neko’s thinkbox

Late as always, but better late than never! Out of the few series that I had in my current preference pool, I chose Minami-ke. From what I had heard about it from different places, it seemed to me like it the best start into the new year, and also yet another comeback after a few weeks of anime hiatus. And I am glad I did it. I couldn’t have made a better choice. After watching half of the series, I was already in love with Minami-ke.

At that time I already was writing on a mid-season review, but as always, I got carried away and wrote 90% of what you would call an end of series review, with conclusions and anticipations of the next season already… to watch then the rest of the series later and to add…. what, a second personal appreciation, copy/pasta etc? Heck, that would have made no sense indeed.

First things first, I have to admit that I don’t have much experience with Slice of Life anime yet, so I might not come up with the adequate definitions or comparisons. Slice of Life, I’ve encountered that term quite a few times these past few months, but never got around to familiarize myself with it. Sure, I know that more recent series like Lucky Star, Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight and Hidamari Sketch, but also older series like Azumanga Daioh are animes which mainly are Slice of Life. Out of these few titles, I only watched the latter around five years ago (couldn’t watch the recent ones because anime oversaturation and what-not). But even after all of this time, I still have pleasant memories from having watched such a light and refreshing series. For some reason, I would watch Azumanga Daioh again, only for the sake of watching Chiyo-chan sing “Tsukurimashou~” XD

The story:

Ah, family life must be so exciting… I wish I had sisters like these T_T

As per usual for a Slice of Life anime, especially for 4koma adaptations, Minami-ke is pretty episodic and has no real storyline. In this fashion, each episode consists of approximately four short stories which sometimes are linked. Of course, Minami-ke also is a pleasant comedy which often tickles genuine smiles and laughter out of me.

As a side note, I usually don’t laugh at boring/witty jokes, which is perhaps the main reason why I couldn’t adhere to the Lucky Star fandom, not even after watching the first 3-4 episodes. I just kept facefaulting ( :| ) the whole time - mind that it could have changed with further eps, but in short: the first impression of LS was dead boring. In this aspect, I do find that Minami-ke is much different. Minami-ke has a very interesting and natural feel in its description of the life of the three Minami sisters. I can’t really explain why, but I get a very familiar feeling which I can easily sympathize with. Well, you may call me biased for shunning LS because it’s overrated, but in the end it’s my opinion ;)

Back to Minami-ke. So, there were no heavy jokes with striking punch lines, but there definitely were no boring moments either. The lightness of Minami-ke is exactly what I am looking for. Well, apart from this, I can’t really say anything about the story so I’ll just talk a bit about random things. Yeah, the parts I liked perhaps.
There were pretty hilarious moments in almost every episode, but I guess it would be too much work to list them all up. However, the most memorable scenes which I spent most of the time laughing at was Baka Kana’s distorted logic, her daily disputes with Chiaki, Mako-chan’s crossdressing issues, Hosaka’s stupidity, and a special mention for the Ninomiya-kun series (omgwtfrofl).

There had to be a picture of my dear Haruka blushing.

Unlike many other similar titles, it does not constantly segue into absurd parodies or ridiculous out-of-the-place slapstick that makes you laugh and cringe out of embarrassment, which is really great. Mind, it’s not that they did not parody anything though. The most noticeable thing was the ticking from the US-series “24” as the text on screen said “24 hours later” in episode 6 – totally caught me off-guard, and made me laugh a great deal. Or at the beginning of episode 10, the “5-2” sign in front of Chiaki’s class – to me it clearly is a reference to the series “Today in class 5-2 (Kyou no go no ni)”. However, I failed to see what exactly it is referencing to. Apart from these, I don’t think this anime needed to rely on other works to attempt to be funny.

There were also a lot of repetitive scenes throughout the series. There’s the Ninomiya-kun series for example: always the same pattern, teacher loves student, both run onto the street to embrace each other, and a car crashes right into the girl. Several times the same scene, and she obviously survives… Well, the joke started to get old after a while, but it still cracked me up as Kana and Chiaki were playing the game all day long. “Sensei!” – “Ninomiya-kun!” – “Sensei!” – “Ninomiya-kun!” – “Sensei!” ad nauseum xD The last episode was also great, where they’re standing on a cliff and the car drives on the street behind them… I don’t know, it must be some kind of a reference to something, but what would it be?
Another repetition would be the many news reports about the Fundoshi festivals… I didn’t find those that funny, but it intrigued me a bit. Perhaps another reference? And also what’s the meaning of Chiaki’s bear? It is shown in the opening as well in the ending, and one would think it would bear quite some importance, yet it only appeared in Episode 12? Hmm… I’m running short of ideas so let’s move on to the characters.

The Characters

Note the special and intellectual shape of Kana’s mouth please.

Everyday life isn’t that eventful at the Minamis, but Kana’s silliness always triggers new hilarious moments, and yeah sometimes she does remind me of myself. It almost makes me want a sister like her, just to have lots of random discussions all day long just for the lulz. The eternal rivalry with her younger sister Chiaki is hilarious insofar she always tries to show her superiority in every way possible, but in 99% of the cases, she utterly fails at it, because… yeah, she’s simply a baka XD But a cute one, at least.

Chiaki is completely the opposite of Kana, despite being the youngest member of the household. She is much more mature and smarter than Kana, and she really has a lot of fun in diminishing her middle sister. This contrast quite reminds me of School Rumble, with Tenma the older and sillier sister, and Yakumo, younger but more mature. Actually, Kana could be Tenma’s twin: she cannot cook nor is she good at school. And she utterly fails at reading Fujioka’s feelings of love… However unlike Yakumo, Chiaki is much less tolerant: she hates Kana’s pushiness and stupidity. Her sadistic and authoritative discourse very often leads her to say “baka yarou” openly to all the people she considers idiots… basically everyone except Haruka and perhaps some of her friends. I got a good laugh in the first episode when Chiaki was resisting as Kana was trying to kiss her, or when Kana called her a Kappa at the end of episode 5. Chiaki’s fights with Kana are always made of win and gold. However she would never pick up a fight with Haruka.

Kappa.

Haruka is the eldest sister in the household, and obviously some kind of a foster mother to Kana and Chiaki. Out of the three sisters, I like her the best because of her great composure, generosity and her cute shyness. Despite being such a beautiful girl, she doesn’t seem to have any love experience, which makes it quite impossible for her to speak freely about those things, especially in front of Chiaki. Aww, I so wanted to hug Haruka as she blushed furiously because she didn’t know how to explain the “naughty things” on TV XD
Haruka’s cooking skills are also a big plus. I really would love to have a girlfriend like that… (but do not worry, I would NEVER relinquish my Hisui… even if she doesn’t know how to cook.)

So in this Minami-ke universe, that makes: Kana as my little sister, and Haruka as my girlfriend. Hmm… I don’t think I like Chiaki enough to grant her a place in my little family though. She may be my neighbor’s cocky daughter though. Or, a “teru teru bouzu”. Or even a Kappa. Bah, back to the series.

In Minami-ke, traps come in pairs! And they can be so cool sometimes! Mako-chan definitely is the cutest trap I have seen since Jun :P But seriously, his journey to the shopping mall with Haruka groping him was awesome. Makes me want to be a Makoto for one day XD
And then we have Minami Touma. Touma is what you call a “reverse trap” – a girl behaving and dressing up as a boy. I think she is the finest of all the lolis there :3

If you had to choose between the two, who would you pick?

Well, it was definitely coincidence that there were other Minamis in town, but this time three brothers and a sister (Touma). With Akira’s getting closer to Kana, and Natsuki’s “bouncing” acquaintance with Haruka, I almost thought they would end up hooking up our female Minamis… Hahaha… ¬_¬

I mentioned Fujioka earlier, and I think I can’t get enough of his unrequited love for Kana. This backs up my School Rumble parallel: he tries to get close and impress Kana like Harima Kenji does with Tenma. However the comparison only goes as far as Fujioka actually is able to confess to Kana. …But once again, Kana’s blunt foolishness (mixed with Chiaki’s malicious influence) gets him to be misunderstood all the time… Who except a true fool would mistake a love letter for a fighting challenge? Poor Fujioka. He will have to hammer it into Kana’s head to get a positive reply from her…

To be continued in Part 2! (because of tl;dr :P)