Hyakko - Episode 11

Well, whaddya know? After having quite the moan about how dull and unfunny episode ten of Hyakko had proved to be, so it goes and manages to improve itself in the very next episode. Not to the heights of absolute hilarity admittedly, but it made for a far more entertaining prospect nonetheless.

The episode got itself off to a good start, with the class teacher Amagasa playing with his new T-Phone (no prizes for guessing what this device is trying to pass itself off as). Indeed, the early minutes of the episode throw in a couple of little Apple iPod advertising parodies, which I got a kick out of at least.


Anyhow, the mainstay of this episode sees Amagasa taking over the class of one of the school's other teachers at the last minute - Seeing as English (said teacher's given subject) isn't exactly his forte, he assigns the period as a self-study class, before deciding that it may as well be made into an impromptu P.E. session. After lots of prevaricating by the girls in the class, teams are decided upon, and dodge ball is chosen as the best way to spend the time. What follows is an occasionally mildly humorous, but undoubtedly highly lethal game that turns into something of a bloodbath before reaching its grand finale - A joke that I can't help but think almost gets spoiled a little as we never get to see it.

Compared to its virtually humour-free tenth instalment, it was nice to find things to at least laugh at somewhat in this episode of Hyakko, with a few nice touches that actually made for worthy jokes, and a few other moments that raised a smile. Overall then, I remain disappointed by this series when I think about what could have been, but at least episodes such as this one take the edge off my disappointment.