Minami-ke Okaeri - Episode 6

It's Summer for the Minami household, and inevitably that means some time at the beach as well as watermelons aplenty.

Thankfully, we don't end up with too much of a clichéd beach episode, as thoughts soon turn to the loss of Fujioka (the bear), who is soon thankfully returned by Fujioka (the human). This particular section of the episode also allows us an amusing comparison of Kana to a sea turtle, and the clever use of camera angles to make it look as though... well, you just have to watch that part.

Fujioka (the human, again) also gets the spotlight for the second segment of the episode, where the visiting Maki somehow manages to instill in him a spoon phobia (a phobia which disappointingly doesn't seem to have a scientific name - Don't say I don't do my research for this 'Blog), inciting the dreaded "indirect kiss" in Kana's name. Using a spoon is easy enough to avoid when it comes to eating watermelon, but curry is rather a different matter.


We were then treated to the sight of Uchida and Mako's last minute rush to finish their summer homework, and more specifically an attempt to borrow Chiaki's homework so they can copy of her. With that dilemma resolved, we're left with Chiaki and Kana's attempts to remember and relive their summer as the autumn hits, which seems to involve wearing a swimsuit in the bath, and dredging up a lot of bad memories from the last few months for poor old Chiaki - nobody wants soy sauce on their shaved ice, after all.

All things considered, this was another pretty run of the mill episode of Minami-ke Okaeri - A couple of moments tickled me, but that aside things just progressed along their own path without ever really threatening to descend into hilarity or stupidity at either end of the scale. In other words, exactly what I've come to expect from the majority of this series, meaning that I can't even bring it upon myself to be too disappointed with such offerings from the Minami-ke franchise any more.