夏のあらし！ Episode 05
(Summer Storm)
Natsu no Arashi! – 05

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Jun comes to work, bothered by her secret of pretending to be a guy. Her day doesn’t get any better when the soda fountain fails and she encounters a cockroach. Hajime’s attempt to take care of the roach ends up in Jun’s waiter uniform being soaked. After a shower, Jun emerges wearing a traditional serving kimono like the ones Arashi and Kaja wear. Jun apparently didn’t pay attention to what she wore but Master won’t let her change, especially since it is helping the business. When Jun encounters a mouse, Hajime again causes her to get soaked, forcing her to take another shower. This time, Master has provided a maid costume and it is an even bigger hit.

Because of this, Master ends up getting everyone into different colored maid costumes to help with the business. She even tries to coach Kaja on the art of the sensual change giving, but this is too embarrassing for Kaja. During a break, Hajime tries to see if Jun can connect with Arashi for time travel, but since Arashi can only connect with boys, the attempt fails.

 However, because Hajime is gripping Jun around the chest, she gives him yet another beating for it. She leaves and is frustrated with herself because she realizes that Hajime has done nothing wrong since he doesn’t know she’s a girl. Kaja comes out and comforts Jun. Upon return, yet another mishap causes Jun and everyone else to get soaked when the soda fountain spews out, hitting some hard candies and causing a massive foam eruption.

Thoughts/Review:

OK, I’m just a little weary of the joke interlude sessions between Yayoi and Kanako. It was tolerable when it only came at the end of the episode because I could ignore it. However, this time we had one at the beginning, middle, and end of the episode. Ugh. Its the same stupid joke over and over, only with a different punch line each time. They’ve never been funny jokes and further, they require some sort of translator note since the punchline is very Japanese. Naturally, we won’t be getting one of those, though.

Now onto the episode itself.

Clearly, SHAFT is having too much fun with the idea of carbonated beverages and Mentos candies causing foam eruptions. The detective guzzling cola and eating a Mentos with a major negative reaction is taken from an old urban legend on the subject. Despite this, I couldn’t help but laugh when I knew what was going to happen. The joke basically repeating at the end of the episode with the model of Ark getting foamed over. I wonder who’s idea it was to film a live-action sequence of a model of the Ark. However, that’s why I say they are having too much fun.

I should have suspected that Jun is a “reverse trap” — a girl who looks, acts, and dresses like a boy but isn’t. Now that I look back, there were some signs for sure. I wonder why Jun is pretending to be a boy. After all, its clear that this lie troubles her somewhat. Now I guess I know why Kaja can only connect with a girl in order to travel back in time — to connect with Jun. Since Hajime thinks that only boys can connect with Kaja or Arashi, Jun will be able to continue her lie. Regardless, this revelation did prove to be fairly funny to me. I wonder if Jun’s maid costume was a tribute to Hand Maid May. Its not the same costume, but it is similar.

Since this was a pure comedy episode, Arashi and Hajime’s adventures in time weren’t documented but they were mentioned and indeed were the source of another joke about Jun almost being outed. However, the episode spelled out that Arashi is keen on saving people in the past. This seems a strange task seeing as how the question of “whom do you save” rears its head. It seems to me that you can’t save everyone. Also, we learned why Ark is so important — it wasn’t bombed during the war.

So despite the Yayoi and Kanako stuff, the episode is a pretty funny one. Knowing SHAFT, it is time for a dud. ^_^;;;