Monday 17 November 2008

Kannagi - Episode 7

Featuring an entire episode where the star of your show is shut in a closet out of sight might not seem like the most prudent of ideas if you're trying to pen an anime series, but that's exactly what we have here with Kannagi's seventh episode. Guess what? It works pretty damn well too.

The episode begins with Nagi having shut herself in the closet right from the get-go, due to some kind of disagreement with Jin that we aren't party to at that point. After trying everything he can think of to get her out, he calls Tsugumi to help him out (despite his horrified realisation about "those" magazines in the closet), which ends up as a similarly unsuccessful ploy.


So, we spend the rest of the episode seeing most of the major characters having a crack at persuading Nagi to come out of the closet (wait, that doesn't sound quite right, does it?), from Zange's idea to.. err, "molest" Jin through to the arrival of Akiba, who is greeted in a hilarious fashion by Jin.

It seems that Akiba is the guy with the key to this whole mess at his disposal, for the argument which kicked off the closet incident was Jin taping over a recording of Nagi's favourite anime with a TV show about cute cats (we've all been there, or somewhere similar, I'm sure). Semi-otaku that he is, Akiba has just the episode that Nagi is missing recorded. On Blu-Ray. And Betamax. Yes, Akiba is a Sony fanboy, which also makes him a master of formats which nobody else has any chance of every playing. D'oh!

An episode of Kannagi with very little of Nagi to enjoy shouldn't work by rights, but it does in this episode and with plenty to spare - It's fun, it's funny, and for a technology-minded guy like me the punchline to Akiba's arrival ("It's a Sony!") is probably the funniest thing I've seen in quite a long time. Pure genius. Once again, Kannagi proves to be one of the most outright enjoyable shows of this season - Not the kind of outright comedy that has you in stiches from beginning to end, but still great to watch with a few big laughs thrown in for good measure. Don't miss the end credits either, as there was plenty of amusement to be had there too.

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