Let’s have an argument in front of someone.

I guess the cat is out of the bag? Last episode it was suggested that Yuuya could briefly see Hiyori. This time, it more outright demonstrates that he can in fact perceive Hiyori both in her ghostly form and when she’s possessing Mitsuki. But I’m pretty sure he never used to be able to do so. So why has he suddenly gained this ability? My only guess is that perhaps this is due to the chastity belt filling up. Maybe the fuller it gets the more presence Hiyori has or something, even though by the books the only effect it’s supposed to have is to create more steps to the gates of heaven. So now that makes two other people who can see Hiyori: Yuuya and Yuki-nee. The circumstances of the latter still haven’t been clarified yet, but if there ever was any doubt that she could see Hiyori, this episode lays all that to rest. Clearly, she was able to observe Mitsuki and Hiyori having their little argument in front of her, though it’s not like Mitsuki wasn’t being particularly covert about it.

Yuuya gets a nice view. Though technically this is Mitsuki’s POV.

Did they forget to censor this? Or is this shot somehow safer?

On that note, it’s actually never really explicitly suggested that the mysterious Neko can perceive Mitsuki, in spite of her apparent knowledge of the girl’s circumstances. Though we can reasonably assume that this is the case simply because she is made out to be an observer or overseer of the situation. But back to Yuuya. Now the guy knows that his little sister wears a chastity belt, which according to Crunchyroll subs he calls “scary panties.” Unsurprisingly, he hasn’t exactly made a big fuss about it; I wouldn’t expect him to. But the show has used this development to bring out a display of his more perverted side. Now, I can see people complaining about this, but personally I don’t believe it was all too bad. Just a tad bit in the cliche department, and if we’re going there we might as well recognize that the show employs many other cliches anyway so it’s not like adding this one makes a huge difference.

Mitsuki reaches a breaking point.

Crying while masturbating with a high fever probably isn’t normal.

Anyway, after a certain turn of events Yuuya now finds himself straddled by Hiyori in Mitsuki’s body. And he calls her out. So yeah, this could really take the show in a new direction if he does in fact gain a formal understanding of Mitsuki’s situation. Which would be a really fascinating development. So far Hiyori has had to covertly sneak in her affection for him, leaving the brother baffled and Mitsuki troubled. But imagine now how different things would be if all three are aware of exactly whose feelings are being directed at whom. Before we potentially get to that though, they’ll first need to get through whatever is ailing Mitsuki. I’m pretty sure it’s not just a typical anime fever. And it doesn’t look like she’s just having some personal pleasure time either. Which leaves some sort of side effect from Mitsuki rejecting Hiyori too much. If I remember correctly, consequences from such a disconnect include death for Mitsuki, so hopefully things get sorted out before it’s too late.

Yuuya knows it’s not Mitsuki. 

Sonico thinks about her first girl crush

Beach Time with the keionbu

So just when I thought SoniAni was a nice relaxing show where nothing much happens and Sonico just has daily adventures in modeling, they throw this episode out there. It’s no Mari Okada, that’s for sure, but it was definitely a step up in sentimentality, as we find out the origin of Sonico’s guitar playing, and about her inspiration, Toma.

Toma will punch your lights out, with a “To-Ya!”

Overall, it wasn’t a bad story, with the persistent sincerity of Sonico playing a nice counterpoint to the projected coolness of Toma, the rock guitarist senpai. That coolness is a bit undone by the others in the keionbu, as they tell Sonico early that Toma is leaving town, leading to a nice farewell scene where Toma tells Sonico the name of the guitar: Daydream. Maybe she thought it’d be cooler to just be gone, but in reality, this kind of goodbye is better, especially for the kouhai who so totally looks up to Toma.

A tearful goodbye

Sonico’s earnestness comes through again when she asks to play Moonlight Star at their concert, the song that brought her into rock musicianship, and the condition for keeping Daydream. She just feels it’s something she has to do, and it’s actually a pretty cool song, with a nice old-school vibe. Of course, Toma gets to hear her at the concert, and leaves a confirmation message for Sonico that she passed the test (and gets her cool senpai disappearing act in this time).

One other thing to note is the care that White Fox is taking with the instruments in this show. Suzu’s Jazz Bass, a Gibson Thunderbird bass, and even making sure that the guitar strap on Sonico’s SG goes to the back of the neck joint. Too frequently we get guitars that are just generic, or wrong mechanics (like Haruki’s tuning with pegs despite the locking nut in White Album 2). They’ve done well in this show to keep this authentic, and that really helps me enjoy a show.

Welcome back to more Maken-ki! So what are we in for this week? Nothing much besides Inaho’s cat magically transforming all the “main” girls into cat girls complete with real ears and tails? While that sounds dumb it did manage to make me laugh like when all the cat girls going into heat and there was that quick shot of a group of dudes running away from one of the cat girls who wanted them? I was like wait a second I thought these dude wanted to get with the girls?! I guess cat girls can be scary? So yeah that was literally the entire plot of the episode. While I am talking about derpy plots for this series I wonder if the team behind this second season hired the random plot writer guy from the To-Love-Ru studio because in that series there are a ton of random events that happen thanks to Lala’s screwed up inventions, but maybe that is what this series is actually trying to do instead of including a real story with fighting? I mean if that is the case then we should expect similar things from the To-Love-Ru universe to happen in Maken-ki season two such as possibly of body swapping, surprise boob growth for Himegami or even transforming every girl into a loli character? Now that I would find kind of funny if it ever happened.

Beware of giant boob cat girls~

Who was your favorite this week?

Himegami cat girl was my favorite.

I love the composition of this shot

Oh, nice choice, Kaede. I didn’t think you’d be into Big Tits

A happy threesome

Looks like Haruka’s building a harem! Or at least she’s irresistible to the whole Sonoda family, because Mitsuki is now stuck on thinking about Haruka. Not that Haruka’s looking to get rid of Yuu, she’s still super jealous any time Yuu’s with someone else (like Kotone). But Mitsuki has been bothering Yuu about what she interrupted, and asking if Yuu and Haruka are doing anything ‘special’. She even tries to coopt Mikan Yuzu and Kaede into spying on Haruka and Yuu for her. But really, Haruka and Yuu are more discreet than we might think from watching the show, which shows a lot of private moments and relies on our knowledge of their relationship to inform us of subtext to their interaction, so there’s not really anything to see in the open. Although it does seem kind of weird that Yuzu and Kaede aren’t more sure about their relationship, given the way they seem to know something’s up between them at other times in the series (like the comments about flirtiness at the pool).

Taking time out from being scared

We do get some more action between Haruka and Yuu throughout, and it seems like their relationship is progressing some, with Yuu sitting on Haruka’s lap, and then Haruka later taking their kissing to another level. Of course, that was when Yuu was too frightened to be in the mood for tongue kissing, and she ends up biting Haruka to make her stop. Save that for another time, Haruka! And a final note: the OP song for this series is a lot of fun to listen to. And I like that the words are relatively easy. 🙂

Tags: ImoCho, Maken_ki, sonico_a, 桜Trick

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