August 29th, 2016 
AstroNerdBoy 境界のRINNE ep 46
Kyoukai no RINNE 46
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Rumors are going around campus about a muffler/scarf that strangles guys when a girl attempts to give them a muffler. Sakura decides to make Rinne one to lure the Strangler Muffler out. She visits the Crafts Club, where the president, IGAWA Haruka agrees to teach Sakura how to knit a muffler. Since Sakura and Rinne come to believe Haruka knows the truth of the Tsukumogami muffler, she tells them that she knitted the muffler for a senpai, but didn’t give it to him because he received one from another girl. She threw it out, but it wants to be given to someone. Haruka gives it to Rinne, but it strangles him. After fleeing, it ends up in the hands of a large, martial arts guy, whom Haruka gives the muffler to. Sakura finishes her muffler for Rinne and gives it to him.
Sakura witnesses a young, female child ghost at the ice skating rink, so at school she enlists Rinne’s help. When Rinne hears the ghost is looking for someone named Shizuka, he takes Sakura to the next floor or the school where a Shizuka has a case for Rinne. He’s been getting yearly letters from his deceased, childhood friend named Yukina, who wants him to meet her at the skating rink. Since the two cases appear connected, Rinne and Sakura have Shizuka come to the rink. There, they are able to uncover what keeps Yukina bound to the rink and allow her to pass on.
Thoughts/Review:
And so we continue with the two stories for the price of one episode plan.
For the first story, I seem to vaguely remember this story from the manga. There’s not a whole lot to the story itself and this sinister muffler.
The only element here of interest is Sakura offering to make one for Rinne. So it brings back that hint of romance between Sakura and Rinne.
For the second story, here too, there’s not a lot to discuss. The writers go for the cliched male-female childhood friends who are in love with each other in that fashion that kids fall in love. Then one of them has to leave when their parent is transferred for job reasons.
The difference here is that we have the melodrama of Yukina being stood up by the sick Shizuka, only for her to die shortly thereafter in an accident. 🙁
The only item of humor here was when the skating rink person billed Shizuka for the damage Yukina’s ghost caused and Rinne bailed.
I did notice that the second story of this episode had a lot of cost saving moves to limit the amount of animation done.
In the end, Kyoukai no RINNE 46 just goes through the paces of stories that feel a lot like “been there, done that.”
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Well, I’m remembering another of your reviews that mentioned the high percentage of school kids dying and being converted to ghosts, just as a plot armor for the school setting, and the strange thing in this case is that there was not the characteristic trait of this episode.
Rumiko Takahashi tends to repeat her settings, and in the long run of a series it can be the right thing to do in her particular case, mainly because when she doesn’t, episodes like this have high probabilities of being the result. It is like she is bad with inventing new spontaneous stories without a long time of planning ahead.
I’m just talking having seen/read only ranma 1/2 and watched around 50 episodes of the inuyasha anime. (Urusei Yatsura is on my long list)
As I didn’t like this episode (first half boring and second half not funny), I’m wondering if these stories are really part of the original manga or just filler, and in whichever case my question is: why bothering to adapt this when surely there are better sources of material? After all there are at least 31 volumes of manga printed. Is this the best that Kyoukai no Rinne has to offer as this season is ending? It certainly doesn’t look as it can be a long run anime series (like bleach, one piece, dragon ball, or even ranma and inuyasha) and the plot is less developed than I thought it would be.
Offtopic: These days I’m awkwardly enjoying the Hinamatsuri manga by Ohtake Masao, did you read it? Tells the story of a Yakuza (forcibly) adopting a (special) girl (And that is just the beggining). And it is sci-fi and comedy.
I’m 99% certain that the first story is from the manga. I can’t speak for the second story, but I suspect it would be from the manga too.
One of the reasons I quit reading the manga is that it became tedious to me. Most of the stories were pretty short, whether a single chapter, or just 2-3 chapters. Characters quickly got into ruts, so Takahashi-sensei adds new characters to the mix until they rut.
The anime really did a good job of making stories flow in the first two seasons. But that’s because they cherry picked stuff with similar themes and made things work better. However, I get the feeling that Brain’s Base is now stuck with the dreg stories for the most part along with some other stuff. As such, I guess they are having a harder time making these story adaptations work as well.
No, I’ve not read it.
When you post Kyoukai no Rinne Episode 47?
It is scheduled for tomorrow, I think. I got behind. ^_^;;;