Servant x Service - Episode 10

Fed up of the status quo, Chihaya has made a brave decision - she's finally going to tell Toko about her relationship with Toko's brother.

Needless to say, this doesn't go well - not because Toko is distraught about it, but because she simply doesn't process what Chihaya is trying to tell her at all.  This doesn't come out of any lack of intelligence or an attempt to block out truth, but rather pure and simple tiredness.  But why is Toko going to lengths above and beyond what would be required to become a civil servant?  Does she have more grandiose career plans than previously thought by those around her?

Regardless, Chihaya's plan has gone awry, and although Miyoshi cheers her on while urging her to ensure she has no regrets, it seems that this choice of words might come back to haunt her as another encounter with Tanaka leaves her with regrets of her own - regrets about his regrets about him regretting things, to be precise.  Into this ever-swirling vortex of madness wanders Kanon, who kills some time while waiting for Toko by meandering around the ward office; perhaps she would have been better served spending that time with Toko herself, who is about to learn the best-kept secret of the office and its "mascot".

So ends another broadly light-hearted and amusing instalment of Servant x Service that somehow manages to be more than the sum of its parts - there's nothing all that interesting about its environment and the characters and situations within it are pretty thoroughly played out at this point, yet it's still funny (or at least somewhat amusing) most of the time.  I suppose that's more or less the definition of a good sitcom - it knows why it's funny and sticks to what it's good at without breaking the rules that define it too often, and although this makes for the kind of fare you might not remember a year or two down the line it sure is entertaining in the moment.