Another excellent episode of Ano Hana. I appreciate series that mange to intersperse serious moments with comedy, and this show is doing quite well at it. The first meeting at the clubhouse was a good example of this: as everyone is searching for Menma and there’s tension over whether they believe each other or not, Menma is also searching for herself and disappointed not to find her. The way the show handled Jinta’s seeing ghosts was excellent as well: usually in this situation the person who sees the ghost would try to make everyone else believe it’s real, but here, Jinta is much more reasonable and instead doubts whether Menma exists himself.
Both Tsurumi and Matsuyuki, who had been sidelined up to this point, begin to develop and become strong characters in this episode. The best description of Tsurumi is probably Hisakawa’s “mysterious girl”, although you can tell that she is worried about Matsuyuki. She didn’t seem too concerned about Jinta seeing ghosts, but now that I think about it, that’s probably because of Matsuyuki’s hobby. The only part that she didn’t believe from his story was that Menma made the cookies, not that he saw Menma.
Crossdressers tend to be overused in anime, but Matsuyuki is one of the few portrayals (along with the characters of Hourou Musuko) that I can actually buy. The thing is that Matsuyuki isn’t a crossdresser in general, he is Menma. He has (I presume) a longing for Menma, not a desire to wear female clothes. That kind of desire is much more compelling than a desire to go to a girl’s school or the far more common lack of any reason whatsoever.
It was quite satisfying seeing Minko get a taste of her own insults. Hopefully this won’t dissuade her from further creativity.
I am wondering though if they decided to have Ohana and Minko make peace a bit too soon. This is a two course show they’re going to need some more drama, and Minko was a very nice source for this. I’m hoping that they don’t go the route of the grandmother’s “joke” in saving the inn from being closed since this trope has been done to death so many times in the past. It seems that in the immediate future Ohana’s friend Ko will be making a visit, so this should spice things up.
I was quite surprised to see this week that the author actually made a good addition to the cast as part of the inn’s staff. I half expected him to be squirreled away in the background for the remainder of the show, but his creative interpretations were the driving force for much of this episode. He complements Tomoe (the woman in the pink kimono above) well in terms of rumormongering.
I’d been wondering whether Shinku could become an animal ball since he’s from another world, and apparently he can’t. Oh well, it’s not like he’s going to die.
Shinku’s running and speed surfing was fun too, but his magic carpet ride moment with the princess was a bit stretched out. I just can’t imagine any kind of serious romance working with these characters.
This episode showed us more of Kimimaro’s family history. It turns out his father was also involved in the financial district, and died because he became bankrupt. His mother also passed away, leaving him to become the person hyper-concerned with money he did become. We’re also introduced to an International Monetary Fund employee investigating the financial district.
First of all, let’s give credit where it’s due: we have a show featuring the IMF. I think this beats out Stein’s Gate’s use of CERN as the secret evil organization. The IMF agent’s boss seems to be sending some rather loud double agent signals, but let’s hope things aren’t quite that obvious.
As far as the direction Kimimaro’s history is taking, it’s a bit too stereotypical for me. Father dies, mother passes away, boy hates father. The only way they could make it worse is have it turn out that Souichiro (the old guy) is actually his father. I’m actually kind of guessing that will happen though. The old man is quite sympathetic to the boy’s father. Their assets obviously have some sort of connection. And you lose your future, not your life by going bankrupt. Perhaps by losing his future he lost his family. Still, hopefully they will surprise me and do something less predictable.