I keep advocating series, even slice of life series, to focus on adults. This episode showed one of the reasons why: alcohol. The drinking party has got to be my favourite arc of of Hanamaru Youchien yet. It’s episodes like these that aren’t just hilarious. They also show interesting new stuff about the characters.
Overall, this is something that I never expected at this series’ halfway point: ever since then, this series has just been getting better and better. Especially the past two episodes made up for the lackluster middle part. The great part is that Tsuchida is evolving. This guy really is your average loser done right, and it’s amazing to see what a little characterization can do. Despite the predictability of everything, I’m noticing that I’m actually feeling sorry for this guy, and like his colleagues would support these two getting together. That’s something I never really expected after finding out how incredibly dense Yamamoto was.
As for the brother: my first reaction when I saw him was: “god, not another one…”. And yet even the first half of this episode was great to watch. It’s a very interesting idea: a homage of such an overused thing as a school festival. That little part of drama was also surprisingly good: it’s just like a real kid for her to break down with so much pressure on her. That story ended up being a very nice story about family.
And then the ED, which also was among the best that this series has shown so far. I loved how the visuals and the music had completely different themes. I know that I often criticized this series when blogging it, but at this point, I’m glad that I picked it up. It’s nice and refreshing to blog something like this. It’s a great example of a series that actually redeems itself after a number of weak episodes.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
Even I loved the ending and the visuals. Anyone has a translation of the ending song?
“This guy really is your average loser done right”
You’ve hit the nail on the head with this one. For such an overused character archetype, it’s when folks like Tsuchi show up that you realise how entertaining they can be when done right. At the start of the series I much preferred the kids part of the story. Now, I like the teachers.
Yeah, when you think about it, you see that stereotypical characters are, in fact, interestings, if they are good used.
I already think that Seiji Mizushima did a good job on that area with the caracters of Gundam 00, Shaman King and Fullmetal Alchemist. And in a series like this, whith no plot, he can work better with this.
Yamamoto sensei is so cute this ep
fantastic ep. drunk adults are always funny 😛
drunken adult?
wait… who is the target audience again? XD
@6 Adults obviously. This anime isn’t geared toward kids at all. I would actually put this in the seinen category.
Well, it is being published in Young Gangan which is a seinen magazine
ergZay, blakraven66,
you guys never see a humor like that huh?
@mambo
I was not replying to you but to ergZay as I already knew the intention of your words.
I was clarifying ergZay when he said “I would actually put this in the seinen category” when it already is seinen.