Word gets out to the gang...



Off for a little romantic studying...


But Mimi interrupts.  She's a giraffe too (and a model!), and has had the hots for Otani for years.  When Otani is around she's cute and charming in that jailbait-schoolgirl kind of way, but when Otani isn't around she's pretty disturbing...


Did I say disturbing?  I meant psychotic...


That girl's gonna kill somebody someday...


Eventually the mask slips off in front of Otani...


Otani sends her packing, but trouble awaits...


Or at least it would if Otani weren't so dumb that he's had to take summer remedial courses all through high school.  I'm not sure why the teachers weren't rolling on the floor laughing when they read this.

Not a bad little episode.  Kind of light on the comedy, but the lack of weepiness on Koizumi's part was a nice change. And Mimi's confession helped trigger Otani to seriously think about the things he loves about Koizumi.

Posted by: mparker762 at 08:00 PM
Post contains 162 words, total size 2 kb.

What do you get when you cross a demon-possessed feral cat and a beagle?



snorf?


Potemayo-chan!

Posted by: mparker762 at 09:44 PM
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Great episode.  The comical couple is still feeling their way after the upending events of the previous episode.  Otani wants to keep things secret so he won't get ribbed by their friends.  Koizumi is on cloud 9, here seen skipping amidst floaty hearts...


First day-to.  World Games.  It ain't going well, and Koizumi's needing some TLC...


And gets it...


WTF?


Turns out the camera crew snagged some human interest to spice up the games.   So much for keeping it a secret...


But he gets over it.  Here seen (re)introducing Koizumi to his ex-girlfriend.  Yeah that's gonna make Koizumi's day.


But trouble is on the horizon...


Mimi's a young-un too.  2nd year middle school, which I think makes her 3 yrs Otani's junior.  Otani doesn't seem to be terribly interested, but with that battle aura she's unlikely to be deterred by minor quibbles like that.

Good episode.  I was hoping Koizumi would stop the incessant crying now that Otani's finally come around, but I guess the hormones are still cranking.  Still, there was plenty of comedy to keep the mood light.  And unlike High School Days the series is unlikely to end in major bloodshed.

Posted by: mparker762 at 08:20 PM
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... is on it's way down now.  Updates coming soon, but right now I'm in the middle of a happy dance.

Oh, and I got some pop rocks for the beagle.  Hilarity ensues tomorrow.

Posted by: mparker762 at 06:24 PM
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So now I've got to try and track down the manga.  The anime just peters out in the middle of the preparations for the cultural festival, with nothing whatsoever resolved.  Lots of distractions by new characters, lots of hints on how the various relationships are trending (some good and some bad) but that's it.  argh!

Hmm, looks like the anime ends somewhere around vol 11 of the manga, out of 21.  So only halfway through... double argh!

Posted by: mparker762 at 01:24 PM
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Looks like Stephen Den Beste is considering Onegai Twins.  Not a bad choice, but definitely odd given his queasiness over something like Onegai Sensei which was after all your garden variety boy-falls-in-love-and-marries-alien-teacher story, only without the tentacles.  Onegai Twins is a somewhat more disturbing story involving a love triangle between an high school boy (Maiku) who was orphaned as a child, and two orphan girls (Karen and Miina) who move in with him each claiming to be his sister.  Their sole link to each other and to the house is a photo each one carries showing Maiku and a girl in a little plastic kiddie pool in front of the house.  All three are emotionally scarred from life in orphanages, though Maiku seems the most normal of the bunch.  Unfortunately both girls develop crushes on him, though Maiku is mostly oblivious to this.  For Miina this crush is semi-acceptable in my eyes as she is roughly Maiku's age, but Karen's crush is definitely icky.  For both girls however this crush triggers a crisis that lasts most of the series.  Both of them grew up in orphanages wishing desperately for a family, but now that they have one they face the irony that both of them love Maiku, but one of them will get him as a brother whle the other will be free to pursue him as a lover and husband.  "Pursue" because Maiku is oblivious to the girls' feelings for him and has his own interest that he's pursuing.

Fortunately the interminable agonizing "We might be related, but we might be strangers" discussions between Karen and Miina tends to take place in the bath.  And ultimately, the resolution to the story is pretty satisfying, though the OVA bonus summertime episode actually spoils this feeling a bit.

I've only watched Onegai Sensei once, and though I enjoyed it I've never felt the urge to go back.  But Onegai Twins has a better story and much more emotional punch despite the occasional ick moments.

FWIW, the only real connection with Onegai Sensei is that it takes place in the same rural town, and the three kids are attracted to the town when they spot the house in their photo in some of the news coverage of events in Onegai Sensei.  Many of the characters from Onegai Sensei are back again as Maiku, Miina, and Karen live in the same town and go to the same school that was the centerpiece in the earlier series, though these carryover characters tend to play a comparitively minor role in Onegai Twins.

Posted by: mparker762 at 08:17 AM
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So we're up to what now, episode 6?  Kaname is normal enough, but the mermaid Amuro has yet to rise above brainless twit, and none of the other characters are really developing much at all beyond their primary quirk, all of which we discovered by ep 2.  At the rate it's going I can't see that this will ever rise above a bottom-feeder fanservice vehicle.  Love the gradient hair though.

Posted by: mparker762 at 09:32 AM
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I snagged the first episode when it came out and enjoyed it.  I became distracted by other things while waiting for the second episode to arrive, but I recently ran across it again and snarfed down the next 16 episodes.  Once I started I couldn't stop.  It's a really fun mix of comedy and romance.  It's a high school romance story, but the two leads are a lot of fun and the show never really descends into emo territory.  Otani (the guy) is shorter than most girls, but Risa Koizumi (the girl) is much taller than most guys.  Both of them have a complex about their height - Otani has been derided as a midget for too long, and Koizumi gets compared unfavorably to a giraffe.  But they have fun personalities and similar interests, and both their friends and the viewer know that it's just a matter of time until they work through their respective hangups and realise they are right for each other.

For Koizumi this happens after only a few episodes.  But Otani takes a lot longer, and the middle of this series largely consists of Koizumi banging her heart against Otani's thick head.  He likes her, and even considers her a friend.  But he can't get over being shorter than her, and he can't make the leap to thinking of her as a girlfriend.  Koizumi gives up on him several times only to realize that deciding to stop loving him doesn't mean she actually will stop loving him.

Good stuff.  I'd love to see this in R1, but hopefully it won't get licensed for a few months - I'd hate to have to wait years to see how it ends...

more...

Posted by: mparker762 at 08:29 PM
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