Boy was I fooled by last week’s preview. Just when you though it was going to get serious, the whole cast busts into song and dance (literally). This week, the whole apartment practice for a musical play that they were asked to participate in. Yuuno and Yayoi get dragged into the mess as well.
Summary
Shinkurou gets asked by an old man to participate in a musical play at the park. While Shinkurou was trying not to get involved, Yamie and Tamaki overhears them and decide to participate along with Shinkurou. Murasaki is allowed to join in as well with the approval of Benika despite Yayoi’s reluctance. As the group practices singing, they find that Yamie, who was apparently supposed to be in the main role, didn’t quite have the singing abilities that she claimed to have. As a result, Shinkurou calls upon Yuuno in hopes that she would be a better singer than Yamie. However, the group was disappointed again.
Shinkurou and Yuuno attempt to practice singing alone in his room while everyone else is forced out. Yamie finds Yayoi sneaking around the apartment and asks her if she can sing. Apparently, Yayoi scored a 95 in karaoke and has a decent singing ability. Yamie asks her to teach her to sing which Yayoi agrees to do. Murasaki and Tamaki spy on Shinkurou and Yuuno as they attempt to get better at singing. Shinkurou decides to start a duet with Yuuno which leads to everyone start singing and dancing. After the musical part was over, the group continue on with the play which turns out to be totally different from what was originally written.
Benika heads over to the apartment after not being able to contact Shinkurou or Yayoi. She meets up with Ginko who went over to the park to find out that there was no musical play there at all. The two break it to the group that there apparently was actually no play and that everything was set up just so they could have some fun.
Impressions
Totally awesome episode I must say. I thought the little musical number was a bit corny and over the top, but I found it to be pretty amusing to watch. I couldn’t stop laughing during the parts where Yamie and Yuuno attempt to sing with their horrid singing abilities (not that I can sing myself). I also found it kind of funny that they go from horrible singing to actually decent singing during the musical part.
I found it a bit strange that they used a little bit of some wacky expressions during this episode when they haven’t used any in the previous episodes. It might just be to reflect the lack of seriousness in this episode, but it felt kind of out of place. The comedy level of this episode was above normal though so I guess it’s actually not that bad to include some funny expressions here and there.
I’m still not sure if Shinkurou has any feelings towards Yuuno, but he does certainly act differently towards her than he does with other people. He especially acted differently towards Yuuno’s terrible singing than to Yamie’s singing. It was quite humorous to watch Shinkurou squirm with the combination of Yuuno’s bad singing and her flirtation with him.
Overall I think this was a pretty good episode. We got to see a bit more of the minor characters in this episode than of the major ones as well. We also got a chance to see sides of characters we wouldn’t have imagined before. Who knew Yayoi would be a good singer? It was also a bit interesting to see a connection between Yayoi and Yamie since apparently Yayoi knows something about Yamie’s dress(past?). Looking forward to next week’s episode and hope that the subs stay on the excellent schedule that they’ve been on.
10 Comments
Now I HAVE to watch this series. The loli wasn’t enough but breaking into song and dance in what was supposed to be a serious episode? Awesome.
This episode cemented Kure-nai as Brains Base’s best series, if it wasn’t already apparent. Yes, better than Kamichu, as hard as that is to believe.
@Fang-tan: The reason I thought it was supposed to be a serious episode was because of the misleading scenes from the preview in the previous episode (particularly the shot where Ginko had a shocked expression in front of the park). But I was still seriously surprised when they suddenly went into the musical part towards the end of the episode.
@Link: I haven’t really watched any of Brains Base’s other works to be honest, but Kure-nai does stand at the top of many other series this season (if not lifetime) for me.
yeah, R2’s slowly getting casted aside by this series
LOL! Well, every great series has to have a joke episode right? I mean look at ergo proxy, that had a funny game show ep as well. But they did develop a lot of plot in the previous two eps. I liked the character development a lot. But this episode was a refreshing look at the series. I was fooled too by the screenshots but then again, it’s more fun to expect the unexpected!
One of the best filler episodes I’ve ever seen, it was just enjoyable seeing a totally random episode like that. The singing thing shouldn’t be too surprising considering Kure-nai shares directors with Red Garden (although that show was atrocious so don’t bother). I especially enjoyed Murasaki’s continual insistence that Yamie was terrible and how she was terrified of Yunno’s glares when she tried the same thing on her.
I’m just hoping they get to an actual plot sometime, because it’s only a 13 episode series. I’d rather it not get rushed. I’m enjoying the more relaxed nature of the show so far, but I don’t want them to ruin it by dumping the plot at the end.
@indr0008: To each his own. In my case, I don’t have that many series I’m watching this season so there’s plenty of room in my schedule for Code Geass R2.
@PhuzyBuny: It was certainly a “joke” episode compared to the rest of the series so far. But this episode wasn’t too far from the normal for Kure-nai so it blended in perfectly I must say. The most interesting part of this episode for me was seeing all the characters in a different light than normal.
@Calawain: I thought it was funny too with the different reactions between Yamie’s and Yuuno’s terrible singing. They weren’t afraid to pick on and joke about Yamie’s poor singing, but with Yuuno they weren’t as vocal about it. I could understand Yamie and Tamaki not saying anything about it since they probably don’t know Yuuno that well, but even Murasaki became afraid to mention anything after the Yuuno stare.
The plot should hopefully pick up again soon, as you said there’s not too many episodes left and it would be a shame if they rushed it. Honestly though, I wouldn’t actually mind if they kept the series going as they have so far with little plot elements here and there. It might not be as good as a series without a solid plot, but I’d still enjoy it.
@Calawai: Dude, you’re crazy. Red Garden is one of the best anime’s ever. It was between Red Garden and Elfen Lied that actually got me into anime today.
I love how Yuuno was all over Shinkurou. Clearly (as we already know) she has the hots for him, but like you said Shokkeru, it’s hard to tell just how he feels about her. Hope we see some more romance stuff like that, I’m a sucker for relationship stuff
I dislike people calling “filler” when a show changes pace or does something that develops characters but doesn’t further the overall plot. Go watch Shakugan No Shana II episode 6 through, I dunno, about 17 again — that’s the definition of filler. This was so well written it’s for real. It may not have developed the story much, and it had no fighting, violence, or dark elements, but I laughed more than I have all season. Pure charm.
@Karisu: I’m hoping to see more of Ginko and how her relationship with Shinkurou develops if at all. I like Ginko’s character a bit more than I do of Yuuno’s even if she does look too much like Honami from Rental Magica (who I didn’t like as much).
@otou-san: It’s easy to call this episode a “filler” since there was hardly any progress made in the story and was more of a “side” episode really. But you make a point that it was very well written and the pacing wasn’t too far off from what it’s normally like during the “normal” episodes to be considered much of a “filler”. Just by watching the series you’d probably wouldn’t think of this episode as a filler and more of just another great episode among all the others.