Oh wow. Talk about leaving on a high note. The final episode of this show brought together everything that was good about this show into one hilarious, quirky, crazy, emotional, touching, moving package. What a great way to bring out the first episode in which just one story is told start to finish, with no gag transitions or lack of chronology. What started off as another story about Hotori’s naivete and rashness getting her into trouble ended up being a very touching look back at this show and all of its characters who have made it what it is.

The first half of the episode was innocent enough, with Hotori foolishly thinking she could win a literature contest to buy a new pen to replace the one given to her by her uncle, all because she excitedly modded it during the cold open with a magnifying glass without doing any research into the pen’s value. Never change, Hotori. The scene in which Hotori shows Futaba the cafe and reunites her with Toshiko served to remind us of when in the timeline this was taking place, in case we missed the title scroll. And seriously, Hotori’s mystery short story was horrible, but, of course, that was part of the charm. The super deformed adaptation was a gag that actually worked, thanks its quick pacing and wonderfully cliche writing.

But shit really hit the fan when Hotori got hit by a car in front of her house while fallen in despair over the rejection. Ironically, this accident was due to no fault of her own, as that truck really had no business going that fast that close to a gate where people might enter and exit. But regardless of whose fault it was, she was hit and quickly found herself ascending to the heavens just like the old man from a few episodes back.

There was a more mythical depiction of the afterlife using the Egyptian model, and Hotori's reaction was priceless and reminiscent of her berating of the policeman in episode 2.

There is no shortage of depictions of the afterlife in fiction, but if one were to exist in real life, surely SoreMachi’s vision of it being another typical government bureaucracy would come close. After all, why should things become all neat and tidy for us humans after death? Even after passing, it turns out, people have to wait in lines, fill out forms, work for money. Except here, a job might be of being one of the angels to guide up newly dead people, and one spends one’s earned money by “haunting” photos of friends down below using a photo booth. Very pragmatic, to say the least.

The heart and soul of the episode was getting to see how everyone reacted to Hotori’s hospitalization, of course. It was an emotional look at virtually every single side character in this show. I have to admit I teared up a bit during the scene with Takeru and Yukiko. Something about seeing those two younger siblings being left behind, the older one still just a child and telling the younger one that they have to be strong was particularly powerful. There was also Sanada, who again cursed his inability to tell Hotori he liked her. Except this time, he wouldn’t get another chance.

As it all finally hits her, Hotori begins to mourn her own death.

The finality of it all was what really got to Hotori, when she realized that she would never again get to try harder next time. This scene of her coming to terms with her own death was something unexpectedly mature from this show. What Hotori regretted the most was the life full of friends and relationships she would leave behind, but at the same time, her regret was proof that her life was worthwhile. The feeling of loss was both real and heavy, even as she quickly learned to look ahead to her new life after death.

Once again, I’m inclined to make a comparison to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, with its finale. This is a comparison I don’t want to push too hard – Melancholy is a far better piece of work than this show – but there is definitely a parallel here, with the finale featuring the protagonist going through some powerful and possibly irreversible ordeal in an episode that we know takes place before many of the events that we’ve already seen. Indeed, there was never any doubt that Hotori would come back to life. It’s a bit of a shame that her memory of the afterlife was wiped clean, meaning that she was the same person before and after the events of the finale – a significant difference from the finale of Melancholy – but that didn’t take away from the emotional power of seeing our heroine face her own death. Also, having the story come full circle to her uncle’s pen was a nice touch.

Yet the Town Keeps Going also offers its own take on what "life flashing before your eyes" entails.

This was a far more emotionally affecting finale to this show than I could ever have expected. It truly lived up to its episode title, SoreMachi, by highlighting the importance of what was easily the most entertaining aspect of this show, the interpersonal relationships between the various characters. They were what provided the funniest moments in this show, but also the most powerful and touching ones. After all, more than anything, our relationship with others is what truly makes us happy.

This was definitely a much funnier episode than the last few. In showing the events of a couple of summer days in Hotori’s life, the show returned to one of its key strengths, which was showing Hotori being Hotori in her everyday interactions with others. Her dog/raccoon Josephine got much of the spotlight, and while not all that funny, she was adorable as hell, and the brief return of Moriaki-sensei was much appreciated. I applaud his resilience and creativity in trying to get math through Hotori’s thick skull, even if he is destined to (hilariously) fail.

First of all, that cold open was hilarious. The faux-subtle fanservice shots reeked of Shaft, and the continual sequence of unfortunate events that happened to Hotori was just a joy to watch. Perhaps it’s a bit cruel, but, as they say, it is a fine line that separates tragedy from comedy. The gratuitous humiliation of losing her new bikini top without even getting to go in the water, followed by the shop having no food that day was just too much. Too much for Hotori, too, who has proven time and again to be quite the crybaby. Who, as in earlier episodes, broke out into tears all too quickly for comedic effect.

Besides Hotori, Josephine, the Arasihiyama famiy’s dog/raccoon, was the star of this episode. Although she got displaced by the uninspired “poorman/richman” comics in the transitions, she got a ton of screen time in the actual half episodes. There doesn’t seem to be much to her other than that it’s left open as to whether she’s a dog (as everyone in the Arashiyama family refers her) or a raccoon (as she appears and says in Hotori’s dream). Her perception of the pecking order at the family was curious, not just in that the only human below her was Hotori’s father, but also in that Hotori’s little sister was placed above her little brother, despite the fact that she’s younger. I guess it shows that women really do have the power in the family.

"Josephiiiine!"

Josephine seems to be very important to Hotori, a fact that made for one of the funniest scenes from the show in recent memory, when Hotori, having dreamed that Josephine decided to leave her to go to the mountains, ran out into the rain and despaired when she didn’t find her in her doghouse. Of course, she didn’t realize that Josephine was warm and dry in the house with the rest of the family, watching her overdramatic reaction with confusion.

She appeared again in Hotori’s dream in the second half of the episode, while Hotori was sleeping in Futaba’s bed after doing a bunch of inconsiderate things at her apartment that ended up pissing her off. This was presumably right before they headed to the beach together for the cold open. Left behind at the cafe were Toshiko and Hiroyuki, sharing an awkward moment as they both cursed their own inability to take action toward the objects of their affections. Toshiko’s lightning paced internal monologues continue to be entertaining and cute. I do wonder why they weren’t invited to the beach as well. The whole set up to the half-episode was left in the dark – why was Hotori at Futaba’s apartment in the first place? Could it have to do with the secret they share regarding aliens from the previous episode?

Just kiss her already, you fool! She's hot, she's got a great pair... of glasses, and she's totally cool with your porn collection!

The preview for next episode titles it, curiously enough, “SoreMachi,” the common shorthand version of the title of this show. Makes sense, I guess, as it’s the final episode. Given the complete lack of an overarching narrative to this show, I can’t predict what’s going to go down in the series finale. I just hope that it will be a continuation of everything that this show got right – the character and situational comedy – and that it won’t waste its precious time with the gimmicks and gags the show had done so poorly on. Even in this relatively strong episode, the gags of the “poorman/richman” transitions fell flat. The show has yet to climb back to the highs of episode 7 after the big drop off in episode 8, but this episode has given it a chance to finish strong.

The ending art for this episode was wonderful, parodying the promotional art for The Tatami Galaxy while also being true to Yet the Town Keeps Going

I wish I could say that the show bounced back strong after last week’s disappointing affair, but this episode was pretty limp as well. It was certainly more entertaining than last week’s, but not by much. To the show’s credit though, the ending twist to the second half was so unexpected and funny that it might have made up for the entire episode.

It feels as though the show has been packing more mini clips around the now standard half-episode segments, and the cold open to this episode was probably the most significant one yet. And it was actually really funny. I liked how it started off with Shizuka just finishing reading The Gift of the Magi, a classic and touching short story about a very poor husband and wife having to come up with Christmas gifts for each other (if you haven’t read it yet, you should do it. It’s only like 5 pages). The couple that comes into Shizuka’s shop in the cold open clearly don’t have such a loving relationship, though they do seem to have a lot of money. Watching Shizuka calmly and blatantly exploit them for financial gain was a riot.

Then came the first half episode, which was all too uneventful. It drove home one of my main problems with the so-called “slice of life” genre, which is that “slice of life” shows, in order to be successful, rarely show us just another slice of the characters’ lives; they have to show us something special, unusual, or interesting in some way. I guess Toshiko’s table tennis game against Harue sort of counts. At least the reference to Harue’s special training (via drums) from the previous episode was a nice touch.

Somehow, the shaggy black hair makes Futaba look even cooler, if that is possible. Too bad she didn't actually appear this episode.

The most enjoyable part was seeing the middle school versions/caricatures of Toshiko, Harue, and (especially) Futaba. It seems that the people at their middle school really took table tennis seriously. Hotori’s insertion into – and disbelief at – the scared townspeople flashback was quite funny. I did find it odd that Toshiko was shown to be a lefty in table tennis, even though she’s a righty when playing the violin. Since dexterity and precision are required for both activities, it would be highly unusual for someone to use opposite hands for them. I wonder if it was purposeful.

And then for the second half, featuring Shizuka doing some detective work of her own, all in order to track down a cookie with no source. Really, what made this segment was that completely unexpected ending. Yet the Town Keeps Going has been wacky, off the wall, and crazy at times, but it has never broken continuity or its own internal logic as far as I can recall, so I have no choice but to take this at face value and accept that, yes, there really are time travelers in this show which has suddenly gone down the route of science fiction.

I liked this depiction of a dream hallway. Very accurate, I thought.

Of course, chances are good that this is just a one time thing in order to facilitate this one gag, but already in this one episode, there’s more to this little side story. Specifically, the fact that the couple from the cold open were both from the future – the green haired wife being one of the people at the conference and the husband being the time traveler. Does this mean anything, or were the guys at Shaft just having fun using the same characters? What about the allusions to ancient artifacts and the effects of time on precious objects during the opening narration of the previous two episodes? And was Hotori right when she thought that a warp zone had been responsible for her falling off to the side in the first half of this episode? Is there some sort of time travel twist yet to be revealed in this show? Could this show be far more similar to Shaft’s other “seaside” cafe show, Natsu no Arashi! than anyone had previously thought!?

Probably not. It’s more likely to be a running joke, similar to the aliens in Pani Poni Dash! instead of being an actual plot point. Or maybe it won’t be a running joke at all, but just something to spice up this one episode that badly needed it. At least this show is keeping me guessing. But I’m hoping that the show quickly returns to the situational comedy that it had so excelled at instead of continuing with the gags and gimmicks that made these past 2 episodes so dull in comparison.

I mention Haruhi Suzumiya, and the show follows up with a culture festival concert, then time traveling. What's next, an island murder mystery? That would be right up Hotori's alley.

Well, this one was a bit of a misstep. It wasn’t bad, it was amusing enough, but the style of humor was very different from the norm, resulting in something decidedly more run of the mill and boring than usual.

The first half turned out to be more about wacky vending machine food than anything else. Which was certainly quirky, but not all that funny. It was just cute girls doing cute things, without any hook, and that has already been done to death in the anime world. It’s not fun anymore. The faraway and silhouette shots, which Shaft usually uses to good effect, were actually kind of ugly and only served to remind us of how much money they must be saving. And I don’t know what to make of Harue’s surprise appearance at the end of the segment, other than that maybe they wanted to get their money’s worth from Ryoko Shiraishi, as she had to be in the 2nd half of the episode.

Seriously, this was this show's Chocolate Cornet Moment. I was impressed that Hotori knew what Esperanto was, though.

And no sooner than I start drawing comparisons to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya does Yet the Town Keeps Going bring out a concert-at-the-culture-festival episode. I appreciate that it didn’t go the Haruhi/K-On/Angel Beats route of having (what’s supposed to be) a normal, poppy rock song, but rather stuck with the old timey whimsical tune similar to the ED. The peculiar collection of instruments certainly fit well with the whole off-mainstream feel of the song.

But they could have milked this culture festival concert story a lot more. I don’t even mean stretching it out over more episodes or even to a full episode, though either would certainly work given that over a month passes through the course of the half episode. I mean using the story to show us more interesting interactions between the protagonists. They are what have made this show entertaining, after all. Instead, the sequence of events was surprisingly straightforward. Futaba wants to perform at the culture festival. She gets a time slot at the stage. She recruits Harue on drums (with some manipulation using table tennis), learns that Toshiko and Hotori play instruments, recruits them, then they perform. Not much else.

The pan-up of Futaba before this scene was great. If Shaft still did the still-pan-ups that they used to do so much of in the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei shows, I would've had a great stitched shot of her.

There were many chances for humor that were simply missed or glossed over. How about that whole month when the 4 had to learn the song and practice? When did they choose to go with the maids theme, and why? Who made Futaba’s stunning outfit? Then what about the days of the actual festival? How did they spend their time? What sorts of fun misadventures did our unique heroines run into? They’re not for us to find out.

I did like how the ED sequence ended up being genuine; just as Futaba had been revealed to play the bass a couple episodes back, Hotori does play the accordion – an instrument that fits her eccentric nature, taught to her by the head maid – Toshiko does play the violin, Harue does play the drums, and they all do perform together in maid outfits. But then again, this sort of gag had been done before, in Lucky Star, with the OP sequence. Except that Kyoto Animation is much better at animation than Shaft is. As cute as the concert was, the fact that the instruments didn’t exactly match up to the music was a huge distraction. That’s just one of those things that I’ve come to expect in this post-Haruhi anime world.

This should look familiar to anyone who's seen the ending to Lucky Star. I am unfortunately one of them.

So this week’s episode was lackluster, especially after the both hilarious and powerful episode it was following. In fact, it was the worst since the bland first episode. The show bounced back strong after that initial misstep and kept going to this point, so I’m hopeful that it will start hitting its marks again next week and continue on to the end.

I probably should’ve seen this coming given the title of the show, but with this episode, Yet the Town Keeps Going pretty much defined “slice of life.” I’m not a fan of that label or “genre” (not the contents – I enjoy shows such as Hidamari Sketch that fall into the category, but I find the name of the category not to be descriptive and rather a convenient label that you can slap onto anything), but really, I can’t think of a better way to describe this show. Of course, it did provide some new material, but mainly, this was Another Couple of Days in the Life of Hotori Arashiyama. Fortunately for us, Hotori leads a pretty hilarious life.

The most notable thing in the first segment was the nonchalant introduction of Shizuka, a woman who gets a quick flash in the OP and who appears to be very aware of and exploitative of Hotori’s idiocy. As has been the tradition for this show, she didn’t get too much screen time or development in her first appearance – this has been the case with every major side character so far, including Sanada, Tatsuno, Kon, and Moriaki-sensei. And they’ve all returned to humorous effect the second time around, so we’ll have to wait and see what Shizuka will do in coming episodes. That she’s a named character and is played by an established voice actor in Satsuki Yukino – known for playing Mutsumi in Love Hina, Milly in Trigun and more recently the Sonozaki twins in the Higurashi series – means she’s likely to have plenty more appearances before all is said and done.

This was sort of a coming out episode for Kon Futaba, playing major roles in both segments and showing herself to be fully integrated with our main cast of characters. The bit about her birthday in the first segment went well with the theme of that segment. That is, the knowledge of her birthday was an obvious metaphor for Pandora’s Box, and Hotori ended up making everyone suffer the consequences when she opened it. I loved the image of Hotori dazedly trying to put the confetti back in the popper and to celebrate Kon’s birthday – another obvious nod to the segment’s title.

More reflections, in typical Shaft fashion. And while they look nice, I've noticed the art - particularly of the faces - suffering in some shots. SHAFT!

Kon is shaping up to be quite the cool character. Living alone, with a wall full of CDs, supposedly plays the bass, and knowledgeable about how to pick locks. Combine that with the way she handled Hotori in her introductory segment in episode 3, and we have someone who’s just plain… chill. To be honest, though that makes her very likable, it also makes her a bit too perfect, which can make for a boring character. And a little out of place in our regular cast of misfits. Though her fever-induced antics in the second segment showed her fallibility as well.

That second segment also played with the show’s romance angle, which is always welcome in my book. There was the artist in the red bandanna whom Hotori bribed with photos of Tatsuno, extending the 4-person long love chain by one link. Though that he wasn’t even given a name bodes ill for his return in future episodes. Then there was Hotori’s and Tatsuno’s impromptu visit to Sanada, which, despite playing out terribly predictably, managed to be funny thanks to both the dialogue and the physical comedy. If only Sanada had known about TrueCrypt, he would not have had to go through such pain! I liked both Hotori’s overreaction and that she was still walking home with him from school the next day. After all, no matter what wacky antics get between our characters, Yet the Town Keeps Going.

If nothing else, Yet the Town Keeps Going will be remembered fondly for the million faces of Hotori.

And that’s really the takeaway from this episode. This is a show that’s true to its title. I don’t expect it to reveal some grand narrative at this point, or even a minor one. We’re halfway in now, and I get the feeling the show is getting into its groove, showing us more and more of Hotori and the town that surrounds her as the characters keep going about their daily life. I’m still looking forward to learning more about the buck-toothed Harue, who should play a major role, given that she’s in the ED (even if only as the drummer) and has an established rivalry with Kon.

This week’s episode was a lot like last week’s, in that it was again a lot of fun, made possible by Hotori acting like her usual self. A new character, Futaba Kon, the lead singer and bass player in the ED sequence and also a member of the table tennis club just like Harue from the first episode, was introduced as well, though little of her personality shone through.

There was an odd bit of synergy in this half, as this was a story all about eyes. And if you’ve seen Shaft anime of late – Bakemonogatari, Dance in the Vampire Bund, Arakawa Under the Bridge (the latter two of which I’ve blogged) - you know that they have a sort of fetish for eyes. I’m sure the narrator’s monologue on eyes and how it is the window into the soul and can express just as much as the mouth is something director Shinbo agrees with vehemently. So this segment of the episode really had some nice shots of eyes, mainly Hotori’s.

I wonder if the whole reason Shaft decided to adapt this manga was because of this one chapter...

And Hotori once again stole the show, and it was delightful. She was her usual quirky, hyper self as she listened to and solved the puzzle of Moriaki-sensei’s grandfather’s paintings. She was cute fantasizing that Moriaki was hitting on her, and her superior attitude at the others’ solutions as well as her own correct solution was somehow endearing. And her solution was actually pretty clever. She’s a fool, but I guess she’s no idiot.

The show continued the pattern of having two story segments per episode. The second half of this one was what the “Cat Boy” episode title was about. It saw the introduction of the reverse trap Futaba Kon (played by rookie Rieka Yazawa), into whom Hotori runs during shopping for the cafe. She’s the blonde lead singer in the ED sequence, so clearly she will play a bigger role in the show going forward. There’s not much to say about her character so far, other than that she seems very much the typical unflappable tomboy. I’m reminded of Kino from Kino’s Journey. There wasn’t anything particular about the way Yazawa played Futaba, but, for what it’s worth, her voice seemed fitting for that reverse trap role.

Her intro scene as the “Cat Boy” wasn’t as funny as the first half, but the dramatic and situational irony of Hotori not knowing Futaba’s gender gave the scene an amusing twist. I enjoyed the physical comedy of Hotori suddenly choking Futaba in order to get the cat to come out to protect its master. That sequence was very well animated.

Hotori being Hotori can be pretty deadly, too. The policeman from last episode can attest to that.

In fact, the production values of the entire episode were top notch. Hotori’s faces and facial animations were sharp and very expressive, and when a scene required for action, there were clearly no cut corners with the animation. Yet the Town Keeps Going is proving to be the better looking and better produced Shaft show of the season. And while it might not have the emotional draw of Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge, if things keep going like this, it could very well be the better, or at least funnier, show too.

The great thing about gag based comedies like Yet the Town Keeps Going is that they can always quickly bounce back from a single bad episode. The shows are effectively stateless, and what happened prior doesn’t have to negative affect what happens next. This was the case with the first 2 episodes of this show, as the 2nd episode came out strong with some good, genuinely funny comedy that made the lackluster first episode but a bad memory.

This one was all about Hotori, Hotori, and more Hotori. Instead of being subject to the same old droll jokes about maids, we were instead treated to Hotori being Hotori. And Hotori is turning out to be one of the cutest, most likeable characters I’ve seen since maybe Nono from Diebuster.

To be sure, she’d be terrible to know in real life. I feel for her two younger siblings, especially her brother, who had his game rudely shut off before he could save (and her sister reminded a bit too much of the little sister Kyoko of Dennou Coil with her goggles). I also liked that Hotori’s mother was rightfully intolerant of her poor behavior. A parent that’s not only present but also kind of does her job? In anime? That’s a rare occurrence.

For best reaction faces, last season had Maya in Occult Academy. This season has Hotori.

But it was hard not to fall in love with such a naively energetic character as Hotori. The way she reacted to the policeman pulling her over took some major balls – the kind she hit head on with her scooter – as were her overreaction to comments about her “growing bigger.” There may be an innocent charm to her, but she is unexpectedly lucid and cynical as well.

The ninja/shinobi gag involving the arrows, as well as her finger gesture with “Maid!” that she stubbornly tried to make the cafe’s gimmick had me in stitches. And, of course, her first impulse at seeing a dentist’s sign better than Sea Side’s was to grab a hacksaw to try to cut it down. Never mind that that sign has been there for a much longer time, and that a dentist’s office doesn’t directly compete with a maid cafe…

Seriously, it would be insufferable to hang out with her. But look at that, you can't not find her pouting endearing.

She’s the type to give her all in anything she does, no matter how stupid everyone says it is. You can’t help but love a character like that.

There was even some story development. Hotori was adorable as she realized but didn’t realize that she had a crush on Moriaki-sensei, the math teacher from the previous episode. So this looks to be more a love chain, going Toshiko -> Sanada -> Hotori -> Moriaki. I wonder if it’ll get longer and and longer as the show progresses. The episode also showed how Hotori got to working at the cafe in the first place, in the process also showing how manipulative the head maid Uki was and how much of a crybaby Hotori always has been.

Hotori's feet hitting the glass of the "camera" is definitely Shaft being Shaft, and I loved it.

So a great second episode that succeeded where the first failed and also gave us a view into who our heroine is and what to expect from her in the future. The music remained strong, and I noticed the return of the Calypso-style music with the steel pan drums, fitting for the “Sea-Side” cafe, I guess, even if the sea is nowhere to be seen. The cinematography was again thick with Shaft-isms, and I particularly liked the close ups to Hotori’s tearful eye when she was scolded by her mother at the beginning and end of the episode.

As I wrote last week, all the elements for a strong Shaft comedy are here, and if the material continues to be the whimsical humor of this episode instead of the cliche also-ran humor of the first, Yet the Town Keeps Going will be a fun ride.

Also known as the transliteration from Japanese, Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru – or SoreMachi for short - Yet the Town Keeps Going is a new comedy series, based on a manga by the same name, from studio Shaft and its main director Akiyuki Shinbo. I’ve made it clear that I’m a big fan of both the studio and the director, so I was quite excited about this show, especially with the season premiere of Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge – by the same studio and director – from last week exceeding my expectations. Unfortunately, this first episode was kind of a middling affair, not ever finding a good comedic rhythm and feeling all too plain.

As expected, the music was quite good. The OP song, DOWN TOWN sung by Maaya Sakamoto, was lively and bouncy, as was the OP animation. The OP sequence felt pretty normal, not particularly Shaft-like. There was plenty of dancing by the protagonist Hotori, who was spinning around a broom like a baton or moving a metal tray around her body like a pair of nunchucks. It had a very lively-city-at-night feel to it, sometimes reminiscent of Cowboy Bebop’s OP with the spotlights and contrast between light and dark. Fitting for a song called DOWN TOWN.

The ED song, Maze Sanjou! by Maze, was very good as well. The animation sequence featured 4 of the characters playing in a band and singing with various backgrounds from the show flashing behind them. I’m not sure, but it sounded like the song was sung by the voice actors as well – I thought I heard Omigawa’s voice when Hotori was singing. Notably, the song does include both an accordion and a violin, along with the standard electric bass and drums. Like the OP, the ED didn’t feel distinctly Shaft-like, but doesn’t mean it wasn’t great anyway. Hotori’s dancing and wacky antics towards the end were very cute.

The background music was pretty subtle and pretty varied in style, all very light. There were parts that I recognized as being very Round Table (most well known among anime fans for featuring Nino and doing the OPs to Chobits, Welcome to the NHK!, and, of course, Diebuster).

Yes, this is a girl, and yes, she's voiced by Ryouko Shiraishi.

As for the contents of the episode, it was pretty plain, surprisingly devoid of humor. It dove right into the story of our main character, Hotori Arashiyama (Chiaki Omigawa), a high school student working as a waitress at Sea Side Cafe, a maid cafe run by a rather homely old lady, Uki Isohata (played well by a very male Takahiro Sakurai). The first half was about her introducing her workplace to her friends the buck-toothed Harue (Ryouko Shiraishi) and the neurotic Toshiko (Aoi Yuuki). Toshiko starts lecturing Hotori on the proper behavior of maids at a maid cafe, leading to some predictable gags (“welcome back, master,” or “maids must be clumsy”), before she realizes that fellow student Hiroyuki Sanada (Miyu Irino) is a regular there and decides that she wants to work there as well.

The second half involved Hotori and Toshiko dealing with their math teacher Natsuhiko Moriaki – played ably by Tomokazu Sugita – who is quite strict about the school’s rule prohibiting part time work for students unless allowed by a teacher. At first, they run away when discovered on their way to work, but have to face him head-on when he follows them all the way to the cafe and enters as a customer.

Ah yes, reflections. This is a Shaft show, after all.

At the beginning, the angles of the shots and the constantly moving camera made me think of Shaft’s and Shinbo’s previous Bakemonogatari or Dance in the Vampire Bund (of which Aoi Yuuki was the star), though as the episode went on, I was more reminded of their other sea side cafe series, Natsu no Arashi! (in which Ryouko Shiraishi was the eponymous star and Chiaki Omigawa also played a main role). Indeed, that’s the show this one is most comparable to, both in the setting and the lighthearted character comedy.

And about that comedy bit… comedies are supposed to be funny, and this episode just wasn’t. All the elements were there: the peculiar setting, the quirky and quirkier-looking characters, the slapstick action. But the show just seemed to be going through the motions. None of the jokes caught me as witty or clever. They just felt stale and, as mentioned above, predictable.

It certainly wasn't for lack of trying that the show wasn't funny. The gags just fell flat.

The ostensible heroine of the show, Hotori, was pretty boring, a bit too much of a straight man. I will say that she was very cute, with her sideways ponytail, malleable and a bit chubby and rounded face, and, of course, that maid outfit. It was all amplified by Chiaki Omigawa’s distinct voice. Far more charismatic was Toshiko, who was the excited and energetic catalyst in both halves of the show. Aoi Yuuki’s ability to transition quickly from a soft feminine voice to a more masculine in-control one worked well for her.

Story-wise, there’s a typical love-triangle being set up here, with Toshiko clearly being obsessed with Hiroyuki who just as clearly has a crush on Hotori. I wonder if it’ll lead anywhere, but my guess is that it will be more of a running joke, similar to the love triangle between Hajime, Arashi, and Takeshi in Natsu no Arashi! This was the only real story thread introduced in the first episode, but there are plenty of characters to be introduced, so we shall see how it goes. If Shaft likes anything, it’s to take their sweet time in introducing the characters of the cast.

With the tilt and the smile and the small sideways ponytail, she looks so cute here that it's criminal. Wait, I've heard that metaphor somewhere before...

Thus this was not an inspiring first episode to this new series. Then again, I was not so hot on the first episode of Arakawa Under the Bridge earlier this year, and that one ended up quite fine. That said, I would hope for at least some good gags or foreshadowing of plot to come in a first episode, and I found neither in this one. Just good music and fun OP and ED sequences featuring Hotori being a lot more entertaining than in the actual episode. Still, being a fan of many of the people involved in this, I’ll be watching this with a skeptical optimism.

Notes

• Maaya Sakamoto, the singer of the OP song DOWN TOWN, stars as the main heroine Nino in this season’s other Shaft show, Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge. The background music to this show was done by Round Table, a band better known as Round Table featuring Nino, which, fittingly enough, features a singer named Nino.
• Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge also has Chiaki Omigawa and Tomokazu Sugita playing in main roles.