Nyan Koi! - Episode 10

The opening to Nyan Koi's tenth episode gives us quite a change of pace from anything we've experienced with this series thus far, as the show turns a bit magical girl on us - Thus, we see a (rather impressively animated, I thought) rooftop chase between some kind of cat spirit and twins Kotone and Akari, with the former becoming the magical girl I just mentioned while the latter yields a couple of spells of her own.


Away from that, the school mid-term exams have just finished, and thankfully everyone in Junpei's circle of friends has passed... oh, except for Kanako, who's pre-occupation with Junpei seems to have ruined her brain rather. So, while everyone else is free, Kanako's punishment is to write an essay on the history of the local town, a mission which Mizuno suggests everyone should help with. Before we know it, Akari and Kotone have been roped into helping too, largely on account of the local knowledge held by their priest father.

Things take a turn for the bizarre when a shopping trip which polishes off a day of "study" ends with Kanako being egged on to deface an odd-looking statue of a cat - An action which alarms Akari in particular hugely, and come that night both herself and her sister end up battling with spirits once again. The trouble is, Junpei ends up tagging along on a hunch, simultaneously getting in the way and saving the day in the kind of way that male anime protagonists are oh-so fond of.

Although I suppose the signs were there almost as soon as the twin sisters arrived on the scene, I have to confess the whole magical girl thing in this instalment came a little out of left-field for me - Yet I suppose it's a demonstration of how much my heart has warmed to Nyan Koi that I found myself not minding this decidedly random distraction at all. While this certainly wasn't the series strongest episode so far by any stretch of the imagination, it still managed to pull together some well constructed and beautifully timed gags as always, while injecting just enough fun factor into proceedings to keep me watching without looking at my watch. After all this, I daren't even try to imagine where the series will go next, but as long as it holds onto that sense of fun I suppose it's now been proven that I don't actually mind too much where it takes me.