Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin – 02

Juugo starts his life of crime with The Sparkly Lie-Detecting Gem

I went light on shows to blog this season partly for the reason that I wanted the opportunity to pick up a show or two that struck me as interesting. Well, one of the shows that fits that bill is Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin. So let’s give it a couple weeks of posts and see how it goes.

I Love It When a Show Comes Together

We’ll have to see how bad these bad guys turn out to be

In the opener, we primarily met Juugo and Nanana, and I have to think that Shiki, even if she was heavily featured in the first episode, is mostly a side character, since she’s kind of out of everyone’s league. This week, we’re getting far more into the main part of the story, introducing three groups of characters, all of them in pairs. The thieves of Matsuri, Todomatsu and Yukihime, are probably going to be a bit out of reach for a while, but the other two pairs are more immediately interesting. First up is Tensai Ikkyuu and Daruku Hoshino, the Kana Asumi / Kana Hanazawa pairing for this show (We’ll have to refer to them as KanaKana if they keep this up). And like in the other pairing we’ve seen of these two this season (Kanojo ga Flag wa Oraretara, since HanaKana’s character hasn’t shown up in Mekakucity Actors yet), HanaKana is playing a trap, although this time Daruku is an acknowledged trap (I love the pun:　男の娘 not　男の子, using ‘ko’ for ‘girl’ not ‘child’), rather than just a girly-looking boy.

Tensai and Daruku and Juugo should never comment about a girl not smelling

Tensai (funny also because it means ‘genius’) is a lot of fun, one of those characters that can reason to the difficult conclusion, but also has blind spots for when things are a bad idea and has trouble explaining to other people. Like she thinks it’s a good idea to return stolen property to the cops with no alibi. And she has a particular problem with people’s names, actually asking Juugo his name while stating his name, and not getting Nanana’s name when she says it. But despite these weird lapses, she’s actually pretty brilliant, and full of self-confidence. Daruku seems to mostly go along with her because she’s fun, but we’ll see if there’s more to their relationship as it goes on.

The Adventure Club

This maid is a different kind of trap

The other pair is not as well developed yet, but represents the Adventure Club, mentioned in the Nanana manual last week. Isshin Yuiga and Yuu Ibara, President and Vice President, are courting Juugo because he’s the current resident of Nanana’s room, and even go have a visit with Nanana, bringing some very special pudding to her. They’re not above using subterfuge to get Juugo to go along (major character flaw: Juugo is weak to meganekko and meido), but ultimately it’s not their convincing that gets Juugo interested in the Adventure Club. Juugo has gotten interested in Nanana, and wants to help her ‘move on’, and not just out of ‘get this ghost out of my hair’ reasons. And the best way to do that is to go after Nanana’s Collection and see if there’s a clue there. Thankfully, tho, the show doesn’t just give the whole thing away, instead having Nanana say, essentially, “You gotta find it, because it’s more fun for everyone that way.”

Solving the fancy CG puzzle

The episode ended with showing us how the dynamic between Juugo, Tensai, and Daruku is likely to work for a while: Juugo is indefatigable, Tensai is cerebral. Coming up with an easy jumping puzzle, Juugo throws himself at it repeatedly, but never gets hurt or tired. Meanwhile, Tensai finds the trick to the puzzle, ending up with the shougakusei cosplay down to the yellow hat and randsell. And Daruku’s part in all of this? Damsel in distress, out of action immediately. She’ll probably present some “save her or get the goal” conundrums as we go along, as well.

Time for grade schooler cosplay!

A really nice follow up episode. I like Tensai a lot more than I thought I would, and she gets better with rewatches. She really seems like the kind of character that’s going to repeatedly steal the show. I also like that the show still isn’t afraid to put in more ‘grown up’ touches: exposing Juugo’s meido-fetish with the security camera, exposing Daruku’s cross-dressing by contact. The show really gives off a feeling that it’s older than just high school antics, even though that’s where half of the characters seem to be. They seem to be punching above their weight, playing with the big boys like Matsuri. I’m interested to see how that group works in. Are they going to be unrepentant bad guys? Yukihime seems pretty rough, but Todomatsu seems much more easygoing. A final note, the OP song is the kind of song I like: Rock with a non-standard beat, sung by women. I’m not sure about the laser pewpew at the end tho…

About Highway

Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!