A long post this week, as I decided to take a look at one show I initially chose, but decided not to watch in the end: Takunomi. The show was something I chose to drop at the beginning of the season, in favor of Yuru Camp. I’ll talk about Camping Girls® later, but for the mean time, let’s begin this post with Drinking Girls™.

20-year-old country girl Michiru Amatsuki decides to move to Tokyo after a change of career. After finding a job at a start-up company, she finds a home in the women-only dorm house Stella House Haruno, where she shares the place with 3 other girls (wedding planner, fashion store assistant and college student). Their occupations are not the focus of the show, though; what is the focus is how much they love drinking, and indulging in nice food when their hard work is done for the day.

The show appears to have gotten rather popular but I feel this is rather similar to what I see in Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles. While that show suffers from the “not ramen again” problem, in Takunomi there’s only so many times you can take watching young girls in a dorm house getting drunk after a hard day at work before your mind says “enough please”. Justin once said to me that the ramen show I watched could have gone much better had it been a short show like Takunomi is. This also reminds me of how the makers of Dagashi Kashi‘s second outing (which is also airing this season) decided to make it a short show instead of a full-length one, like its first season was…there are only so many times you can watch people gasping over Japanese traditional candy before you want to tell them “please change the topic”.

I am kind of pleased that I decided to abandon the show in favour of Yuru Camp, as I am enjoying it infinitely more. This week sees Rin go out on her own after a planned trip with Nadeshiko is scrapped when the latter comes down with a cold.

This is another episode where the two halves of the show match perfectly and compliment each other; on one side, we have Rin having to think on the fly what to do on her trip when the mountain road is closed, leading her to a dog shrine and a hot springs, while on the other side, we see Aki visiting Nadeshiko while she’s sick, and being roped by Nadeshiko’s family somehow into making a local traditional dish.

This show is already in contention of being a favourite show of the year so far. I know one show that I keep forgetting to watch, A Place Further Than The Universe, has been given a lot of great reviews, and after watching the first few episodes, I was pretty impressed with it too. I think perhaps I’ll catch up with it another time later in the year though. March will see me being very busy with my teacher training study.

Citrus next, and if you didn’t hate Matsuri before, you’ll really hate her now, as she reaches a whole new low. Matsuri has obtained a picture of Mei kissing her now, and threatens to show it to Yuzu if she doesn’t go out with one of her creepy texting friends. However, Mei sees through this attention-seeking facade straight away and ignores her threats, and while Yuzu and Matsuri spend some time catching up on old times, Matsuri lets slip what she thinks Mei is going to do…only for Yuzu to see through this as well. Manipulative little brats can be so easy to read, can’t they?

Taking Yuzu out and putting her further into the background in this episode threw me off quite a bit, and had made me realise how much the show needs her. Also, with Mei seemingly trying to open up some more this week, we can see that she was only the ‘antagonist’ for the first half of this show…and by ‘antagonist’ I mean becoming a barrier and hindrance to Yuzu and her emotions. Although I’m very happy to see Matsuri’s arc end, so that Yuzu and Mei can get back to being ‘sisters’, I still think that when the next arc (possibly the final one in the show) comes, it won’t be as ‘final’ and show ending. Of course the manga is still running and there’s only so much this adaptation can do, but the least this show can give us is some kind of resolution we can be happy with, and so I hope we end up getting that.

Now we move onto Darling in the Franxx, and oh…where to begin?

If you thought last week’s beach episode was filler, then this week’s episode takes the biscuit, as the mecha action is once again put aside, with the writers instead concocting a very ridiculous fight between the boys and girls. Of course this is just puberty and hormones turned up to 11, but having to actually watch this petty fight in an action show like this is poor writing.

Especially when the letterbox comes back with a vengeance. It’s now reached the stage where it just arrives in shot, for no real reason or explanation.

A bit of a shame that the whole Boys vs. Girls theme totally took over one topic that was raised for the first time this week: past pilots, and what had happened to them. Goro tells them about the defensive squad that was in Plantation 13 before these kids arrived. The whole of the first floor is sealed off, and as tsundere Miku runs off in a huff after she refuses to make up with Zorome, she discovers some clues to the former squad, who we learn were wiped out entirely. Also, we see Kokoro is starting to get more interested in the childbirth book she found at the abandoned town last week, which could suggest all sorts of things. As the parasites aren’t really taught all that it is to be human (especially when it comes to love, sex and procreation), what will this strange information do to her, who is the most innocent and harmless out of all of the pilots?

Zero Two, however, is loving all of this infighting, as she sees it as something that is just human. As she is constantly being looked down on for being inhuman, seeing something as petty as this infighting is something to laugh at, especially if you don’t really care, and know that there are more important things in the world.

Despite the interesting side-story with ghosts of parasites past, this was a very poor episode, even for this show.

For some reason, Crunchyroll has decided not to let me play this week’s episode of Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles. I don’t know if it’s some weird technical bug or something, so I’m afraid my coverage of that is going to have to wait until next week 🙁

Closing with Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, episode 9 sees Nozaki and Chiyo sheltering from the rain, and attempting to play out that atypical “sharing-umbrella” romance scene that is in like every single shoujo manga. Of course it’s something that Nozaki has no clue about, and as he forgot his umbrella too, he and Chiyo have to compromise…somehow.

Later, we see Nozaki’s neighbour Miyako return, who is beginning to get frustrated with her inept editor’s constant demand for praise, and obsession with tanukis. I’m going to miss watching this show; right now, I’m watching this on Crunchyroll but I think I might have to buy this 🙂 Just to note that I have no idea on what the English dub is like, and whether it is any good or not, so feel free to tell me if you know.

One last thing, we have a classic/out-of-season show for Spring 2018. You have made your decision, and have chosen Princess Principal. I heard quite a bit about this show last year, and it ended up on that list of “shows-you-mean-to-watch-but-will-probably-never-get-around-to-it”. Well, I now have the opportunity, so I’m looking forward to this 🙂

As the season is slowly coming to an end, how have you enjoyed it? Have there been any shows you think I ought to have checked out? Do you think I should have given Takunomi a chance at the beginning of the season? Are you glad Matsuri is finally disappearing from the show? Feel free to air your opinions in the comments below…