Subculture Anime Blog

Kirino’s dreams….shattered!

Summary:

Kirino cheerfully bids everyone off at school, as two boys notice how much fun she seems to have been having in the kendo club recently. However, because the summer is close, they mention that the suits must stink. Ishida has a less than favorable phone call in the kendo club. Believing it to be about financial troubles, Yuji and Danjuro attempt to console him. However, as the girls come in, Ishida expresses that his sempai’s challenging team is coming next week. This is problematic because they still do not have enough members, but Ishida promises that he will come up with something.

During practice, Ishida suggests that Tamaki practice with him. Sayako offers to go in his place, and tells Tamaki to give it all she’s got. Tamaki only knows how to take this seriously, so she humiliatingly defeats Sayako. Because Tamaki does so well, the rest of the team does not seem to take practice seriously. Elsewhere, the rival school’s club seems to be doing as well as ever. Ishida assigns Tamaki as the leader of the upcoming match, as Yuji explains some of the kendo rules to Danjuro. However, Ishida’s sempai seems to be able to predict Ishida’s moves. At the same time, the two teams’ positions are decided.

Yuji cannot take much more after practicing with Tamaki, so Ishida takes his place. Before the match, Ishida tells Tamaki of a fifth member who appears to help when there is trouble. In other places, Ishida’s sempai is still remembering the time when Ishida took the kendo trophy from him. Harada interrupts his thoughts, as the two set out to capture Nishiyama. They pick up Asakawa and Yoko next, before finally picking up Ando at her house. Because the rival team is late, Ishida’s kendo team decides to get pointers from Tamaki. Elsewhere, Ishida’s sempai and the other girls eat ice cream.

Tamaki almost stops because she is acting like a teacher, but the girls do not mind at all. Ishida is sleeping soundly in the meantime. Around the same time, the rival team continues to have trouble finding the school. When they finally make it, both teams quickly get ready for the matches. Ishida’s sempai notices that there are only four members on the opposing team, but Ishida replies by saying that the fifth member will be late. Tamaki quickly defeats her opponent Harada as soon as the match starts, shocking the opposing team.

Preview: Sayako, cut that guitar off!!

Impression:

Oh my goodness, so many kendo terms! I studied the Japanese language, not the kendo rule book. Oh well, I don’t think anyone actually pays attention to the technicalities anyways (Well…unless they do kendo or something). It looks like the matches are coming a lot sooner than I expected! Kojiro pulled a fast one by claiming that there is a fifth member somewhere. Although we did get a short glimpse of the rival team’s girls last week, we really got to see their personalities in action this time. Their wackiness is just about on the same level as their competition, and it made for a lot of laughs. Speaking of the rival team, someone tell me the name of Kojiro’s sempai. I must have missed it somewhere, but I know you manga readers must know what it is (heh, it seems like I’ve been doing this for a lot of my shoes recently….go laziness!). I’ll revise my summaries soon afterwards.

I got so many Hayate no Gotoku vibes from this episode, just because it was so silly. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the girls’ quirky personalities. Tamaki was as cute as always, and Kirino was just hilarious. I’m also liking the Danjuro and Miyako love love that goes on in the background. Haha. It’s only a matter of time before I start having trouble balancing names with all the characters being introduced. I think it’s going to be very fun to watch the kendo tournaments though. It’ll probably be just as surprising as how much I enjoyed Umisho’s swimming competitions. Next week should be as fun as always, and hopefully we’ll get to the fifth member somewhat soon. On another note, I’ve been seeing pocky everywhere in anime recently! Gah! Overrated!