Saturday 16 October 2010

Amagami SS - Episode 15

I may be away in Scotland right now, but the one piece of unwatched anime I did have chance to bring with me is Amagami SS' latest episode - the things I do just to keep up with the ludicrous goings-on of Junichi Tachibana, eh?

Anyway, as this third episode of Ai Nanasaki's story arc begins, we see her struggling to improve upon her race times with the swimming club, although such problems seem to be put to one side once Tachibana invites bother Ai and her brother to an amusement park courtesy of some free tickets he just so happened to have received.  However, come the day Ai turns up without her brother, who is supposedly ill - a likely story, as Ai very much takes the lead in terms of her "date" with Tachibana as she leads him around.


Of course, no story arc of this show would be complete without some utter weirdness, but I think this episode has managed to top the lot in terms of offering a slice of drug-induced insanity.  This comes via the inevitable amusement park moment where the main couple visit the Haunted House, only this time it all ends in a deluded Tachibana thinking that Ai has been turned into a bowl of miso soup, and trying to eat her with lashings of butter.  As sexual euphemisms go, I'm sure no explanation is require, but girls turning into miso soup?  I'm wondering if the next arc of Amagami SS is scheduled to discuss Tachibana's secret addiction to psychotropic drugs....

Come the end of this somewhat surreal date, Ai ends up kissing Junichi (taking the lead once again), before we move on to see her troubles at the swimming club revealed with full force - a state of affairs which eventually only draws Ai and Tachibana closer, with the latter jumping in the pool to stop Ai from running away in tears.  He could have just run around the edge of course, but where's the drama in that?  Perhaps he had a hallucination that Ai was the final scoop of ice cream in a giant tub or something?

As per the previous episode of this particular arc, I find myself a little bit torn here - I rather like Ai compared to the other girls we've seen so far, and she's certainly more straightforward, forthcoming and willing to take the lead a little.  That said, we still really haven't seen much of her wider personality beyond this, and even the introduction of her swimming club troubles this episode didn't real peel much away in terms of revealing her personality.  Still, this has been an entertaining enough arc to this point I suppose, and I can actually understand why Ai is falling for Tachibana (unlike Haruka and Sae's arcs) - but still... a girl transforming into miso soup in a haunted house?  Every time I think Amagami SShas managed to meet the pinnacle of weirdness, it somehow manages to top itself.

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