie production is less than what Takako had hoped for.

Akiba stops production when a small cloud enters his shot. Unfortunately, that cloud turns into a bigger cloud, then more clouds, then rain, then a typhoon. After fleeing for shelter in the art club room, Takako has the club members get into their school swimsuits, hoping to strike something provocative. However, when an old video game is found, that ends those plans with the three guys getting so involved in playing, they forget about personal space — something that troubles Takako.

When the power is killed to the school, Nagi uses her baton as a light source. Jin trips over a DVD on the floor, one which Akiba rented just for this movie. Since the movie budget money has been used up, Takako orders Akiba to return the DVD immediately lest the incur more late charges. Jin, Nagi, and Daitetsu agree to join Akiba on this dangerous quest through the typhoon. Soon, Daitetsu is knocked out by flying debris and Akiba is swept away by a flash flood but not before getting the DVD to Jin. The storm ends, allowing Jin and Nagi to make it safely to the video store, only to discover that they forgot to bring money to pay the current late fees.

Sometime later at school, the art club sans Takako are watching the movie they made and find it to be terrible, something Akiba blames on their having a low budget. Nagi wonders what Takako would say about this but Shino assures her it is OK. Meanwhile, Takako is at that moment walking the same street as before and this time discovers a large number of bundles of money on the street. She immediately decides that their movie will get a “part 2.”

Thoughts/Review:

Ah, it has been far too long since I had some Kannagi goodness. Hearing the OP, I was reminded of how good I found this series. There REALLY needs to be a sequel series to this you know.

Anyway, I will say that while this episode was funny with its different moments and stuff (and I even liked the parody of adventure stories), it wasn’t the best episode of the series. The movie filming stuff was kind of boring and a drag but the adventure afterward and some of the elements prior to the movie were good stuff.

The funny stuff started with Takako and Shino finding the money — just the look on their faces let me know that good things were around the corner and sure enough, Takako’s brief loss of self-control when getting the art club members to go for making a movie was funny.

Of course the sudden rain shower was funny as was Takako’s decision to have everyone don swimsuits. Yeah, we have the traditional breast jokes, but the fact that Nagi was so oblivious to her own small size I think is what ended up making the joke funny for me (in addition to that saxophone music used). Funnier still were the guys in swimsuits forgetting about personal space as they became engrossed in their old school video game. ^_^;;;

Next would be Nagi’s use of her baton during the power outage as a light source. I couldn’t help but remember her other uses of the baton for a light and it still cracks me up. This of course leads to the adventure parody with the unexpected (and yet expected) events that result in Jin and Nagi making it to the video store. I just laughed and laughed by this point.

There was one other negative element to this episode though — I thought the animation was pretty bad at times and the whole thing felt as if it were done of the cheap. That was disappointing but fortunately the other good stuff overcame the bad. I think the remarks the art club made about how bad their movie looked and the budget problems are in fact remarks about how this episode looked. However, with Takako finding a larger pile of money, maybe that’s a hint at a desire to create a 2nd series. I hope so.

In the end, the good really outweighed the bad in this episode. If you enjoyed the laughs of Kannagi before, you’ll enjoy them here as well.