Here we see dat ass in its natural habitat.

This episode of ImoCho appears at first pretty standard fare for a romcom. Mitsuki tries her hand at cooking and gets jealous of Yuki-nee due to a slight misunderstanding about Yuuya’s lunch preferences. Then Yuki-nee comes over and offers to cook them dinner, and the rest is history. Or so it seems, but I must say I liked how the show turned things around and brought Mitsuki and Yuki-nee closer instead of having them retain that generic rivalry. I suppose it could be argued that their relationship now is actually just yet another generic but friendly rivalry, but it feels to me like any sort of discontent has disappeared between the two. Instead, that perception of being rivals has been pushed off to Hiyori, which is just fine with me. I might even go so far as to say that MItsuki might look up to Yuki-nee since she’s obviously so much more capable at being the stereotypical domestic woman. And everyone knows a good, domestic woman makes for excellent waifu material.

Option C

Aww, they get along now!

Speaking of Yuki-nee, something interesting does happen in this episode. Near the very end, with romcom hijinks in full action, she spouts a rather questionable line. “The way things are going, I guess they’re still a long way from being in love…” Since her initial appearance, I had Yuki-nee pegged for the role of that childhood friend love rival since she in theory fits the role to a tee. With that in mind, one might think that her line I quoted simply means that she’s recognizing she still has a chance to save Yuuya from the vile clutches of incestuous love with his sister. But that’s not what it seemed like to me. Instead, from her tone and demeanor, it actually sounded more like she’s acting the observer and noting the progress between the two step-siblings. Now that is interesting and not what I expected, assuming my interpretation is correct.

It’s not what it looks like! I swear!

Keep it classy, Mitsuki.

Now, I don’t think Yuki-nee will be the kind of observer who oversees the stairway to heaven affair; we already have Neko for that. So the natural implication from this is that despite the easy conclusion we could have previously drawn that she’s made herself more feminine in an attempt to capture Yuuya’s heart, she actually isn’t interested in him romantically and is content with just watching over the two step-siblings. Which would be a nice change of pace. I can’t think of any other examples off the top of my head where the apparent rival not even a real rival. If you readers can think of any, please do comment. But in any case, this is a breath of fresh air to me, and helps set the show apart from the rest of the rabble. It honestly might not have too good of a reputation or reception, for that matter, but if anything it certainly has made genuine attempts to sit apart from the standard developments we’ve come to expect from romcoms.

Locked out!

Annoying Detective Ena on the case!

I love your hair, Suzu!

Murder Mystery Time at SuperNova! Ok, they didn’t murder Sonico, but she slipped and was unconscious for a while, and it looked like she spilled tomato juice on her. So who attacked Sonico-chan while she was alone in the dressing room? Good thing that Suzu’s younger sister Ena is here to play detective. Not that anyone else wants her to. She’s pretty bad at it, it seems, and goes through idea after idea, all proven wrong. This is why locked room mysteries are hard to figure out! In the process, she accuses everyone of being the culprit, including Suzu, Fuuri, Sonico herself, Miina the other waitress at the club, and the manager. If she’d ever seen Kitamura, she’d probably have blamed him too. But in the end, she actually does figure out what happened, although if she’s to be believed, she figured it out long before and was actually just doing a lot of misdirection to protect Miina, who had spilled water in one of the amps on stage while cleaning and broke it. She was going to get it fixed tomorrow (musician note: derisive laughter) but would have been exposed if daichiuchuusokudo actually had their practice. So she took advantage of Sonico’s klutziness (it’s never explained how Sonico got knocked out, just implied that she really did just trip) and set up the locked room mystery, and Ena played along to help her out. Not much in the way of ‘mystery’, but a fun diversion for Ena to blame everyone on earth for the attack.

Confronting the real killer… er, culprit

 Welcome back MetaFAP readers! This week on Maken-ki we finally get an episode dedicated to the obvious best girl Himegami as she deals with a super perverted talking teddy bear who loves giant boobs? Yeah that is pretty much the entire episode, but this was a chance to see another side to this character that I completely forgot about as in her love of cute things! So was this entertaining? Hell ya it was because it had a few moments that made me laugh like the fact that one of Himegami’s familiars had some fun with the teddy bear! Wow that was hilarious and the final fight with the bear powering up to “fight” some random dude, but the ending was also great because we discovered that the bear faked his own “death” just so he can watch the girls change their clothes together? What a true boss or is he just a sick and twisted stuffed animal?

This bear totally needs to hang out with Dandy~

Himegami is a packing master.

Luckiest bear alive.

GOLDEN BEAR FOR THE WIN!

Picking an outfit, cause you know you take off *everything* to pick a shirt

Actually, maybe in this family they do

Yuu reaching up for Haruka may have been the most sensuous moment of this series so far

No symbolism here

Ah, wedding bells for family friends! And because Haruka’s dad can’t go, Haruka can bring a friend. One guess as to who she brings. But Yuu gets the wrong idea that the people getting married are she and Haruka, and of course never clears it up until they’re actually going to the wedding. She’s even disappointed she’s not wearing white, before understanding that it’s Haruka’s cousin’s wedding. They have a good time, but when Haruka relates that her father said it was ok that they get married (he didn’t, just that he didn’t want some guy he didn’t know to marry Haruka) they start to get weird with each other.

I think this is the corner having been turned for their relationship. Before it was a crush, it was fun to kiss each other, it was fun to share a secret, and it felt good to kiss and hold hands and be together. But it’s becoming something more serious, something deeper, and something that, while not scary, is certainly completely new for the two of them. They’re each starting to feel like the other is the only person they want to be with, and after a lot of awkwardness at the Christmas light display, they come clean that they’re both feeling the same way. I really like seeing this, and really like seeing it on episode 8 of this series. It gives me hope that they might get more public with it by the end of the series, which I think would be really interesting.

Tags: ImoCho, Maken_ki, sonico_a, 桜Trick

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