Natsu no Arashi - Episode 8

Natsu no Arashi continues upon its variable way courtesy of episode eight, returning more towards the comedy-based roots that kicked off the series in its opening instalment... Albeit funnier than that particular offering, thankfully.

Once again, Jun's gender is at the centre of much of the comedy on show, although not before a quite frankly hilarious discussion regarding whether out of date milk will be safe to drink if you take it back in time to before it went out of date - There's some twisted logic in there somewhere, and Arashi and Sayaka seem to possess it in spades.


That aside, the main body (Hmm, "body" is a pretty apt word for this instalment) of the episode involves a nasty accident which ends with Hajime and Jun swapping bodies. When this happened, I have to admit that I was the first to roll my eyes at the rolling out of this tired old plot device, but with Jun's gender such a well-kept secret there was of course plenty of room for humour. Thus, a trip to the toilet takes on a whole new and confused meaning for Hajime in Jun's body (culminating in the classic line "maybe you dropped them?"), while I could only laugh at the efforts of Jun in Hajime's body trying to convince Kaya not to talk to Jun about the secret that Hajime doesn't know about... It works better in the conventions of the episode than on paper, trust me.

So, despite using a concept as old as the hills to pass an episode (and I can't really complain about the lack of reality in a series about ghosts and time travel), somehow Natsu no Arashi manages to pass it off pretty well - It isn't the funniest thing you'll ever see, but it's probably the wittiest episode of this particular series thus far, and despite my preference for the show's time travelling, World War II adventures I still ended up enjoying this particular instalment, which keeps this series going as a little bit of a sleeper hit with me.