Look at that. He looks like he’s enjoying it more than Chiaki-sama. Look at where his hands are! What are they doing down there??

And he’s not satisfied with just Chiaki-sama…

He’s even doing it with Touma!

And mind you, Fujioka thinks Touma is a BOY!

*shakes head*

I really want to be in his position right now…

The lucky bastard…

asread’s attempt to fix the damage they did with Okawari and replicate Doumu’s character design in Minami-ke is fail. It’s sad that asread is the ones doing the third season. Minami-ke was one of the best anime in 2007 under Doumu but quickly got trashed and tossed aside by many once asread took over.

At first glance the character design looked like a huge improvement over Okawari but the poor animation and actually made it worse. The good news is, no creepy black figures running around in the background and hopefully they’ll keep it that way. I found the colours used this time around, although still lacking, is much more agreeable.

The story is only so-so. It’s really not that much different from an episode of Okawari but it is slightly more entertaining. Takeru’s amazing trick with his pen was quite funny despite what I had read or heard.

Okaeri might not be as amazing as the original season, but it does look set to be a lot better than Okawari. You might want to give it a chance if you’ve been avoiding it but I’ll probably watch everything anyway.

Something I noticed whenever I dragged my sister to watch what I thought was a hilarious moment in any anime episodes: she never finds it amusing even as I laughed uncontrollably. But the more she watched, the more she began to find something amusing. It got me thinking whether continuously exposure to a particular gag, character habits or a series actually helps to make it funnier.

It’s the same with Lucky Star and Minami-ke. The first episode of Lucky Star turned off many, especially with that talked-to-death conversation on which end of a chocolate cornet is the head. But after being exposed to a few more chocolate cornet, you begin to realize that the initial conversation was actually pretty funny.

I still say it looks like a pile of shit

In Minami-ke, it’s the amazing Haruka, the great Chiaki-sama and the diabolical Kana. This is slightly different than the chocolate cornet in that if you didn’t already know the joke, you wouldn’t even realized there was a joke to begin with.

Whenever the gender-confused Mako-chan and Touma are in a pinch, most of us finds it hilarious, especially when they both have apparently forgotten their true gender and goes overboard. But show it to someone watching for the first time and the most likely reaction you would get is “Uhh… Okay…”

Remember that she pulled this stunt with a boy Mako-chan in the room…

Maybe that’s why jokes are sometimes repeated to death and beyond, because it requires some degree of repetition before it becomes funny, or it is funny because of the repetition.

One series that loves to recycle its gags (successfully) is Ranma 1/2. The unfortunate timing of being splashed by an old granny as Ranma or any of the other “Jusenkyou crew”, the so-called great plans on how to reverse the curse or the “shit, we could have went to Jusenkyou but we missed the chance!” always cracks a laughter or at least a smile.

Let’s look at some non-anime related examples as well. You probably know what a lolcat is and you most likely find it funny and amusing now. Well, most of the time anyway. I don’t remember my initial reaction to the gramatically challenged kitties, but I introduced ICanHasCheezBurger to a friend a couple of month’s back.

His reaction for the first few minutes was nonchalant, but I pressed for him to go on. Less than half an hour later he was clicking for new lolcats as fast as he could and was literally lol-ing.

So while most jokes and gags requires an immediate reaction to be funny, some requires time and repetition to sink it in. Still don’t believe me? Try watching this – just stare at the video and see if you start to laugh:

Yes, I know it’s old and unless you’ve just recently been on the Internet, you’ve probably seen the origin of the Crazy Frog. But I’m just trying to prove a point

This post is ~2 weeks overdue. The damn sharks was back less than a couple of days after my last post. The connection today seems rather stable and a lot faster than it had been the last couple of weeks so I’m taking this chance to put up this post as fast as I can before the sharks returns again.

Minami-ke finally ended at episode 13 a few weeks ago, and although it’s weaker compared to the original for now, Okawari promises to be entertaining enough. Hopefully, maybe, a true sequel would surface in the near future so that we may all once again bow down to the full awesomeness of Chiaki-sama and the amazing Haruka. Oh yes, and the grand master schemer, Kana.

Looking back at the 13 episodes, it became quite obvious that Minami-ke have plenty of fanservice weaved subtly into the sister’s daily lives that isn’t exaggerated compared to most other series. And I think it worked really well, replacing the “OMG!” (which is usually my reaction to blatant fanservice) to “BWAHAHAHA!”, which I consider as fanservice at its best.

Here are some of the highlight from the best moments, some which are rather suggestive, of Minami-ke from the first episode all the way to the last.

The legendary chase scene…

It’s really too bad that we never did get to see more of those uber camera angles. Little did Kana know at the time that she would be in a very similar situation in the future.

Peek-a-boo! I see…

I’m surprised Chiaki-sama didn’t give Kana a whack in the head when she did that. And I wonder what exactly did Kana see down there…

And nobody present found this the least disturbing?

Even Haruka acted as if its something normal and perfectly acceptable to do. Or maybe she knew it wasn’t but thought that it was okay anyway since Fujioka is “kinda like” their father. Bah, he probably enjoyed it anyway.

A rather frequent scene if you asked me…

Kana really should get tighter pants. She has a tendency to have her pants pulled down by Chiaki-sama. A lot. And Takeru had full view of the entire scene!

The most well developed in the series…

Haruka shows plenty of cleavage.

Mmm…

Plenty.

Haruka likes little boys dressing up as girls yeah…

Haruka can be really dense at times. And that usually ends up in either her showing more skin than she ought to, or having Mako-chan rolling on the floor all red.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. What I wouldn’t give to be in Takeru’s place right now…

Despite being depicted as a loser caring cousin (hah! I bet you’ve probably forgotten that!) most of the time, Takeru has had many front row seats to very interesting sceneries whenever he pops over.

This is so wrong… yet it’s sooo right!

The introduction of Touma only made things 10x more interesting, especially when she starts raping arguing with Chiaki-sama. Put her alongside the opposite cross-dresser Mako-chan and we have the greatest cross-dressing duo of all times. Whoever can forget the “I am a boy!” declaration that came from both of them?

“I am a boy!”

The single most daring scene in Minami-ke, with a boy in the room to boot! Then again, Mako-chan is technically a girl… so I guess it’s not that bad…

What goes around, comes around…

pwned!

An amazing start with the legendary chase scene, a satisfying end with Kana getting owned, for the love of Haruhi, please grant Minami-ke a true sequel by Doumu!

Love Going Around in Circles

Rating: 9/10

Haruka might be amazing, but Touma is just awesome. He She felt absolutely no shame in showing off her body even in the presence of a male, unless of course, Touma had completely forgotten than Mako-chan is really a boy.

GARRRrr!!!

Kana is actually showing some sensibility!

But I have to say, it’s impossible to imagine Makoto in those manly clothes but it was easy to imagine her him in a kimono. Let me just say now that there hasn’t been such an epic gender crisis in an anime since Ranma ½.

Mako-chan trying to remove his underwear in a room full of girls, oh my!

And Yoshino. I’ve gained new found respect for her. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that Yoshino was capable of creating such a catastrophic situation using a single sentence, with a straight face to boot! One has to wonder after watching that whether or not she had said that on purpose just to find out who the kimono belongs to or was it a purely coincidence discovery.

It’s obvious that the guys in Minami-ke never has it easy, but Fujioka probably has it the roughest. Of all people, he had to choose the 100% certified bakayaro, Kana. He should have tried again at night instead of just giving up. But knowing his luck with Kana, he probably wouldn’t be able to get through anyway.

I was soooo disappointed that Haruka and Chiaki-sama decided to drink the special “juice” instead of stripping, especially after they continued to lose and had to drink more. Instead, they got drunk and Haruka turned banchou-mode before she started crying like a little kid while Chiaki-sama…

I’ve been wondering for the longest time about that hair standing up like that. This is probably due to Chiyo-chan’s influence from Azumanga Daioh, but I’ve always been thinking that Chiaki-sama might be able to perform some tricks with her hair. Now, right at the very end of the first series, she finally proved that she can!

All hail Chiaki-sama!

But the best part of this final episode is Kana being on the receiving end of a rape kiss attempt by Hayami-senpai, which brings us all back to the first episode with the legendary chase scene and awesome camera angles as Kana tried to rape kiss Chiaki-sama. It made me feel as if we’ve just made one big round back to the beginning again.

“Holy crap! They’re all broken!”

It’s too bad Chiaki-sama is unconscious…

Kana pwned!

Minami-ke has been what I would describe as the best anime of 2007. My only real gripe is that they should have introduced Touma way, wayyy earlier and that its only 13 episodes long.

But it seems that all is not lost. Peeking around in the anime blogosphere had revealed that Minami-ke Okawari isn’t as bad as everyone had initially thought. The art might be weaker than the original, but they’ve brought back the same seiyuu cast so it’s now something that I look forward to watch.

Hopefully, just maybe, by the end of Okawari, a true sequel to this original Minami-ke series will come true.

It’s nice to know that Ninomiya-kun and sensei finally got wise about that damned car and got married.

“Don’t think this is the last you’ll see of me…”