Subculture Anime Blog

OP: “Tenshi Ranman Love Power” by Halko Momoi, Sakura Nogawa, Rika Morinaga, Eri Kitamura - I’m loving that they’re actually putting effort into making these new OPs. Again, the single for this was already released quite some time ago. Digging that swinging motion.

Summary:

Through a ridiculous turn of events, involving her sneeze destroying a large piece of property, Akeno is forced to work at a maid cafe to pay for the damage. When San and the others arrive at the cafe to see her there, the girls offer to help Akeno as her friends. Of course, with San in a maid outfit, Nagasumi and Gouzaburou both become jealous of others as well as won over by her appearance. Luna suddenly appears in a maid outfit as well, then using her large gathering of followers in order to make business quickly. Although the leader of her fan club is ready to sacrifice anything for her, he soon finds that the order Luna wishes for him to make is far out of his budget. When Luna’s father arrives with a large sum of money, and only asking for a smile, even he fails in having Luna agree to such a thing.

Satori eventually shows up to the delight of both San and Nagasumi, but she surprises everyone by revealing that Saru is her older brother. Satori goes on to win over Gouzaburou, and when the cafe’s manager allows her to be a waitress as well, a big competition starts between herself and Luna. Making the situation even more interesting, Gouzaburou and his associates eventually order from San’s special menu, which she performs in the form of a song. Not wanting to lose to the power of San’s music, Luna replies with her own. In effect, however, the cafe starts becoming quite damaged from the chaos. Akeno is unable to hold in her anger for any longer, but in effect, she completely obliterates the cafe with her power.

Because of their studies, Luna and Nagasumi end up staying home while San and the rest of their families go out to party one night. Luna becomes extremely frightened after watching parts of a scary movie, and despite Nagaumi’s attempt to calm her down, she shows him that she was once involved in a ghost photo with San. Nagasumi eventually gets a call from San, informing the two learn that she and the others wouldn’t be returning for the night. This leaves them alone for the evening, as frightening events start happening around them. This scares the two out of their wits, and Luna eventually brings up a time where San was hesitant about talking about the ghost photo when she showed it to her. Apparently, there was someone who wanted to meet San. The two soon receive an extremely frightening phone call, and Nagasumi even sees a creature grab onto his leg as Luna runs out of the house in fear.

The next day at school, Luna does her best to explain what had happened the previous night. When she tries to convince Akeno, the class learns that she is clearly afraid of ghosts. As the spirit that appeared before seems to show up at the school as well, several of the usual students attempt to discover its identity. This only results in the students disappearing one by one, however, until no one is left but Luna. San arrives to the school late, meeting Luna in her frightened state and finally meeting the culprit who has been causing all of the panic. This is someone named Sa-tan, an old friend of San who had been wanting to meet her for quite some time. When San looks up at the school ceiling, she sees that everyone had been captured in seaweed rather than having truly disappeared. San eventually sees her old friend off, then making a promise with her just as they did as children.

ED: A slow song by SUN and LUNAR. It’s pretty fitting for the ED, but this really isn’t something I’m used to after hearing so many high tension singles from Momoi and Nogawa.

Impression:

A scared Luna is c….cute!!! The first half of this episode had me running out of breath laughing, but Nagasumi alone with Luna in the second half made my night. I mean, come on. The scary movie thing is like one of the biggest cliches of awesomeness ever….and it’s almost never used in anime. This show wouldn’t be the same without songs though, and the first half definitely provided that (at complete random). By the end of this OVA, the last out of the two that would be released, we really just got what we always have from Seto no Hanayome - high tension humor.

I can’t say I would ever become attached to either of the two new minor characters that were introduced in this short series. Satori kills my ears, and we didn’t see enough of Sa-tan to really get a fell for her character. (Also, Sa-tan? Is that an intentional pun? Am I understanding this right?) The OVA brought back most all of the good memories I had for the series when it first aired though, with even better animation and production value. When I look back on it all, I’d definitely have to say that Momoi Halko and Nogawa Sakura easily made this entire series worthwhile. Without them, I’m certain this would have ended up being another bad gonzo adaption. It looks like this is the end of SnH for awhile, but at least we’re going out with a bang!