Minami-ke Okaeri - Episode 2

I think it's fair to say that I gave the first episode of Minami-ke Okaeri a rough ride, and rightly so in my humble opinion, between its general lack of any tangible humour and animation that was poor to the point of being distracting - Certainly not an effort worthy of the Minami-ke name.

Thank goodness then that episode two of this series is leaps and bounds better in almost every sense I can care to explain it. For starters, while the animation is hardly stellar once again, it is at least solid and without the glaring errors that made watching the last episode so frustrating.

More importantly however, this second instalment has proved without doubt that Minami-ke Okaeri can be funny, with almost every segment offering some level of fun and humour. The first surrounds a tin of sweets brought to the household by Touma, and after some soul-searching and arguments about how they should be shared and who should open them and when, Fujiyoka's confusion over Touma's relationship with Kana and Chiaki (being a girl in boy's clothes as she is) leads him to make a complete fool out of himself. Then we have Kana's attempt to get some cream puffs added to a shopping list... Or is it?


So, the episode goes on, broken down into various small segments as this show invariably is (with the end credits once again bizarrely pretty much in the middle of the episode), until we reach the tour de force that is Hosaka (or should I say, the Curry Fairy) performing a piano recital in his head featuring a song that's all about curry. I don't think Minami-ke has made me laugh so hard since "Ninomiya-kun! Sensei!", and for achieving that feat I can only salute it. It's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it, and the improvement in quality with this episode of Minami-ke Okaeri is most welcome. Now the question is whether they can keep this up for the rest of the series?