みなみけ Episode 13

SPOILER Summary: Kana, Uchida, Touma, and Makoto are looking at a male and female kimono on the bed. Naturally with it being New Years, a kimono must be worn. Realizing what is up, Makoto protests having to wear a female kimono but Touma has no problem wearing a male kimono, to the point of forgetting she’s a girl and having part of her chest exposed. Uchida pays a compliment to the way Touma looks but not so with Makoto in the kimono. Kana assures him that Haruka will find him cute though which mollifies him. Yoshino drops by and thinks the kimono’s suit Touma and Makoto. However, when she sees that Makoto hasn’t removed his underwear, she mentions that traditionally, no underwear is worn under the kimono. He starts to remove them, which Uchida tries to prevent since that kimono is hers as Kana marvels at how a single sentence could make things turn interesting.

Keiko is at Riko’s house, with Fujioka’s phone number. Keiko finally gets Riko to make the call as she takes a call on her cell phone from Kana. Meanwhile, Fujioka is trying to call Kana as Riko tries to call Fujioka, meaning failures to connect. Fujioka realizes that if he asks for “Minami-san” (how he addresses Kana), that would apply to all three sisters. So he ponders using “Kana-san” but thinks it is too formal. Seeing his championship poster, he gets flustered when he thinks of the “chan” honorific and addressing Kana as “Kana-chan.” In the end, he decides that maybe “Kana-san” is best. Meanwhile, Kana yacks at Keiko for two hours while Fujioka and Riko keep failing to connect. Kana is not happy about Keiko having a cell phone for scoring 100’s and wonders about Keiko’s phone bill for them talking so long. Keiko says the bill will be Kana’s, leading Kana to insult the “100-point Monster” before slamming the phone down. Haruka tells Kana that she needs to watch her phone time, which Chiaki agrees with. However, Kana tells them to bill Keiko, and provides an address.

At a soba shop, Hosaka is making soba (buckwheat noodles) from scratch to prepare the traditional New Year’s Soba dish. He fantasizes about serving Haruka soba on a Titanic-like ship, complete with standing in the bow with their arms out while the kid Kana and Chiaki fight over the soba. Natsuki and the shop’s owner come in to find him laughing in mid-fantasy. The shop owner wants to know why Hosaka is making soba and Natsuki replies it is for the woman he loves. Hosaka has Natsuki sample it, and it is apparently very good. As such, Hosaka loads up a delivery bike with soba and takes off, Natsuki wishing him well.

At the female Minami residence, the girls are watching their favorite drama when the doorbell rings and Kana loses the “jan-ken” match. At the door is Hayami-senpai with some New Year’s gifts. Kana takes it and discovers a wide array of weird juices. However, she pours some of the carbonated one and hands them out. Everyone but Kana drinks. Haruka doesn’t like the taste of the juice, and asks about it as Chiaki runs to get some water. Hayami says it is imported and Chiaki reports about the tons of suspicious juices in the kitchen. Hayami gets them to play drinking games (as these are alcoholic beverages) and gets drunk as does Haruka and Chiaki, who eventually pass out. So when Maki and Atsuko come by, the now-drunk Hayami gets the sober Kana to pour out more beverages and gets the two newcomers to play games until they pass out. Kana is a little worries about them, but gets more worried when Hayami makes a pass at her and tries to kiss her repeatedly.

Elsewhere, Hosaka gets lost trying to find the Minami residence and so has the soba on top of an overlook.

Thoughts: Yeah, Kana’s the stupid genius alright. Too bad she had no clue that Hayami-senpai would be up for a shoujo-ai moment. There was a lot of fun in the episode about New Years in Japan. Its a shame the series is over. The next series is being done by another company and the character designs are going to take some getting used to.