Monday 8 December 2008

Kannagi - Episode 10

It's time for a friendship building karaoke session for all of the main characters in Kannagi - Do I really need to say more beyond that, the rest writes itself surely?

Okay, okay, I suppose I do have to say more beyond that, so let's get this out of the way - This episode of the series was funny. The remit of this instalment was always going to be simple, as there's only so much you can do with karaoke-based humour, but Kannagi has managed to pull it off really well. For starters, there was the Lucky Star cameo which was inevitable yet still amusing, and on top of that there was plenty of amusement to be had at the singing antics of each and every characters for some reason or another.


However, top of the bill has to be Nagi herself, with a singing turn that made for easily one of the funniest things I've seen in anime this year - Tears were streaming down my face as I watched her rendition of a song from a soybean commercial, followed by her excited announcement that she also knows the words to the theme song of a local supermarket (which incidentally we get treated to over the closing credits, although alas not sung by Nagi). Perhaps the sense of amusement I gleaned from this was heightened by this series' opening credits of Nagi as idol - I was somehow expecting something game-changing here, so the element of surprise was with me to compound the humour of the moment.

Getting away from all that, there are a couple of plot progression points of note in this episode, namely that it seems that Zange is working together with the girl whose body she has kidnapped to win the heart of Jin, as well as poor old Tsugumi, who gets (inadvertently) blanked by Jin at every turn.

Anyway, yes, I suppose this episode was hardly original (with that Lucky Star cameo reminding us that that particular KyoAni series made copious use of karaoke as comedy for the end credits of every episode), but really, who cares? Nagi's soybean commercial song will live long in the memory (although hopefully less long in the OST collection), so if nothing else I have to give this instalment a pat on the back for making me laugh until I cried, if only on a single occasion.

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