Thursday 22 July 2010

Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi - Episode 4

After being saved from an errant baseball by Morino, the Otogi Bank's resident maid Tsurugaya Otsuu turns out to be somebody who simply refuses to be in debt to anybody. So, she moves in with a bunch of oddball characters under a bridge and has a plethora of madcap adventures with them.


Whoops, wrong show... In fact, rather than living under a bridge with crazy people Otsuu instead decides that she needs to be Morino's maid for the forseeable future to repay her debt to him, leaving the poor guy with neither privacy nor sleep. Then again, Otsuu herself is hardly doing her health any good, as is proved when she finally collapses from exhaustion after all of those continuous attempts to help out.

From here, we find out the real reason for Otsuu's fear of being in debt to anybody via the Otogi Bank's president, and needless to say it's a pretty typical sob story for this kind of series, the kind of thing that makes me worry that I'm dead inside for not reacting to it when in reality it's probably because it's a scenario that's been presented within anime a million times before. Anyhow, the club members gang together with a plan to load Otsuu with so much debt that she can't possibly repay it all, thus hopefully breaking her from the vicious cycle into which she has entered herself, meaning that she can live happily ever after.

I have to say that viewing Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi so far has been a pretty bizarre cycle in itself, with an opening episode that left me unimpressed before episode two had me fall in love with it, only to fall back out of love with it again last week. Thankfully, this forth instalment is an improvement again - Despite its boringly typical sob story and occasionally frustrating moments, the episode as a whole is much sharper in terms of both dialogue and story, perhaps because it once again returns at least some of the focus to Ryouko, who is turning into quite a likeable tsundere character all in all with a bit more depth and human interest to her than I initially expected. Overall then, I really rather enjoyed this episode, although of course judging by current form that means that episode five will suck...

6 comments:

Topspin said...

I'm sure almost everyone feels this way, but just dropping the narrator would improve this show immensely. It's otherwise quite tolerable.

Krungie said...

Agreed. Well hopefully they think outside the box next episode because the storyline thus far has been "average." The events have been very predictable including the outcome of the pageant.

The Otogi Bank has a similar feel to "Rental Magica". Although the Bank hasn't been exploited a lot throughout the series.

All in all, the series has been dull. I fall asleep whenever that narrator starts talking. So basically from the line: "A long, long time ago...." all the way up to the ED song. I don't really pay attention. Reasonable enough because this anime doesn't have any attention grabber at all.

Anonymous said...

@Topspin, I couldn't disagree more. I really like the narrator, and think her VA work in this episode was excellent. The range of voices she produced was very funny, IMO.

Hanners said...

I'm on the side of the narrator too, it brightens up the show when it threatens to become dull and predictable from time to time, so as a device it works for me.

quigonkenny said...

One more on the side of the angels, in this case the angel who acts as narrator for this series. Except for a spot or two of multiple people talking at once (which shouldn't be a problem for its intended audience, people who don't have to read the subtitles), she's been wonderful. The Mother Goose voice is perfect, and while the writing is not on the level of some of the great rude announcers in anime history (HnG and Keroro Gunsou come to mind), the attitude fits the series well.

Of course the best thing about this episode was the hot Majo meido action. Can you say Ensemble Darkhorse?

Unknown said...

As somebody who sometimes works for an 'Otogi Bank' style organisation I have to say I'm jealous. The favours we do for people are much more mundane and none of us are fairytale characters (as far as I know).

I like the narrator myself as she adds a Kyon-like charm to the somewhat predictable proceedings. It's the hit & miss of the episodes overall I can't stand.