Thursday 29 May 2014

Nanana's Buried Treasure - Episode 8

It's tough being a student - especially when you're roommate is a ghost girl with a penchant for video game all-nighters and a former colleague at the organisation you worked for suddenly transfers in as your classmate.

All of these are mild problems which Juugo has to grapple with early in this episode, as his tiredness is followed by having to deal with a testy Tensai, the aforementioned new transfer student Testu and his over-reaction to an incident involving the girl in her charge (and another reappearing character) Saki Yoshino.  All of this pales into comparison to the concerns which arise when a far from likeable former member of the Adventure Club arrives in town.


Particularly affected by the return of Hiiyo Ikusaba is Nanana herself, who is clearly distressed by his turning up outside of her room - a feeling further intensified by his referring to a piece of the Nanana Collection in his possession as garbage.  As it turns out, Ikusaba was Nanana's former roommate prior to Juugo, although his attitude towards the room's resident apparition couldn't be more different.  Is Hiiyo simply hanging out to relive past memories, or is he hatching some kind of evil plot?  Given his personality and the places he's choosing to visit (not to mention the fact that, well, this is an anime series after all), the latter seems by far the most likely option.

While I'm interested to see the series seemingly building to something big for what I assume will be the show's final story arc, it was difficult to really get involved in this week's episode of Nanana's Buried Treasure - it started off a little rushed and disjointed, but more importantly I couldn't find anything to get my hooks into as far as Ikusaba's character is concerned.  Perhaps his actions are more important than his personality, but as villains go he feels a little too much like a cardboard cut-out bad guy, especially in a show that has been at its most delightful in terms of blurring the lines between good and evil in some clever ways. Hopefully the pay off will be worth this build-up, but having had a lot of fun with this series the past couple of episodes have left me feeling a little more skeptical about it.

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