Minami-ke Okaeri - Episode 10

Minami-ke Okaeri is proving to be as varied as ever in terms of episode quality, but on this particular occasion this falls in its favour, as episode ten proves to be towards the more amusing end of the scale.

The episode begins with a torrential downpour that catches Touma out, leaving her drenched. Of course, Haruka makes sure that she gets a warm bath and hot chocolate, but Chiaki is far from keen to lend her a new set of clothes. By the time Fujioka pays a visit, Touma is desperate, but for poor old Fujioka it looks like he's just walked into a mad house. Mind you, that sounds like pretty much every visit to the Minami household...

Touma and Fujioka continue to be the focus of the episode in another vignette, as we rewind to the days where the two of them had first met (and where Touma's whole gender confusion begins, although I thought we'd already covered that in an entirely different way in the last series, but never mind), a wonderful time of discussing football and confusing the Hell out of any non-football fans present... not that I've ever done that before... *cough*.


Sandwiched between the two is perhaps the funniest part of this episode of the bunch, with Chiaki's line in trivia causing much stress to Uchida at a sensitive moment - It's best not to mention about natural colouring being made from insects when someone is eating a coloured sweet. Uchida's subsequent attempts to hide from Chiaki's trivia in turn upsets Chiaki, who hates being ignored - An impasse saved by the appearance of Fujioki, who gets regaled with a rather beautiful bit of trivia for his own efforts.

The episode ends with Natsuki's surprisingly successful attempts to persuade Haruka to get Touma to come home from their place earlier - Surprising because of Natsuki's over the top and, to be honest, downright creepy use of the advice given to him by his brothers on how to behave. Again, some pretty amusing stuff on show here.

As I've already mentioned, and as per so many slice of life shows, Minami-ke Okaeri is well and truly a hit and miss affair - At least it's hitting the mark more often than its predecessor Okawari though, which is a huge relief, and has made for plenty more laughs than the last series offered.