You know what they say. A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

I wasn’t really as impressed by this episode as I was with the first episode. However, I still found it quite enjoyable despite all the cliches being hammered into my brain. I mean come on, a childhood friend that takes care of you and also has a crush on you? A fight between two people that separates them until they reconcile only a few moments after? The male protagonist that saves the damsel in the end? A lot of these recurring themes seemed to run rampant through the episode and really made me wonder if the series was going to turn out okay in the end. So what saves it for me? I’d have to say Nagi’s personality (or perhaps “multiple” personalities) as well as Jin’s personality really sells the show for me at least.

EDIT: Cliche is NOT spelled as “clique”.

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Summary

You know… sniffing is a bad habit Jin.

The episode picks up right after the events of last week’s episode. Nagi accidentally breaks her magic wand in two by stepping on it so Jin gives her some high quality adhesive to glue it back together. After Jin changes his clothes, he finds Nagi outside admiring some helpless kittens. Nagi wishes to keep and take care of them, but Jin refuses due to how troublesome it would be. He also states that they already had a mother and taking them in would considered “kidnapping”.

Nagi says, spreading newspapers is for puppies.

After Jin goes out to by a few necessities, he comes home to find half a magic wand perfectly glued to the top of his table. Nagi amusingly blames this on a split personality which she cleverly uses at a later time to trick and even save Jin.

I GOT YOU SOME PANTIES! DO YOU LIKE?

Tsugumi, Jin’s childhood friend and also his “caretaker” in a sense, comes to visit him and conveniently intervenes during an argument between Jin and Nagi about Nagi’s undergarments. Jin attempts to explain the situation to Tsugumi, but Nagi interrupts and gives her an elaborate story that describes Nagi as Jin’s half-sister.

Yeah, you tell her Jin!

After few series of events, Jin finds the dead mother of the kitten’s from earlier. As he rushes home to see if the kittens were okay, Jin witnesses Nagi carrying and eventually “absorbing” two dead kittens. Nagi collapses shortly after the incident and Jin carries her back into the house to rest. After Nagi wakes up, Jin questions her about what happened. However, Nagi just gives him a cold response about him not needing to know and not needing his help. Angered by this, Jin yells at Nagi to leave and Nagi does so in response.

Congrats. You found the zero star ball! Wait…

Nagi goes to visit the area where her shrine used to be and finds a group of children. She finds an impurity on one of the kids and attempts to exorcise it on her own. However, without Jin to hold on to the impurity, Nagi cannot exorcise the impurity properly and so it escapes via a magical dragon ball superball. Nagi chases the impurity down into a small tunnel, but is soon to find out that the impurity has been leading her the whole time. Jin, of course, comes at the last minute to save Nagi and even carries her home.

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Impressions

It’s Nagi saying it, but Jin was thinking that.

Well despite all the cliche madness, I found a few moments to be truly entertaining. Jin’s almost perverse moments (again), the expression of the old lady from the store, Jin’s reaction to the magical wand getting glued to the table, Nagi’s “Gira gira gira” laugh, and much much more. I think these moments are the saving grace for this show (aside from the personalities of the two main characters like I said earlier). Without them, I can’t see how the series would succeed with such a premise.

O_O

Tsugumi… what can I say about her. I thought the animation of her talking at first was kinda strange looking as it didn’t really sync well with her speech (maybe it’s just the video I’m watching) but that’s really besides the point. Her character is probably the most cliche so far. Her earnest personality, the crush on Jin, the fact that she’s his freaking childhood friend (can we not stay away from this archetype or something? -.-) it’s all just so annoying to see. But I really am happy for you Jin. I hope you have lots of babies or whatever with her since that’s OBVIOUSLY the thing to do, right? (Don’t mind me I’m just really tired.)

Next episode, Nagi develops kitten-like powers!

The part about the kittens was kind of strange. I’m not sure if it’ll have anything to do with future aspects of the show, but it was interesting enough to see. At first I thought she was just going to mourn the loss of life, but actually seeing her “absorb” kittens into her, well… that’s just darn weird. Of course, we don’t get to know what really happened either since Nagi was being a pain in the butt about it too. Also, if you noticed, her eyes were kinda dull at first, but they regained their “shine” when Jin asked her about the kittens. Maybe this might be an important plot element later perhaps?

I choose you!

So far Jin has impressed me with his no nonsense attitude. I’m quite surprised to see him get pissed off so early at Nagi (episode 2! Usually this wouldn’t happen until much later). Of course the fight itself was pretty same ol’ same ol’, but Jin coming back to save the thankless wench that is Nagi in the end was the usual icing on the cake. Jin also showed off a slight hint of badassness when he basically said to Nagi “Yeah, I’m only bringing you back cuz I don’t want the rice bowl I just bought you to go to waste.” Smooth.

¬.¬

Nagi’s love for lame puns is kind of getting old. But I’ll forgive you just this once since you still gave us some pretty amusing moments.

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