Was there a Sailor Moon girl with pink hair? Probably…

As much as the parodies may fool you, no this is not Hayate no Gotoku! However, this week’s episode is once again an amazing ride through slapstick and referential humor with tips of the hat to, at the minimum, D.Gray-man, Death Note, Fist of the North Star, Gurren Lagaan, Marimite, Prince of Tennis, Sailor Moon, Shuffle! and Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. If you can spot more than that feel free to comment, I did what I could. All of this parody aside, fear not that there were a few shots of Shinra fanservice to meet the weekly quota.

 

 

This week opens with Yume writing in her very own death note, which later turns out to be a collection of her fantasies. After Ren and Natose notice how forgetful Yume has been lately (she forgot to wear panties to school), they resolve to help her figure out her problems. Ren goes into her room and finds her Yume Note, and gets sucked into her fantasy world. This is a world in which all of Yume’s fantasies of being important, saving the day, and have everyone look up to her come to life basically. What I find notable is that in most anime the clumsy airhead is really popular amongst everyone, including the guys. However Kimiaru is not your normal anime, and instead they continually portray her as ignored and an afterthought. Personally I think it’s hilarious, and I also enjoy the fact that better characters (Shinra) dominate the screentime in comparison.

Well apparently in Yume’s dreamworld there is some unholy cross between Kamina and the pedobear roaming around and causing havoc. Shinra is first to arrive to try and put a stop to it, and the string of seiyuu jokes begins. I didn’t recognize any of the Shizuka Ito (Shinra’s seiyuu, whose voice a 4channer today aptly described as “ear porn”) parodies personally, but the AniYoshi guys pointed out that the attacks parody characters from D.Gray-man and Prince of Tennis (neither show I’ve watched). I sure as hell recognized Miyu’s attack, the “boxcutter shower,” in the greatest tradition of the Queen of Yandere. PedoKamina brushes off the attack and returns fire with a Mikuru Beam. In these scenes the parodies were coming fast and furious, and in a massively over-the-top fashion. In a way I kind of prefer these to the more subtle parodies in Hayate, most of which I don’t get since they reference old anime/manga I haven’t been exposed to. However, different shows having different styles is a good thing, so I can do my best to appreciate both styles.

It’s up to Yume to save the day, and she initiates a purposefully long and drawn-out Sailor Moon transformation, and uses some rediculous-looking wand weapon to vanquish PedoKamina in a similarly exaggerated and drawn-out fight. I had imagined Yume as a Sailor Moon type character from the start with her bubbly and pink character, so I found this particularly amusing. After PedoKamina’s defeat, everyone showers Yume with praise, telling her how unique and awesome she is. Ren is then finally able to pull himself out of Yume’s delusional world, and he tells her that he will take it upon himself to get the family to help her find a unique personality.

The whole family gets together to come up with a unique personality for Yume, and Train of Parody Round 2 begins in earnest. I didn’t pick up many of these except for a Fist of the North Star attack by Mihato and a line from the opening episode of Marimite. The family goes through acting out personality types such as cute, deliquent, bloomer girl, ojou-sama, and animal-like. In each of these instances her sisters, Natose or Mihato are able to portray that character type much better than Yume and she is depressed. I found this part pretty funny as well, especially the dual personality Mihato. Shinra in bloomers wasn’t funny but it was damn sure delicious.

In the end it’s up to Ren and Natose to cheer her up, as a good butlers and servants should. Yume realizes that she just needs to try and find her own personality and take however much time she needs. Ren is rewarded with a kiss on the cheek from each of them, awwwww.

Great stuff again this week, but instead of massive amounts of fanservice they went the parody route. There is really no need for plot here, and they were able to add another dimension of comedy to the show’s repertoire. They had dabbled a bit in parody before but had yet to fully indulge themselves in it. As I said before this may invoke visions of Hayate, but the style is quite different and done in a much more overt and obvious way, in comparison to the former’s more subtle and obscure reference and parody approach.

Next Episode:
Ageha comes to apparently live with the Kuonji’s for some time, starting what is indicated as a couple of episodes focused mainly on her. Looks good to me, she’s another great character.

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