Subculture Anime Blog

OP: “Gouin ni Mai Yeah~” by Ai Nonaka, Marina Inoue, Yu Kobayashi, Miyuki Sawashiro & Ryoko Shintani - leave it up to SHAFT to put up a new opening with three episodes left in the series. This song was already on the single that was released awhile ago. The OP has that common SHAFT style too it, with a very retro feel.

Summary:

Nozomu’s students bring up that their class must prepare for the upcoming culture festival. He allows it, but under the circumstance that they put a minimal amount of culture into their event. The students go through all of their ideas, such as a play, music show, and story telling, but Nozomu decides that they are all too cultured. After he gives them several examples of minimal culture, the students ask Nozomu to give them a lesson on what he expects. After his demonstration, their event at the festival becomes something very out of place. Later, the students have a field trip to Kyoto, but Nozomu doesn’t allow them to look at anything because they are there on preliminary inspection. When they ask him if this is really necessary, Nozomu goes on to give them examples of why it is. As they move on to the next area, Nozomu finds that Chie has created an extremely detailed guide book on their trip. When they stop by a temple, the monk there starts giving examples of preliminary inspection as well. Of course, these all seem very off. Nozomu invites Chie to come with him to an opening ceremony afterwards, but she finds that it is to a graveyard. This is all in preparation for Nozomu’s death. This angers Chie, so she hits Nozomu across the head with a gravestone. She apologizes to an unconscious Nozomu in the ambulance afterwards, and Nozomu finds himself at the verge of death. When Nozomu returns to class, he states that the field trip will be to Okinawa, making the previous inspection useless. Chie and Jun answer some of the viewers letters after the credits, which touch on things like the lack of male characters in the show.

Impression:

Haha, oh wow. This episode was a step up from the last few episodes in terms of style and humor. I was seriously laughing throughout the whole episode. If the usual parodies weren’t enough, Nozomu’s movie impressions, Matoi’s “chii~” perspectives, and Kiri’s “don’t come in” scenes had me rolling in my chair. Things like the monk’s impression of Nozomu’s “I’m in despair” came out of nowhere like a punch in the gut. Shaft’s usual style showed up numerous times in this episode, even more than it has been, and it was really funny how the autumn leaves constantly fell for no reason in some scenes. Ironically, the post ED short with Chiri and the new character, Kudou Jun, had me reminded of Lucky Channel. I like to call this show the “anti-Lucky Star” because it’s airing in the same season, they both deal with different aspects of Japanese culture, they are both episodic comedies, and they are both being subbed by the popular sub group AFK. They’re so similar, yet they are like polar opposites!

I found the subjects in this episode really funny, particularly because I am studying culture in sociology this week (yea, easy for me if you would have guessed). If you haven’t noticed by now, this show always takes like two concepts of culture and parodies them in an episode. Obvious? Yea, but I thought I’d keep the gaps filled. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to skip out on the philosophical rant this week. I’ve got too many other things to think about. Before I forget, here’s some of the parodies I caught: Kimura Kaela returns! I’ve been listening to her albums a lot recently because of this show, and everyone else should too. Her music is rockin. Nozomu’s movie parodies of James Bond and the common film intro were hilarious. There was another subtle Hidamari Sketch reference in this episode as well. It’s really hard to believe that there are only two episodes left. I’m going to miss this show a lot.