Hyakko - Episode 6

After taking a one week break, Hyakko returned with its sixth episode - It seems that the extra week was largely poured into the animation quality in places, which was notably good, but was there anything more to pull this series out of mediocrity other than that?


Well, the answer to that question is "yes and no" if you ask me. On the one hand, I really did quite like this episode, not so much in terms of comedy as content and atmosphere. With classes ending for the day, Tatsui quickly finds herself left behind by the others, which leads to a long period of soul searching on the walk home - Why does she have no real close friends? Is she always destined to be alone like this? It's the kind of thing we've probably all asked ourselves at some point, although at that moment we probably haven't arrived home to find said friends already at your place looking through your old photo albums and waiting for your return. So, Tatsui does have friends after all, and this entire episode at least gives is some insight into this girl who has been nothing but a brick wall emotionally before now - This made for a strangely absorbing episode even though nothing much of real note happened, by offering up a sedate and really rather human set of emotions and circumstances which at last gave a little depth to the series as a wider entity.

However, if the lack of comedy frustrated you, then you may possibly be sated by the ultra-long 'preview' for the next episode, which decides to be a bizarre kind of parody of various things (not least a brief The Ring moment) that will in fact have little or no bearing on the actual episode. All I can say about this is that it was "different", but to be honest it didn't particular appeal to me on any level of humour. Still, this episode's human touch for its main focus made for a net win for me, with its different feel giving a slight leg-up to what has been a decidedly average series so far.