Teekyuu S9

February 16, 2018

OMG! It happened again! Teekyuu has one more surprised us with a ninth season and the main reason I am speculating why they randomly decided to do a single season is so that they could breach the 3 digit episode mark. Yup, just a few more episodes to reach a century. You’re almost there! You can do it! But still they can’t get to Wimbledon…

Season 9

Episode 97
Tomarin narrates her day in life while living with Marimo. Does she take a dump twice? Then she goes off to explore the world. She thought of destroying mankind but gets drawn into the pachinko parlour. Too bad she lost lots of minute in 30 minutes. Then she gets attracted to horse racing and like history repeating itself, she lost lots of money in the same time. Then she gets drawn into a host club and is forced to buy liquor while talking to a strange woman. More money lost. She is about to destroy mankind when a gangster invites her to play a game that doesn’t involve money. It is jenga but if you lose you will die! Tomarin loves this game… So fun…

Episode 98
Nasuno’s birthday is soon and they want to throw a surprise party. I don’t think digging a pit trap is going to cut it. Other silly ideas include cutting her up and putting her in a box, sneaking into her house and robbing her. Marimo and Kanae are bad actresses trying to convince Nasuno to make an appointment to come to her house. Yeah, it’s to look at her furniture. When they arrive at her place, Kanae accidentally drops the cake box. In hopes for it not to be squished, she surprises Nasuno by tossing it in her face! Once the birthday is no longer a surprise, they give her presents. Kanae has a box of creepy doll parts in which when you put it together will turn into… Fish cake? Surprise! Marimo mistakenly brings doteyaki instead of dorayaki but Nasuno likes it. Yuri and Youta give her a t-shirt that is so tight that it is squeezing her boobs. Oh, it has a picture of Carlos on the back.

Episode 99
Marimo warns Yuri not to make any quips about Kanae today. That’s because last year she did something like that and it turned her into a pervert. Wasn’t Marimo always a pervert? Kanae then comes up with a song on a shamisen. She jumps the gun thinking Yuri said something. Suspicious… Kanae then wants to go to Nasuno’s house to make idol clothes. Again she thinks Yuri said something even though Yuri was just being monologue in her head. They design a strange outfit that includes the horn of a narwhale. Yeah, the horn is sticking out from the butt. Nasuno has been making all sorts of silly quips and this didn’t even make Kanae suspicious. Till the rest quip it is probably those quips is the reason Nasuno’s spin-off got cancelled! Yuri can’t take it anymore and is going to quip at Kanae. See, nothing happened. Oh wait. Suddenly Yuri has a beard! Marimo and Nasuno have dreads while Kanae is a unicorn?

Episode 100
I bet they were waiting for this episode… In this ‘special’ episode, Kanae hosts the top popular characters of the series although no poll or votes were taken. 9th and 10th places are characters whom we don’t know. The bakery manager gets 8th spot. Then we have the whole Usakame characters taking their spots in the 20s range. Yuri is ranked 7th and man, she looks so disappointed. I mean, really disappointed. Hey at least better than Marimo who is 48th. Or Kanae who isn’t even in. If you care to read, from 5th to 100th are the names of weird people ranked. Yeah, really weird people that makes you go, “Who the f*ck are these?!”. Oh, Tomarin is 5th and Youta is 11th. And now for the top 4 spots. All occupied by Nasuno!!! Obviously somebody got bribed…

Episode 101
Yuri and Tomarin accompany Kondou to interview clubs. Too bad this school doesn’t have any decent clubs. From a very talkative baseball guy (who sorts balls based on gender), the tea ceremony club who makes funny faces and the light music club who plays death metal music (screaming all the way!). Then there are other weird clubs like the loan shark club and butt club. Seriously. Finally it is the tennis club in which we see our girls doing serious power shots. And Yuri wants them to make jokes? Yeah, Kondou has been sleeping in all the interviews…

Episode 102
Yuri is made to go cycling with her pals. Yeah well, Nasuno has got a penny farthing, Marimo is riding a Spanish donkey (that wooden horse torture device, that is) and Kanae riding a giant eel named Hideo! Riding their normal bicycles up the hill, they have to ignore all the people pleading for help. It’s a good thing because it sounded like those people were disappointed they didn’t fall for their trap. Then they go downhill and barely pass through several points of interests (read: dangerous points). They decide to race home but Nasuno plays cheat by riding an electric bike while Marimo starts running on foot. Yuri plays catch up and when she thinks she has surpassed those in front, they’re actually those unknown characters a couple of episodes before. Were they invited?

Episode 103
A couple of Nasuno’s dolls plan to curse her but it only rejuvenate her. Then Ayano comes in to inform one of their villas has been turned into a cursed house. The dolls decide to bring them there in a bid to curse Nasuno to death. Exploring the house, a bear scares Ayano but rest assured it is just a stuffed bear but with a lot of hate inside since it was killed by a shotgun. Then there is a flying curtain hook with a grudge since it always got stuck in the rails. Suddenly the dolls grow up into adult versions. Ayano too! Now she’s got all the curves. When the dolls want to curse Nasuno, she beats the hell out of them! Then she tears down the house. Now the dolls and those apparitions there live together with Nasuno. Things just got weirder…

Episode 104
Since mom isn’t home, Marimo and Tomarin go shopping. After all that brick Tomarin prepared tastes like rubber. When Marimo asks if there is anything she doesn’t eat, she doesn’t mean things like dynamite. And when Tomarin asks her the same thing and Marimo replies nothing in particular, it doesn’t mean you can buy rubber bands for dinner. When Tomarin tries some tomatoes she explodes into slime! Don’t worry, she can put herself back together again. Albeit some missing parts. Back home, Tomarin kneads the meat with her ‘golden balls’. So how does the steak taste? Like rubber. Suddenly Tomarin is going to explode but it is Marimo who is blown up instead.

Episode 105
Today’s episode is all about illusions. The girls visit the hall of illusions. For starters, this entrance is just a cardboard illusion. Kanae ordered tickets but they got noodles. With animals sticking out of the picture, they’re actually real! Marimo gets bitten by a tiger. Must be an illusion, eh? But the pain isn’t… Then they meet the owner and curator of this hall, Charles de Gollam. He demonstrates using his illusion powers of bending a frying pan and going through walls. All using physical force! The girls experience more endless illusions as they start thinking they are trapped in a picture, which is true. But Kanae points out they’re actually in an anime in which Nasuno rebuts animes that aren’t well animated might as well remain as manga… We know Teekyuu isn’t right?! :-).

Episode 106
The girls help out a granny at a shrine since she is going to hold a festival. Too bad grandpa is sleeping and can’t wake him up to help or else he will sue! The girls have to take out the little shrine from the closet and carry up the stairs. Kanae remembers her past life to do construction work with heavy machinery constructing a music stage. Is that Bon Jovi invited to sing?! To negotiate the vendors for the stalls, it seems they are all gangsters and ruffians. Luckily they are a kind bunch but strict with the money. There are also a bunch of old characters randomly returning to operate the stalls. Then grandpa died. His handphone dropped into the toilet bowl, that is. The festival starts well but it ends up being some idol signing event.

Episode 107
The girls visit the zoo. And no, Yuri is not an animal. Looking at the map, the zoo is divided into living animals and raw animals… But the ‘animals’ behind the cages are things like gloves, plastic bags and empty cans… And so they all stare at Yuri like as though she is some exhibit. It makes her feel uncomfortable… When they think they could see a major animal, it turns out to be an old man and the zoo’s supervisor. He is the only animal here. 3 years ago the zoo used to have lots of animals. But he misused the funds the buy luxurious cars and a trip to Dubai, spending on his mistress and living a luxurious life. It is no surprise it went all downhill and he had to sell the animals. Nasuno uses her family influence to rebuild the zoo. The bad the old guy didn’t learn his lesson and continue to spend it all.

Episode 108
The girls visit Nasuno’s botanical garden. Expect the unexpected as we see a huge living tree made out of concrete (which makes it not living in the first place), a huge banana with lots of mini bananas inside it, a herb garden that contains various herbs such as curry and petrol, a Japanese garden that contains a desert cactus and an aborigine who has lived here for a few days and is a wi-fi addict. Then they all have a nice tea garden and decorate each other with flowers. So lovely. So heavenly. But the big question that has Yuri pondering… Will we have a tenth season???!!!

Final Fantasy: Mad Rant Children
OH YEAH!!! Even after coming this far and with so many seasons behind, it still doesn’t get tiring because of all the random nonsense in very short 3 minutes. And so I am hoping that they will be doing another 10th season so as to take advantage of the perfect 10. Oh yes, it is time for Teekyuu to reach Ten-goku (the heavens). Haha! And then we can aim to reach 1000 episodes!!! Oh sh*t!! Will I still be alive when that happens???!!!

There is nothing more to b*tch about this season because what I want to say are the same and have been said in my past blogs of its previous seasons. The wacky characters, the random minor characters, the fast paced talking and the very random jokes that either you will get it in a split second or not, everything here feels at home at what Teekyuu should be.

The only difference that this season has than its predecessors doesn’t is that for the first time we have an ending theme! But because of this, doesn’t the episode proper feel a bit shorter? We’ve been short-changed! Kaiun Soufuku Etenka by Earth Star Dream has a bit of this carnival feel to it but the song is still overall wacky. Even wackier and crazier is the ending credits animation in which our Teekyuu girls have this manly face!!! Oh sh*t! Too real to handle! I don’t know if I can take them seriously if they have this serious face. But they do look like real contenders for Wimbledon… Nah! The opening theme is as usual another crazy hard rock based, Dream First Sensei-shon (that’s a pun for ‘sensation’, get it?) sung by the voice behind Yuri.

So yeah, I’m waiting for the day they will announce the 10th season because there is no reason not to. And no, I don’t want another season of Nasuno’s spin-off or that super boring Usakame counterpart. Nothing but Teekyuu will do. Carry on, girls. The kind of random and silly nonsense that you have always been putting up since the first season. It is the only kind of madness that I can accept and thanks to its 3 minutes limit, I won’t go crazy and instead it made my day. It’s good to know that in this (anime) world there are such heroes who don’t wear capes… Okay, maybe not entirely heroes. Just plain (funny) idiots.

Teekyuu S8

June 2, 2017

I am starting to feel that Teekyuu will become the version of Gintama for short series. No, not One Piece or Naruto because those long running series are continuous. Gintama is long running too but they take breaks in between. That is what Teekyuu is like as it now enters its eight season. Although it is sad that they didn’t add more seasons to it after that and just a single lonely season by itself. Holy crap! It is already 8 seasons?! Man, where has time flown?! Did time really fly when you are having fun?! Or maybe the episodes are just too short.

Season 8

Episode 85
Kondou drafts our Teekyuu girls for a national school newspaper contest that is held 7-8 times a year. She needs them to come up with ideas. In that case, Marimo decides to cause a major scandal by pulling down Yuri’s panties! Maybe she just wants her panties… Kondou needs good ideas. I guess her standards are so high that not even the supernatural existing right before her eyes would cut it. Last time Kondou won with her scoop on Marino wrapped in panties and she won big. Time to try new ideas. So they try the library for the history of Kameido. Only 2 pages… Kondou finds an evil looking grimoire. She opens it and she gets sucked into it. A devil is before her and will grant any wish in exchange for her soul. After finding out the market price of a soul, she decides to cancel the cooling off rule. Is that a wish? Speaking of that… When she wakes up, it seems she won the grand prize. An article of turning that supernatural into sushi. Super delicious!

Episode 86
The girls eat at a ramen shop. However the chef seems to be quite peculiar. He has sloppy handwriting, uses meal tickets for orders and even as grande frappuccino on the menu! Oh, he also throws in extras like the autograph of some random old man who lives around here. Kanae orders her ramen with some long ass name like as though she is reciting a spell (this puts Harry Potter to shame). Once done, the chef eats it himself! A couple of yakuza guys enter and remind him to pay up. Of course Yuri can’t eat in this distraction but it seems the rest of her friends are pretty oblivious. Not perturbed at all! The yakuza guys threaten to shut down the shop if he can’t pay. The chef pleads not to as this shop has lots of nostalgic memories. He wants them to eat his ramen and then decide. Well, how does it taste? Oh my! It’s so shockingly… Shockingly… The shop is now up for sale…

Episode 87
We’re going to the beach! Again! But it is Tomarin’s first time. But how are they going to get there? In Annekov’s glittery hearse! But there aren’t enough seats. Don’t worry. Yuri can ride in the coffin! They eventually rent a car and since Annekov is bad at reading maps, she has Yuri as her navigator. Yeah, the GPS sucks. Annekov drives fast and recklessly. Because if they die, she can hold a memorial for them. The usual antics during the journey including Kanae getting car sick and taking the turmeric raw, Nasuno complaining she has only ride in limos and carriages and singing weird songs. They stop for a break. The chef won’t make Yuri’s soba and Tomarin is using the chopsticks wrongly. Just when it seemed like they fast forward they are satisfied having fun at the beach, Yuri retorts that they haven’t even arrive there yet. Still on the way…

Episode 88
The girls are at the beach during winter! While Kanae makes editing jokes, Annekov suggests fishing and they fish out a giant squid as it reels away Annekov and Kondou. Tomarin finds it boring and wants to destroy this planet! Before that could happen, Nasuno summons her Titanic. It crashes into an iceberg, leaving Yuri and Kanae stranded. Then Kanae gets sick and ‘dies’. Yuri is washed ashore all alone. However her friends keep her company in her heart. Too bad that was just a cheap dream. But she is still alone on an island hearing weird monologues of the whereabouts of her friends like Marimo is frozen in North Pole, Tomarin revives herself via space power, Nasuno using money to revive herself, Kondou and Annekov return to the spirit world and Kanae walked home across the ocean.

Episode 89
The girls are staying at a haunted inn. The room is empty except for a plate of salt, a cursed doll and talismans all over the wall. In fact, the girls have lots of fun taking baths, soaking in the hotspring, playing ping pong and then drinking. In the middle of the night when Yuri gets up to go to toilet, she thought Marimo is murdered but that ‘blood’ stain is she wetted herself and she is just sleep talking. The cursed doll is going to curse everyone but Nasuno in her sleep walking beats it up! I guess nothing scares Yuri anymore because seeing floating sleeping Tomarin, standing sleeping Kondou and Kanae sleeping in the toilet bowl aren’t anything surprising. An evil spirit tries to scare them but since they are so deep in sleep, I guess the joke’s on him. Next day everybody leaves feeling great. It was the best stay ever!

Episode 90
Nasuno takes her friends to an art museum she just bought. And so you could see ‘art-like’ stuffs like a painting of a who-the-heck-is-this old guy, actual stains and moulds as paintings, old handphones, old PCs (CRT monitor!) and even a recently released manga! Oh, there’s this art containing words that looks like scribbles. Maybe they are really just scribbles… Nasuno then buys a natural history museum. What looks like a mammoth’s tusk and moon rock is actually some driftwood and pebble respectively. Oh, there’s even that recent manga… Nasuno thinks of buying a botanical garden next…

Episode 91
The girls play an online RPG. Nasuno is already overpowered with all the gear she ‘extorted’ from the store. Marimo’s character is a totally nude character! She gets banned of course! She returns in a traditional Chinese kung fu suit and tries to eat grass to heal but gets stomach ache. They first fight a konjac noodles monster and beat it up so badly that they look like the bad guys. They even try to pick a fight with a villager but he owned them. They face their greatest challenge fighting a dragon. Is there no way to defeat it? Here comes the villager to kick its ass! He is more powerful than them? Then he beats them all up till they’re dead.

Episode 92
Yuri realizes she is in Marimo’s body. Hard to believe, right? It gets harder when Marimo sees her original body and thinks Yuri is also Marimo. Yeah, you can’t tell them apart when they are talking in sync. Time for your brains to explode as Nasuno ramps up the complication. Assuming both are real Yuri, where did Marimo go? It’s so darn confusing that Kanae gave up and thinks she is Yuri! So while the battle for the real Yuri rages on, Tomarin uses her antenna to reveal the real one. But some evil alien materializes as she claims she has the power to switch minds and bodies. She then switches everybody. This is getting confusing too. Some business cards and Powerpoint attack turn everyone back to normal. Don’t ask. I don’t even know what’s going on.

Episode 93
Time to go a little back in time when Kanae made her high school debut. She first met Nasuno. I’m sure she is doing it on purpose when Nasuno instead of giving her business card gives money! They think the other wants to join the tennis club. Because it is literally written all over their face. They fill up the application form and Nasuno attaches money instead of her photo on it. Kanae relates why she wanted to join the tennis club. Her father is a tennis ball. Yes, a tennis ball! One day playing catch, a dog retrieved it and he never came back. Nasuno? She thought it was a thing for rich people. After handing in their applications, they have joined the kendo club…

Episode 94
Kanae and Nasuno are excited to know a girl next class has joined the tennis club. They go look for her. This retro looking girl? No. She was splattered with salmon roe with a tennis racquet. This sushi chef girl? Well, she claims to be it. After school they go practice but they are all making sushi! There is the Nationals for sushi? Apparently she isn’t a real tennis club member. She uses the racquet to skin for salmon roe. The duo leave disappointed. That is when they bump into Marimo running away the police. She can’t help stop squeezing Nasuno’s tits. She beats her up before the police takes her in. Nasuno then bails her out since she is a tennis club member. Marimo claims she only joins the club to see panties. Such deep reason! Nasuno points out they are underskirt. Disappointed but whatever. The trio became friends and start their first practice together by making sushi.

Episode 95
The school is holding a marathon. Kanae’s legs are super muscular because she did squats while Marimo’s biceps are super bulging so she can get water from the station. As the race begins, they face all kinds of stupid obstacles like some warped wall, Nasuno getting bored and going home halfway, eating bread, drinking jelly, someone making cones for fun, gorillas throwing red bean paste and when they cross the finish line, turns out it is fake because someone was just making just for fun.

Episode 96
Yuri finds the tennis net broken. She could have used the club funds to buy a new one but the others have used it to by sandbags! Nasuno takes them to work at KFC and introduces them to the boring sounding manager. Nasuno threatens to fire him however he cites his fixed contract and the legal trouble she could get him if she fires him for nothing. Yeah, you can’t use your money power this time. The manager trains them how to use the register and make fried chicken. They fool around but he is not amused. A customer comes in and he is a giant rooster! Manager can understand what he wants?! Then a peahen enters and the manager also knows what he wants! Are you kidding me?!

Tee-hee-hee Cute!
So… Where is my ninth season???!!! Don’t tell me this season is just a naughty teaser to get you addicted and make you pine for more. And then many years later when we are old and grey, they suddenly come back with another season to make us jump with joy and then kill us off with a heart attack. But then we are revived from heaven to come back and at least watch another dozen episodes of absurdity before going back to heaven but got lost on the way and ended up in hell anyway. Oh yeah. That felt like a typical Teekyuu episode.

Basically this season like all the rest have maintained their wacky randomness. The characters and plots make no sense but we are okay with it since we are so familiar with what to expect. It doesn’t break any new ground but since we all love it this way, why fix something that isn’t broken? I mean, they’re not going to play tennis and aim for Wimbledon, right? Yeah, no real tennis played here again. Not even that flashback. Is tennis just a fancy term or excuse for doing weird stuffs? Thus there is nothing more for me to comment because it will be repeating myself. And I’m too lazy to write them again.

This time there are 2 opening themes in the same season. This time giving the animation more focus on either Tomarin or Kondou. Both Gluten Elegy by Kondou and Nihongo Wakarimasen by Tomarin maintain their wacky and bizarre nature like previous Teekyuu’s opening themes. If you’re already going crazy from watching and hearing the opening themes and animation, nothing will prepare you for the episode proper then. Or nothing actually happens because right now I am so immune to it.

Overall, I maintain my stand that Teekyuu should be the short anime version of Gintama and go on forever and forever. Maybe the series’ running time is too short for us to get bored, that is why each season we welcome it with open arms and gleeful smile. We know what we are going to get into. We know what we are going to expect. We know what we want. All hail Teekyuu! Now give us a ninth season already!

Teekyuu S4 – S7

January 27, 2017

Well, what do you know? Some series are so popular that they must be milked again and again they dry up. And then you have to keep on beating the dead horse to cough out more of it until there is nothing left. Not even bones. That is why random antics fast talking Teekyuu got multiple consecutive seasons and ran for a single year. If you’re feeling stressed out from work and need something mindless to laugh at, this series is the perfect tonic to blow your mind away and make you go insane little by little. Week by week. Before you know it, you’ll be hooked and insanely addicted to crazy cute girls doing crazy cute things. Except playing tennis.

Season 4

Episode 37
Marimo freaks out after forgetting her lunch. So she wants to borrow $100,000?! Lucky Tomarin is here to save the day. She tries to introduce herself but nobody else believes her. Then the girls show her around the school but exaggerate the rooms they are in. So this human anatomy model is from a yearly sacrificial student ritual? And the piano is a game of just pressing white keys but avoiding the black ones? Most baffling of all, why does the school have a space command centre?! To protect schools from space monsters, silly! They demonstrate by blowing up a house on the moon. Isn’t that Tomarin’s home?! Don’t worry, a telegram says everyone is safe. Marimo wants Tomarin to transform and scare everyone before she leaves. She turns into a hideous monster but everyone else got distracted by the cool appearance of Predator!!!

Episode 38
The girls got tickets to the aquarium and they deliberate on who and how to get there. On an elephant? With strangers? With clones? There, Kanae looks into the jellyfish compartment but finds an old man cleaning the windows from the inside. Then at the tuna corner… Tuna food? Sashimi? At the feeding corner when they feed a fish, a bigger fish eats the little one. And then Marimo gets eaten… Strong eats the weak? They go watch the dolphin show but it turns out to be a stand-up comedy. With dolphins! Next to the aquarium is a devilquarium. Don’t ask… Inside this ‘zoo’ we have a polar bear and mean looking red dragon. Hey, they can feed it. With Casear salad? This time Marimo didn’t get eaten but gets blown away by its fire breath.

Episode 39
Kondou bugs Yuri that she found a love letter in her shoe locker. But inside is a stock certificate! Based on their school legend, if someone confesses under the sakura tree, they’ll find true love. No! They’ll be buried under it! They are there at the tree so Kondou confesses to her. She tells Yuri not to die or else she’ll become part of the legend. But that night, look who is here to come kill her? Kondou?! Nah, she is just on her way to the market to cut up some squid. Then they go check out the sakura tree. Kondou unearths the soil to find a giant squid buried. And then the squid grabs them for some tentacle fanservice! Yuri is being tickled to death while Kondou just snaps her photos. Then she uses the excavator to destroy it. Next morning, Yuri thought she slept well but she just woke up half buried underneath the sakura tree! Did she become the legend?

Episode 40
There will be a meteor shower tonight. Nasuno suggests they can watch it using her space rocket. Can they see it if they are in space? Gathering at the rooftop that night, using the telescope, they see various constellations. Yeah, I didn’t know there was a prawn constellation or a fried shrimp constellation. Yummy. Nasuno might have a time machine in her compound but not a toilet? Yeah, the nearest toilet is at the park. Then the stars start falling. Biscuits? Just when they think the meteor shower isn’t happening, the sky is suddenly filled with colourful falling stars. So many stars, can they make 5,000 wishes? With everyone making silly wishes, Yuri wishes that they can keep having fun together. But that won’t come true because a giant star slams into the town and destroys everything.

Episode 41
Beach episode. Kanae instead of bringing swimsuit, brought along diapers. Too absorbent to swim? Kanae seems to be drowning at the deep part of the ocean but could it be she is just too short? Marimo tries to fondle Yuri’s boobs but she got the wrong person. Who the f*ck is this foreigner stranger?! Yuri suggests a breath holding contest. Apparently the rest didn’t participate as they were talking about tropical cyclones. They can’t play split the watermelon since all they have is a cabbage. Then when they try to play beach tennis, it doesn’t work because the ball doesn’t bounce on the sand. As they relax on their floatables, they realize they have drifted far away from the shore. Then the squid tentacles attack…

Episode 42
Continuing from last episode, the girls are lost at sea but there is a floating convenience store?! But it is smaller than your ATM card… Get this. A bathtub and toilet bowl in the middle of the ocean too? Nasuno’s cheap watch has GPS tracking so she believes her father is tracking her down now. Here comes the boat. A toy boat… Now a pirate ship! Jack Sparrow?! Attacking them?! They finally reach land and thrive on vending machine drinks? Marimo almost gets kidnapped by natives so they run away into a… Convenience store? Sorry, they don’t sell wet wipes.

Episode 43
Kondou shows Yuri a paranormal photo. The ghost is Nakamura? Who the f*ck is that?! Kondou has a gyaru sister, Annekov. Russian name? The trio head to the graveyard to exorcise the ghost but Annekov wants to just go there and laugh their asses off. Kondou tries to take a sexy pose picture of Yuri. She is disappointed Yuri doesn’t have the talent. But there is a ghost in the photo! Yuri panics and thinks she is possessed. Calm down. It’s just Nakamura. Who the f*ck again? Then they clean the Jizou statue but Annekov puts makeup on it complete with a wig. Yuri thought her photo is possessed by the Jizou statue but it was just a prank by the sisters.

Episode 44
Kanae goes visit her grandma living in… Africa?! She’s not lonely because she has a cat. Kanae notices a giant spider and wants to squash it but grandma says it is useful to kill cockroaches. But when the spider seemingly kills the cat, grandma kills the spider! They go visit grandpa buried in a pyramid! A mummy scares them but apparently grandma says it is her neighbour who goes shopping with her occasionally. A couple of treasure hunters try to usurp them but they fell into a trap that Kanae unwittingly triggered.

Episode 45
Nasuno helps Youta practice football but with disastrous and hilarious results. Then she decides to go watch him play a practice match with Usakame Junior High School. Win and she’ll buy him dorayaki or else she’ll make sure he’ll never play football again! But Usakame’s team has a zebra?! His own team are a bunch of losers with not teamwork spirit. Uh huh. Youta is on the reserves. You can tell their team is going to lose when the referee is a baseball umpire and everyone gets owned by the zebra. The zebra even beats everyone up. It is up to Youta to save the day. He gets beaten up too and just when it seems he is going to strike back by remembering Nasuno’s training, he gets further owned. He won’t be playing football for a while…

Episode 46
Marimo and Tomarin visit an electronics store. Of course Marimo messes with Tomarin’s mind by falsely introducing the electronics like the massage chair is an electric chair and the fridge as a cryogenic chamber. Marimo seeks the salesperson to buy a laptop as she simplifies the technical explanation with her layman understanding. Eventually she decides to get a calculator. No, an abacus! I think Tomarin got hypnotized by the alien on TV so she acts like a menacing one so the salesperson use the heaviest person to knock her out! Marimo ties her up on the ‘electric hair’ to ‘torture’ her.

Episode 47
It is summer and the girls figure out what to do other than lying in their air-conditioned room all they long. Catch bugs? But why the need to buy a mountain first? And don’t you know there are no bugs at the top of Everest? The girls are set to catch bugs but Nasuno wearing beekeeping protective clothing? They find lots of other things other than bugs. Yeah, human trash. If they’re not catching bugs, wild animals caught them! When they catch beetles and make them fight, it turns into a battle anime! Super power special effects! Fight to the death!

Episode 48
Nasuno is telling Marimo how a person helped return her wallet one day and she rewarded her by giving her a hill! The duo try a part time job. Nobody is taking their tissue samples despite cloning arms or themselves. So they become poster girls. Nasuno dresses as normal but Marimo a seaweed alien? Then there are a bunch of seaweed nerds-cum-fans. They know everything about seaweed… Not that I care. Finally they do hard labour by pushing blocks to build a pyramid. Marimo doesn’t mind getting whipped as she is a masochist. But what about Nasuno? She becomes the queen and whips everyone to work harder! Now she is the ruler of this place!

Our girls are turned into young kids as they play in the playground. Expect kiddie mayhem as they toy around with the chin-ups (Kanae getting stuck and have to live like this forever), jungle gym (it turns into some spaceship with a secret toilet), swings (a competition to kick off shoes and panties?) and slides (sliding up?). They then bury a time capsule to dig up when they are older. Too bad they return when they are grannies and the playground turned into a park. So old that Marimo changed gender?! When dig up, there is a subway line beneath it.

The girls head down to the riverbed. They bring their BBQ stuffs and Marimo brought her ice. Kanae built stones but each time she finishes, Nasuno kicks them down. Marimo uses rocks as her breasts and Nasuno is a pro in skipping stones. Then they see a peach floating down the river but it turns out to be somebody’s butt. Actually it is just a mannequin. Then they have a real BBQ at a real restaurant.

Season 5

Episode 49
After Kanae wins a raffle, the girls are going to Cambodia. But they’re going to need passports. So we got an eventful time as the girls get their passports like Marimo making an idiot’s resume and then getting arrested. As they depart at the airport, Marimo’s luggage is heavy as she brings all her dumbbells for work out. Their flight is 8 hours and they got stuck at the terminal for 8 hours. They can’t believe that Cambodia has McDonalds and their tour guide and translator are those annoying unrelated characters randomly popping up at the start of this episode. So they are going to sleep at McDonalds?

Episode 50
The Cambodian trip continues with the tour guide letting them tour the temple ruins. He takes his own selfie and then charges a high price for them to buy! They take an elephant ride and visit Angkor Wat. When they head to town, all the buildings look like they are from Japan! So local, so foreign? When they return and arrive safely back in Japan, they might be lost because it is a jungle out there! Are they sure they are back in Japan?

Episode 51
Yuri and Kondou walk around their school festival. Marimo is dressed as a funny monster as she ushers them into her haunted house. An irony is a ghost is scared by their entrance. Tomarin is also playing a ghost but they are not scared of her and ignore her. They go to Nasuno’s maid café and she is not happy that she has to serve them. Especially with Kondou teasing her and tricks her to put up a standard maid greeting. Finally there is Kanae’s massage activity in which her Thai massage might be breaking a few bones…

Episode 52
The girls are picking up trash. Nasuno picks up a stack of money but since it has no purpose, she calls it trash! Damn rich people… Marimo hopes to find adult magazines but finds a gorilla magazine. They see a cat stuck up a tree so Yuri goes to get it down but Marimo relishes looking at her panties. She calms herself down by reading the gorilla magazine. The cat returns to repay Yuri but in the form of a fat old man?! Yeah, he is making himself at home in her house. So the only thing good he can do is kill the cockroaches.

Episode 53
The girls gather to make takoyaki. But it seems they are missing all the ingredients to make them. We see their usual antics like using hairpins as tools to flip it over, Marimo can’t stop drooling till she floods the room, Kanae wants to add takoyaki to takoyaki and Nasuno adding something dangerous that can’t be shown on TV! After they have eaten their delicious takoyaki clean, a yakuza guy comes knocking on the door claiming he left his finger in the takoyaki! Oh sh*t!

Episode 54
Kondou wants to interview Tomarin. The latter thinks she can call the shots but gets threatened. We see Kondou ‘bully’ Tomarin like experimenting with her antennas and bulldozing her to see if she can be killed. When they are abducted by real aliens, Kondou tries to fake a human accent but the aliens speak perfect Japanese! They want to dress them in sesame miso. Tomarin’s antennas come in useful for once as it hits their crotch. Oh, Kondou’s bulldozer defeats them too. The spaceship crash lands but Kondou chose not to publish this extraordinary story but instead one whereby Marimo gets arrested for stealing and eating lingerie.

Episode 55
Kanae crashes her bicycle into a pole. Marimo screams revenge although Kanae is injured because she ate too much. The pole is too hard for Marimo’s hand. Kanae avenges her with a head butt. You know how this will turn out, right? Because Yuri is just staring at their stupidity, they claim she is a cold insensitive friend. She is forced to avenge for them but she looks like an idiot in the eyes of the public trying to hit a pole. To add insult, the duo lost interest in the revenge and even tease Yuri for looking stupid doing that! Yeah, the pole is the one consoling Yuri. When Kanae prepares to leave, she crashes into the rail guard. Time for another revenge? Or she can just stop riding her bike.

Episode 56
Kanae suggests scouting an enemy tennis club despite never having real matches just to keep up with their appearance. So they are here at Usakame as they are dressed as spy or robber but eventually decide to go for that generic background character blend. So it seems these Usakame girls might not be any different. They slack around and chat. But when they start practice, they play badminton and kite flying?! I don’t know how but it worked out their cores. When the girls are spotted, they run away by blending into the crowd. Now they’re stuck in this shape forever.

Episode 57
The girls want to make baked potato. Shaking a tree for potatoes? Now to start a fire. Does Marimo have magic?! But rubbing Yuri won’t start a fire either! If they can’t bake this now then Kanae suggests going home and try another day. Next day Kanae brings a lighter. No fire. Postpone again? Yuri quickly buys one from the shop. But they have no potatoes… No, French fries don’t count! Postponed again… Next day Yuri comes prepared with a lighter and potatoes. She even has thought out other inconveniences and have prepared for them. Nothing is going to stop her today from baking potatoes. Or can it? Because it starts raining! Don’t worry, Nasuno calls her baked potato truck.

Episode 58
Kanae is definitely sick but she doesn’t want to admit it because she is saying she is emitting heat! Yeah, Nasuno wants to cook food on her. That mask? Fashion! Marimo feels cold and thinks of doing lots of silly things in order to keep herself warm. Not working. Nasuno? She wears 2 bras! After Kanae eats a warm meal, she is now fired up! Literally on fire! Nasuno cooks more on her… They thought of practising tennis but the court has turned into ice. Yeah, practising making snow objects. Before you know it, Kanae’s mask becomes a leading fashion style and trend.

Episode 59
Tomarin asks Marimo how to celebrate New Year’s Day. Sit around and watch TV all day. Isn’t that what they day every day? First they try calligraphy but the ink doesn’t come off. Tomarin settles by using a marker pen. Then they play Japanese badminton using chopping boards as racquet but crash into the furniture since the house is small. I know they suck at the game since well, they play tennis, right?! As they pound mochi, Marimo’s mom uses her fists to pound them! And the mallet moves by itself. They made so many mochi that they could open a shop, branches and so big that they got listed on the stock market!

Episode 60
Yuri follows Kanae to visit her grandma in hospital who will be undergoing some surgery. The way she paints her grandma makes her sound like a baseball player-cum-rapper. She is! I don’t know if grandma has got a problem since she could crush a whole apple and turn them into rabbit shaped apples. She also introduces her hospital friend, a fellow grandpa rapper (Master Roshi?) and the doctor who is a frail old man. And the doctor kicked the bucket… Kanae thought her grandma is dying but she came up with some cool lyrics. Then she sprouts angel wings! Her surgery is a success and now she can rap and play baseball way better than before.

Season 6

Episode 61
Kanae, Marimo and Nasuno are outside the school field and it is very cold. They think the sun is dead. Nasuno shows her fur underneath her jersey and they think she is a snow woman. They try to emulate her by putting on mops. They do some warm ups and Kanae is twisting her body too much. Or her neck. They are supposed to do high jumps. Marimo could clear a 90cm height and she thinks it is a freak. Nasuno jumps over a normal one but the bar is thick and expensive. Kanae? She jumps underneath. They try to wave to Yuri in class and annoy her. Suddenly her class is on fire. Kanae wants to save her by jumping into her class but remember her low jump as she crashes into the wall.

Episode 62
Kanae is thinking of getting a new handphone because it is freaking heavy, eats up battery power and has only 1 button and it doesn’t work. So they see some shady underground witch who offers her dumbbells or tissues for the weight issue. What’s the knife for? Because the dam is for power. Hydroelectric power for your phone! The witch gets mad when Kanae was just browsing after all. A few days later Kanae got her new handphone but she also bought the dam courtesy of Nasuno.

Episode 63
Valentine’s Day is coming up. Yuri plans to give one to her senior but Kondou gives her a curry chocolate and asks if she is going to give her money in return. Kondou goes to Yuri’s house to make Valentine chocolates since she really has an old stove that uses hearth. But she makes curry with all the ingredients. And when she starts making chocolate, it comes out as a real katana.

Episode 64
The girls plan to go flower viewing but of course the punch line is that they are going to watch it at a flower shop. So when they arrive at the real park, for some reason they brought in a few unrelated parties to watch with them like a blossoming old man (he wants to scatter ash?) and a lump man (lump on his face?). Who the f*ck is Gomez? They start playing badminton. Remember they’re a tennis club… They even use chicken wings as shuttlecock. They end their trip with puns relating to those unrelated people. Who the f*ck is Gomez again?

Episode 65
Marimo patrons a snack shop but gets stuck in the door. She thinks she has met the storekeeper before. In some exaggerated fantasy RPG? Didn’t think so. Apparently she is Kinako Tanaka of Usakame and first met Marimo at the first round tournament. Was there? Couldn’t remember. Since they’re in the same grade, Kinako suggests trading hearts. She tries to sell certain stuffs but almost everything contains slime. Even the extremely cheap raffles that she is pushing to sell have slime. The Chinese cabbage too! But it feels raw since she cooked an alien! Marimo has had enough of this and leaves but gets stuck in the door.

Episode 66
Kondou alerts Kanae and Yuri that her grandpa can no longer make udon because he injured his hand while bowling. But he can still make sushi. Or did he order them? But Kondou’s sister, Annekov returns to help make udon. While she and Kanae do nonsensical stuff and ‘abuse’ the dough, Yuri is reduced to retorting their silliness as usual. After all that kneading and stomping, it turns out to be a mochi soup. And grandpa ordered pizza this time. Once his hand is healed, he starts bowling again…

Episode 67
The producer pleads to our girls to put up a hero show for the kids because their usually heroine is injured. So we have the producer acting as the bad guy. Kanae is dressed up in an all white tight suit as the heroine. I don’t think it is special effects that she can zap lightning out of her hand! Producer uses a machine gun! Marimo comes in next but she is a pervert wearing panties on her head. The police take her away. Next is Nasuno as the evil queen who will rule the world with money! I thought she was supposed to be the hero? At this point the kids must be bored and don’t care. Time for Yuri to make her appearance but here comes the original heroine. Too bad she injured herself and justice is not served…

Episode 68
Get ready for a twisted version of Cinderella. Sorry, nonsensical version. Yuri is the titular character and Nasuno is the evil stepsister. She has 244 other evil sisters too! Despite getting bullied, Nasuno gave her money to blow on pachinko in which she traded the prize for some weird creature. So the evil step sisters organize a family party and Yuri being restrained and do all the house chores. Till she spilled her drink on the keyboard in which Kanae the witch grants her 3 wishes. A new keyboard, how to work the washing machine and wishing for everyone’s happiness. So touched that Kanae treated her to a good meal and a dress in which she then headed to the party. She danced with Marimo the prince but has to run home seeing the spell last until midnight. She missed the train and slept at an internet café. Marimo wants to find the owner of the glass slippers to marry that person. A long queue of people wait in line to try to slipper but Yuri and Kanae are playing Othello. And one of the evil stepsisters wins a body building contest. See, did I tell you how crazy this is?!

Episode 69
Despite being in the tennis club, the girls want to form a music band. Yeah, what can they play? Conch shells? So they’re already discussing about royalty rates and record labels? With Yuri reminding them to be more realistic first like naming their band, it seems everyone wants it to be Rice Spoons because everything they describe look like rice spoons. Whose underwear too? They leave it to Yuri to pick a name. Let’s see… The Tennis Club? Rejected! Eventually they go with Rice Spoons. Why do application forms need a stamp or thumbprint? What’s the next agenda? No, not what’s for dinner but who plays what. Yuri on vocals, Marimo on organ, Nasuno on conch shell and Kanae on shamisen using rice spoon. Wow, they really look the part. Thinking of going indie next, eh?

Episode 70
Kanae is super hyped for their tennis practice but since she lost her contacts, everyone is super hyped to go look for it instead. Then they go clean the court and tan themselves before doing some real warm up exercise. Then they start practice for real but Kanae brings in a katana. Marimo moves like the wind. Is she going turning into a pro? Well, she hasn’t return a single ball. With so many balls around, picking is such a hassle. Don’t worry, Yuri clones will do the job. Kanae comes up with some super technique that will make her win Wimbledon. She practises hard on it and when that day arrives, she’s just a spectator. Well, at least she made it to Wimbledon technically.

Episode 71
Kondou takes Marimo to look for an unidentified object that fell nearby a park that her radar (handphone actually) picked up. If Tomarin isn’t it, could it be this suspicious blob object? But popping out from it is Kinako. She points out a crashed UFO nearby. They go inside and investigate but since Kinako is pushing random buttons, the UFO then takes off into space and lands them in another planet. They can’t go back as the engine is dead. Made out of rubber bands? So they can’t use hair bands because of different compatibility? Then they have to play mahjongs and win sets just to continue looking for rubber bands. Although Marimo wins, the rest are more interested in continue playing.

Episode 72
While looking for a rubber band, they stumbled into an alien using the toilet! Instead of being mad, he invites them to dinner. This wood board is their meal? Though he has no rubber bands, he brings them to his friend who has one. Yeah, she framed it on her wall. They can have it if they beat her in a game. Mahjong again? Marimo wins by a mile. Alien friend really can’t part with her rubber band so she’ll exchange it with Kondou’s hair bands. Kondou won’t allow it since there is no telling what will happen to her. Oh, she turned into an Argentinian football player. Seriously… With the rubber band, they are able to go home. No, wait. They’ve landed on another planet! And they’re still playing mahjong.

Season 7

Episode 73
Yuri finds Kanae digging a hole. So she quit the tennis club and is now part of the well digging club? Aiming for the nationals? And since when did she make Yuri the president? As Yuri climbs down, Kanae explains Marimo was digging with her but she pushed her away when a boulder fell on her. So why didn’t they go save her? Marimo is comfortable stuck between the rocks. Kanae lets Yuri try digging. She instantly gets addicted and cannot stop digging! Aim for the nationals! Don’t stop! You bored now, Kanae? When it’s time to go home, their rope out is missing. Will they be trapped here forever? Nasuno calls to them and they tell her to join them. She tries digging and also finds it addicting! She can’t stop! Only 80 days left until the nationals.

Episode 74
Kanae picks up Yuri so they could go pick up fruits at her grandma’s orchard. Apparently grandma just came back from Egypt and she allows Yuri to pick anything she wants. She doesn’t even know they have fruits. So they go to pick durians. How to get those spiky fruits off their tree branch? Use a sword? But now how to break it open? Grandma uses her karate chop. Don’t worry, she is wearing her diamond ring. Kanae eats the stinky fruit but her cheeks start drooping. Then they go to pick butt-like peaches. No, they are actual butts?! Yeah… They taste like butts! WTF?! This time Kanae’s tongue melts. Butts melt your tongue? A warning not to try out this kinky sex, just saying… At the end of the day, grandma lets Yuri keep the sword. Not a fruit? And she doesn’t want butts either.

Episode 75
Yuri follows Kanae to hike up the mountains. After taking the cable car up, Kanae has this thought of committing suicide if they ever get lost. With a butter knife? Otherwise cover her with butter and let the eagles peck her to death for a sky burial! When they reach a certain altitude, the station number is in the form of algebra equation! Solve it! They take a break as Kanae serves tea fresh from the swamp. They try echoing but it echoes back in English and some other foreign language. They finally reach the summit and a tatami mat is waiting for them. Kanae serves her toxic onigiri made out of seaweeds. Or would you prefer some swamp food?

Episode 76
Yuri is about to weigh herself after bathing but Kanae and Marimo breaks in to do the same. Marimo is heavily weighed at 77kg but she needs 700kg more to get 777 like the slot machines! Since Kanae also gained weight, it is decided they go dieting tomorrow. Marimo is starving already since she hasn’t had anything to eat since last night. She drank vegetable oil, what do you expect? When Marimo asks Nasuno about dieting, she takes this as an insult and blames the world for making it so tasty so she overate. Kanae will guide them on how to diet via her guesses. Among the silly techniques involve eating steak and even praying to God. At the end, they all gained weight and become fatter. Marimo is so heavy she now weighs 777kg and coins flood out from her mouth! Jackpot? Is this what you call a successful failure?

Episode 77
Winter is here as Kanae and Marimo think of hibernating. But appearing before them is a bear! A friendly talking smoking bear. They piss him off asking if he is going to hibernate. He explains he needs to fill his stomach before hibernating. So they eat salmon by cooking it and drinking it with wine like humans? How about honey? This makes him remember and hate a certain yellow bear but he is actually scared of him and stops talking about him. What about humans? What?! Bears don’t eat humans! They taste horrible! He adds how scary humans are because they won’t hesitate to shoot you like how his uncle was shot. Since he didn’t like him much so it’s okay. Feeling sleepy, the bear wants to cork his ass so that sh*t won’t flow out while he is sleeping. WTF. He falls asleep but the cigarette ash burns his fur.

Episode 78
Kondou speaks to Yuri via telepathy but it only pisses her off. She invites all her friends to go bowling. Well, looks like her udon family refurbished it to a bowling centre. First they choose a variety of weird shoes from clogs to glass slippers. What about bowling balls? From a lettuce to a watermelon, they’ve got it all. Marimo bowls first but breaks every bone and tendon just by picking the ball up. Kanae needs to throw hers quickly because it’s a bomb! Nasuno uses a world globe to curl. Kondou throws it like baseball! Finally it is Yuri’s turn and everybody uses telepathy to cheer her. Who’s that unknown voice? So her bowling ball is an old man?! When they’re hungry, they have udon. Ah well, the shop is still an udon shop after all.

Episode 79
Kanae complains about the cafeteria food so the lunch lady tells her off not to eat then. But when she tries it herself she finds it disgusting! Even more insulting, Kanae says she can make better for the same price. She challenges Kanae to a cooking duel. However Kanae and Yuri end up being commentators so the lunch lady will be facing off with the bakery manager. So the first match is cooking friend rice. Bakery manager does the usual cooking but the lunch lady just heats it over the microwave oven. And she wins! The next matches include chess, dominoes, foot pressure points, collecting red leaves, etc. Nothing to do with cooking. But whatever. In the end the bakery manager wins. The lunch lady is so impressed that she wants to learn under him to make better lunches. However what she learnt was making easy money and her food still sucks. So who replaced the lunch lady at the cafeteria? The bakery manager of course.

Episode 80
Yuri is sick so you bet her friends are going to visit her. They troll her by looking even sicklier than her. They bought gifts like coloured traffic cones and a car jack (so they can jack up her bed). I’m sure Yuri wants to retort their stupidity but don’t worry, Kanae will do it for you! Lame! Then they want to measure her temperature but isn’t that a protractor? How do you measure an angle with a thermometer? That’s a protractor lah! Yeah, lame retort. Yuri is sweating so Marimo offers to wipe her body. Since she refuses, Nasuno thinks she prefers doing it with her brother! Incest! So as not to bother, they make themselves at home by playing her video games. Once Yuri is well and returns to school, here comes Kanae’s late retort about playing video games at people’s home. Give it up already.

Episode 81
Annekov is on her way to a mixer and since she has got not enough people, she drags Yuri along. Seems the guys are all monks! WTF?! Except one of them who is just a freelancer. Though the girls are still missing a person, Annekov starts the party by drinking. Monks drinking and singing?! I’m sure Yuri can’t stand this nonsense and excuses herself to the toilet. As she contemplates leaving, the ghost of Hanako haunts her! Yeah, she died in despair from no toilet paper! Luckily Annekov and the monks exorcise her. After they leave, Annekov’s friend just arrived. She looks like a giant Great Buddha from Nara!

Episode 82
Yuri is crying tears of joy thinking her pals still have the tennis passion and sense to arrange a practice match with their Usakame counterparts. Of course both sides start off with silly antics like Kurumi and her banjo playing, Nasuno hinting she has lots of money, Marimo asking questions with answers she doesn’t even know, Nishi doing an arm lock on Yuri just to fix her messy bangs and Ayako happy for Yuri being around because retorting is easier with her around. When the real practice starts, we see them throw great fireballs, ice shields and banjo beams. Wow. Is this tennis? On the day of the tournament, both lost at the first round. Yeah, what to do but to hang out eating burgers together. Except for Kurumi who went on to play the banjo and Nishi counting all the stars in the sky. Don’t ask…

Episode 83
Let’s go camping! Nasuno bought an RV fitted with gold furniture. Too bad nobody knows how to drive. So we see them pitching a tent but instead made a kite, trying to make Indian curry but Kanae ended up baking naan, if they have no electricity to work the appliances then they use charcoal fire to power up the appliances, curry becomes ramen, Marimo fishes for tuna but fishes out panties while Kanae gets stabbed by a tuna, more ramen, croaking like a frog around the bonfire, trying to test their courage by eating blowfish liver and live. Ah, with them refreshed, they can go on to win the baseball championships after this training camp. They play baseball? This was a training camp?

Episode 84
Finally practising tennis for real? Not without the usual antics. Yeah, they’ve got a robot to help them practice but he punches masochistic Marimo as part of the training. Marimo then gives Nasuno an aroma oil message to turn her into gold. Kanae knits panties and Marimo wants to force it up Yuri. She thought she could start practice for real by using marker cones (not bra pads!). Kanae can even miss while trying to hit at point blank. Nasuno turns it into a quiz show and the winner will win an apartment. The robot wins. Then they practice with the robot and improved a lot till they made it into the Nationals and win. Well, at least it is the robot who won. Another tower as his prize?

Teekyuu Take You On A Wild Ride
Well, what do you know? It seems Teekyuu has come back again with another season after taking half a year’s break! OMG! OMFG!!! Can we ever not get enough of Teekyuu?! Apparently not. Yeah, it is like this series is the shorts version of Gintama. Anything goes. We can’t get enough of them. Though, I have a theory why Teekyuu got renewed for its eighth season. Remember how bad Usakame was? Yeah… It trolled us by thinking it would be another great Teekyuu spin-off but it was just awfully bad. Therefore to forever hide this unpleasant and poor series and forever blast it into oblivion from our minds, we should have another season of Teekyuu to override all that. I mean, if you think what the last series of Teekyuu was, Usakame comes to mind. Technically it isn’t Teekyuu but since it is riding on Teekyuu’s popularity and fame, you can’t help think about it. At least for me. So to bury that dreadful crap, here, have another Teekyuu to invigorate your insanity. Thank you. You’re welcome. Please come again.

Basically, what I want to say for the entire series echoes the same and similar sentiments that I wrote in my previous blogs. Therefore it would look like cut and paste if I were to say it all over here again. I won’t. Because mainly I am lazy too ;p. Because everything goes on perfectly well as they stick to the same formula without changing anything. That is why Teekyuu works so well. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. The random acts of silliness at lightning pace will throw you off into a frenzy because everything happens so fast that your mind will be trying to understand what is happening and your stomach hurting from laughing too much, before you can recover from all that, the scene quickly changes to the next. It is chaotic trying to adjust to this series’ pace. Thank goodness it only lasts 3 minutes. I wonder if our bodies will break down if they last the usual 24 minutes length. Yup, better not risk it. Don’t want to have cases of otakus found dead at their TV screens after watching this series. That will be just bad. Because no more Teekyuu ever :’(.

So it is generally the same characters, the same quartet that we find so insanely lovable. From the down-to-earth and retort specialist Yuri to the idiotic Kanae to her partner-in-crime Marimo (also a masochistic pervert at times) and Nasuno’s rich and money-solves-everything thinking. Other characters aren’t too bad too like Kondou who has abnormal priorities in life, Tomarin the alien and wouldn’t you be surprised that Annekov is actually an exorcist instead of some tanned bimbo. Usakame do make their cameo appearances here and although they are funny, they still can’t beat the Teekyuu quartet. It gets even depressing to think how bad their own series were although it is hard not to try and compare. Because at this point you can only think that their appearance might seem to help with their series’ image but sadly it doesn’t.

The only different thing I can note about for these seasons are the opening themes. They are as wacky and crazy as ever. If you can get past the bizarre opening credits animation filled with nonsense, you know you’ll be okay for the rest of the series. Some themes are catchy enough like the fourth season’s Fatto Shite Tougenkyou by Suzuko Mimori sounds like an Egyptian song (Mayday! Mayday!~) while the fifth season’s Qunka by Kana Hanazawa feels like a dramatic Arabian piece. Earth Star Dream sings Tottemi Safari for the sixth season and it sounds like a generic idol song, not really to my liking. The main Teekyuu quartet sings Tsuppari-kun vs Sekitori-man for the seventh season and it gives an impression it is a song for a stage show or Broadway.

Overall, this series is a great stress reliever despite making you go WTF many times. Because no matter how sh*t things get in life, it can’t get sh*ttier than this. Can it?! Unless you’re one of those abnormal people who get mad seeing this kind of nonsense… But for an average Joe like yours truly, such short silliness is very much welcomed and although they are short in duration, they produce enough in the long run to get you unconsciously hooked on it. Yes, I did say this series is like visual drugs and it still is. So many disappointing animes and a handful of new ones and old ones get to do the trick of satisfying us. As long as they don’t play real and serious tennis, we’ll follow you girls to the ends of the earth and still be fine.


October 14, 2016

Wow. I guess Teekyuu has been so crazy and successful that not only spawning so many seasons that ran for a year and even a spinoff of one of their characters weren’t enough that they had to do another spinoff of their rival school tennis club, Usakame. I suppose this is a chance to see their equally crazy counterparts and what goes on over their side of the story. Oh heck. There isn’t really going to be some sort of crazy plot to follow, right? Just mindless fun within 3 minutes that we can all laugh for today before the disappointments of tomorrow come, right?

Episode 1
Kinako Tanaka is waiting for the train. In order not to fall asleep she slaps her own cheeks. But they become swollen after slapping too hard. On the train is also her friend, Ayako Suzuki. When the train brakes, Kinako’s face falls onto Ayako’s boobs like a cushion. When they enter class, Kurumi Satou pops out from the cleaning cabinet to introduce herself. She didn’t even know how she ended up there. The girls go practice tennis. Kurumi wants to learn a technique that will kill her opponents so Kinako suggests taking away all the racquet strings and strangling someone using the racquet. Noticing Kurumi’s extreme motivation today, she explains that she and Ayako are retiring after the next tournament. That’s why she wants to enter the next doubles tournament with her. Kinako is so touched that they hug each other and ignore Ayako cleaning the tennis court alone.

Episode 2
Nishi Nishiaraidaishi arrives at school via scooter. When Ayako mentions her intention to ride one, Nishi becomes a human scooter for her to ride. For some stupid unknown reason, Kinako slides down the stairs railing and this scares Nishi. Then they do something random in which Nishi won. The quartet eat lunch together and Kinako seems to be trying to promote her gourd. It tastes horrible. Kurumi wants to trade boiled beans for omelette but Ayako gets embarrassed as she didn’t think she meant feeding each other. But Nishi has no qualms being fed.

Episode 3
Ayako tries to touch a cat but it bites her. Kurumi and Kinako laugh at this blooper. Ayako gets jealous since they can touch it with ease. The quartet walk home together and stop by a temple. Kinako and Kurumi wrongfully name the temple parts as some sort of foreign landmark. After they make their prayers, they noticed a beckoning cat shrine nearby. The cats are staring at them and they think it isn’t polite. On the way home, Kinako treats everyone with hot potato. Nishi shows her gratitude by giving her a rock. They stumble into that cat again. Once more, everyone can touch it except Ayako. They teach her to let the cat know she is her friend. Time for the acid test. It still bites her.

Episode 4
Sora Shibakusa, the advisor for the tennis club is already having a hard time with her hangover. Now she has to put up with the girls making a human pyramid for who knows God what reason. I don’t know how she ended up joining their human chain. Then she goes to watch the girls practice tennis but falls into their pit trap they dug. The school didn’t pay her enough to put up with this sh*t. Shibakusa then pairs up Ayako with Nishi, dashing Kurumi’s dream. She pleads to work hard to be partnered with Ayako but Nishi insists she too wants Ayako as her partner. So what about Kinako? Nobody cares about her. As she has them practice, they practise doing a human pyramid.

Episode 5
The girls play Old Maid but Ayako always keeps losing. Shibakusa then has them in a practice match with their counterparts from Teekyuu. They spend more time trying to decide who plays who than actual practising. Hoheto Irohani then enters the scene. She is Shibakusa’s ex-student and the girls’ senior. She tries to give all the girls a hug but Nishi beats her down. The practice begins with all the weird moves you’ll never see in tennis. We won’t know who win. Does it matter? It gives Usakame girls motivation to head for the Nationals. Setting their sights too high?

Episode 6
After another of practice, everyone argues for Ayako to carry them. Kurumi invites everyone to her house which is in the middle of the shopping district so it is no surprise everyone is friendly with her. Kurumi’s dad is weird because he’s complaining about a peanut stuck in his ear and thinks Ayako is a robot. Kurumi serves her friends zunda (some sort of beans) instead of coffee as she explains who she met Ayako and joined the tennis club together. But Ayako doesn’t remember all those good memories together… Kurumi has everyone join her dinner. What’s on the menu? More zunda…

Episode 7
Nishi is not motivated for PE but when she thought Ayako was looking at her from the classroom, suddenly she is able to do her best. Maybe Ayako wasn’t looking… Kurumi passes funny notes to Ayako during class. The teacher catches her but she is able to answer his question correctly. Kinako thought all that was just a dream so she pinches the cheek of her friend, Miyako Baba and gets slapped. Together with Tasuku Kodaira, the trio do a weird greeting together. Kinako then introduces them to Ayako and Kurumi but takes the liberty to shorten their names. Later Kinako wakes up and again thinks everything is a dream. Then she could feel it… The sleepiness, that is. Then she does a weird greeting with Tasuku that turns out to be just goodbye.

Episode 8
The girls go shopping for new swimsuits. But because this season isn’t the right one to go out to the beach and thus they cannot show off their swimsuits, they head to the indoor pool instead. Don’t have to worry about freezing inside here. So we see them having lots of fun like hugging Ayako like a lifesaver. At the end, they reflect how this is their last year they can play in the tournament together. But Kinako cuts the sad talk because it’s not like they are going to stop being together. Even after Kinako and Kurumi graduates, they can still play tennis and hang out together. Then she reminds them how they are doing with their entrance exam studies. Looks like Kurumi isn’t so fond to hear that…

Episode 9
Ayako and Kurumi patron Kinako’s store. Kinako is trying to sell them stuffs she doesn’t want to them. They don’t need it either. Marimo then visits and brought along Nasuno. To show how rich she is, she buys the entire shelf. However Marimo warns her about getting diabetes so she drops it. After Kinako throws a mini prank bomb at Marimo, Nasuno also wants to try. She’s doing the exact same thing like throwing it at her and wiping off Marimo’s arms. When Nishi enters the store, Kinako offers her to play the lottery in which a video game console is the first prize. She wins but Nishi doesn’t want it and trades it for ice cream instead.

Episode 10
This episode focuses more of the relationship between Kurumi and Nishi. In the clubroom, they compare their lunches and Kurumi feeds her at lightning speed. Ayako has a committee meeting so she can’t come for practice. Kinako? World meeting. WTF. So Kurumi and Nishi practice together. Then it starts to rain. Nishi has no umbrella and intends to dodge all the raindrops. Well, we won’t get to see her do that as Kurumi shares her umbrella. Kurumi asks her why she likes Ayako. She replies she saw Ayako playing tennis before and the reason she joined the club. Even more so when Nishi came from a distinguished school just to come to a normal school to play with her. Thus this is her first and only chance to play doubles with Ayako. Since this is also Kurumi’s last chance, she isn’t giving up too. Then she asks if Nishi likes her. More or less. Okay, acceptable.

Episode 11
Shibakusa is bored so Kinako is here to eat her snack. She then thinks about the singles and doubles team she needs to put. She thought of putting Kinako as the captain but her delusions has her thinking about some corporate-like stuffs. She warns the tennis club will have to shut down if they don’t find any more new members. So Kinako brings back an old man and a cat. Not going to cut it! Shibakusa then has the girls practice as pairs to prepare for the tournament. They will play for the right to pair with Ayako. Nishi and Kurumi face off with each other with Ayako as the referee. Shibakusa and Ayako have genuine comments on their play but Kinako’s comments are about turtle soup… In the end, Nishi wins and Shibakusa makes her announcement who will pair with Ayako.

Episode 12
Flashback shows Ayako and Kurumi are the only one left in the tennis club after their seniors graduate. Kurumi vow they will always be together and hope to recruit more members. Shibakusa is upset because she has been thinking for 10 days and can’t seem to find who should pair with Ayako! Kurumi is then seen skipping ropes for 10 minutes. Something about she missed her own chance to get out of the skipping loop. Shibakusa’s answer? Run away! Kinako devices a plan to break out Kurumi. Throwing a cat certainly didn’t work. Nishi then jumps along with her. The great synchronicity has her snapping out of it. Time for an emotional group up. Ayako notices Kurumi depressed since this is the last time they’ll be together. Ayako reminds her that she was the one who said it first that they’ll always be together. But just this once the 4 of them will only play together. They all toast over ice cream that they’ll do their best at the next tournament.

Uso Kamo?
I don’t want to believe it but I had to. So sad to say… It is just boring. Perhaps this is a reason why this series never got renewed for another season. Because by the time this series ended, Teekyuu already got renewed for another season! OMG. It just shows how hard it is to live up to the craziness of Teekyuu and at this rate, Usakame will always be in its shadows. Forever. Uh huh. The series even ended without even us getting to watch them play in the tournament. It never mattered anyway.

Firstly, I can understand how this series isn’t trying to become like Teekyuu and that it might be trying to differentiate itself although keeping a bit of something familiar. While it is good so that we viewers don’t condemn it as a poor clone of Teekyuu because otherwise we would have just watched that show instead, there is nothing really likeable in this series. After you watched the first few episodes, you kinda wonder where the heck this series is going and what it is supposed to be. I know that there isn’t supposed to be any kind of plot (like Teekyuu) but it isn’t as crazy as Teekyuu. Maybe that is where it fails.

Teekyuu prides itself for being so wacky it parodies almost everything at a fast paced rate that it doesn’t give you a chance to breathe and digest what is going on. This isn’t the case for Usakame as the pacing of each episode is moderate. Comparing both series, it is like Teekyuu is put on fast forward or in more extreme terms, high on drugs. Usakame is so toned down that despite not having a proper plot, it makes you question where it is all going. You see the girls doing random stuffs and their brand of antics but at this point it is hard to separate and not compare them with their Teekyuu counterparts. I can’t. Every time I want to say something good about the girls here, I can’t help but fall back to Teekyuu as reference.

Another failure for this series is the characters although each have their own distinctive personality. Again, I can’t help but compare them to their Teekyuu counterparts. Combined, they might not even come close to one tenth as wacky as the Teekyuu girls. Even the wildest and craziest girl with no logic whatsoever goes to Kinako. I believe her role as the idiotic joker is to keep the series funny but she alone couldn’t save it. She is perhaps the reason why she makes a few crossover cameo in Teekyuu but that is a different story. Ayako is supposed to be like Yuri since she is the most rational of the lot and also the target of their idiocracy. But other than that, she is boring. I don’t even know where to begin with Kurumi and Nishi because sometimes they confuse me. Nishi might come off as the mysterious type since she doesn’t show emotions and Kurumi is just lively. They’re both idiots still. In the end, I fail to see the bond connecting them. If I may call it that. Shibakusa? Boring too despite making only very limited cameo. Irohani? You still remember who the f*ck she is? She’s not even relevant at this time. Same case for Miyako and Tasuku too. Not even the Teekyuu’s cameo for that episode could save the series.

On a trivial note, it made me go WTF learning the kind of episode titles that this anime has. Not that I really care what my titles of each episode for every anime. But again, I have to compare it with Teekyuu. While Teekyuu’s titles are parodied after famous Hollywood movies, Usakame’s titles are like lines and words taken out from some philosophical novel or poem or wherever they come from. Not that I can understand or see its connection to the episode. Maybe it is just to screw with our minds. Because of that, I can’t help feel annoyed that with everything already so lacklustre, the title now is as WTF as ever. Yeah, it aggravated me first world problems ;p.

Trying to differentiate a little from Teekyuu is the art and drawing department. While everything is still as colourful but it is not as bright and flashy. Mainly because you’ll notice that they look like they were drawn using colour pencils. If you watched Senjou No Valkyria, you can see the same art style. However Usakame’s art is poorer. It’s like sometimes they purposely do a rush job and thus the colours feel like they lack that colourfulness and thus looking somewhat dull. So personally, even if the character designs look less cartoonish than their Teekyuu counterparts, this kind of style makes them look like they have poor quality drawn all over them.

Voice acting is pretty decent and nothing to shout about but at least they are all talking in normal pace. All of the main quartet are newbies and this is their debut role. Izumi Araida as Ayako, Hikaru Koide as Kurumi, Maria Tanijiri as Nishi and Yuki Nakashima as Kinako. In fact, they are part of the all-girl idol group, Earth Star Dream. The other members of this idol group helm lesser roles such as Eri Sogabe as Miyako, Kanon Takao as Tasuku and Arisa Aihara as Irohani. Of course this means they sing the opening and ending themes too, Hashire! Usakame Koukou Tennis-bu and Promise You respectively. Typical idol pop song. Nothing that attracts me. Yeah, you can see a real live action performance of them for the first episode’s ending credits animation and a blatant promotion of their group right at the end of the second episode. The only non-Earth Star Dream member part of this cast is Sora Tokui as Shibakusa (Nero in Tantei Opera Milky Holmes).

Overall, Usakame disappointed some but there are others who find it as funny as their Teekyuu counterparts. So it all boils down to preference and perspective on how crazy and wacky you want your tennis club girls to be. At least this show proves Einstein’s theory of relativity because it really makes the 3 minutes drag out to feel like the longest 10 minutes and you’re glad when it is over, it is over. And for Teekyuu it is like the fastest 10 seconds in a 3 minute episode and you’re shocked it is over and begging for more. Teekyuu already advanced and won Wimbledon without having to pick up a racquet and they only did nothing but fooling around. Usakame on the other hand no matter how hard they practice they can never get past the first round. Just sad…

Teekyuu S2 & S3

April 25, 2014

I guess I couldn’t resist it. I was addicted even before I knew it. Those drugs that make you go high and make you feel like you’re having a swell of a time. Yes, I admit it. I succumbed to the ‘drugs’ called Teekyuu because I didn’t really expect them to have another 2 seasons and was just joking when they said they were aiming for another season instead of Wimbledon. If you do not know what this funny ‘drug’ called Teekyuu is, is it about, it’s kinda like the gentle wind. Kinda like a delicious rice cake. Kinda like a clamorous city. Kinda like a precious every day. Okay, for those who have watched the first season (and still remember), you would have instantly recognized those were the lyrics of the opening theme that described what Teekyuu is. Or you could simply take it as a bunch of tennis club girls doing every silly antic imaginable except playing tennis. All crammed into 2 minutes of craziness. And now more drugs to fulfil my Teekyuu needs! Let me have ‘em now!

Season 2

Episode 13
Kanae invites her friends to a nursery run by her cousin Mika so they can help the kids with the bean throwing festival. Who knows the principal, Mr Bobby is an ex-SEAL serviceman! Kanae is popular with the kids but the rest bullies Marimo by kicking her leg since she’s a big girl. When she tells them off, they run crying into the arms of Yuri. When the bean throwing festival starts, Bobby puts up some smoke effects before the girls charge in. They got attacked military style! Is this what Bobby has been teaching the kids? When Marimo tries to get one, that kid starts crying over her scariness. Bobby advises Marimo how she can be popular with kids. First, smile. Second, look at their world through their eyes. Marimo suddenly becomes a mercenary but look at it this way, she’s a hit with the kids. And you wonder why…

Episode 14
Kondou from the newspaper club wants to write an article on the tennis club girls. They are told to do what they usually do but you know, none of them are tennis related. Showing their strawberry garden? Putting up kabuki makeup? Play tennis video game? Dress up in life size Pong? Asking about their performance in tournaments, Kanae shows a huge statue they’ve won. Did they? She won the Oscars for some skin makeup thingy. Kondou is even roped in to try tennis. The video game… After she did play the real game, Kondou leaves to write her article. Nothing legitimate on what they did come out. Instead, all scandal material! Panties over Marimo’s head… Suspicious Oscar award… Playing video game tennis instead of the real game… Yes, people. This is your tennis club!

Episode 15
Nasuno suggests a training camp and has Googled and found a very cheap villa. First they take a cat bus (so real that they’re like sitting inside its innards), the trip takes them who knows how long, the villa looks like an evil base and the manager looks like an evil general with an evil claw. Instead of practising for real, to Yuri’s dismay, they want to play everything else from cards and visiting the hotspring. They even use that overused ‘gatai’ (combining) joke. I don’t know about their logic that their combining effectiveness have increased to satisfy gatai fans. WTF.

Episode 16
At least they’re playing ping pong now. It’s tournament time. The winner gets the rest to do as she says. First match has Kanae win against Marimo. Before Yuri begins hers with Nasuno, she notices the trapezium shaped table! Surely, she’s at a disadvantage! Even so, Yuri won. Finals: Kanae vs Yuri. Kanae’s bat is some sort of cracker so she keeps munching it till she couldn’t hit the ball back. There’s more. The ping pong ball is an egg hatching (sunny side up?) and the net is a stomach band… In the end, Yuri wins and her wish is that everybody would practise properly for real tomorrow. Yeah… They practise table tennis… She should have been more specific…

Episode 17
After practising hard (did they?), before they go home, they visit the local attractions. From local residences with age old designs to some creepy mine. On the bus back home, Yuri must have been so tired of retorting their silly jokes that she falls asleep. Feeling guilty that they were too hard on her? Not when you’re morons. The thought of that she is asleep means they can reveal their true form: Aliens! Yuri abruptly wakes up but sees all her friends sleeping. Just a dream?

Episode 18
Nasuno wants a pet so they discuss all sorts of pets they could get from a devil meerkat to a Pokemon. At the pet shop, the cute meerkat seals Nasuno’s choice. The staff narrates its habits in which Nasuno feels it is pretty similar to an animator. She tries to sell her a cage as well but it seems she is trying to sell her a property! Don’t fall for this scam! Back home, the girls tussle for the meerkat’s attention. Kanae shows her own pet: A sea slug. Too bad it didn’t last long because Kanae ate him afterwards. Too delicious to resist? Next day, the meerkat has grown 8 metres tall! No wonder she was being sold an apartment!

Episode 19
It’s the sports festival and it opens with an opening speech from Colonel Sanders (Nasuno’s dad), some unknown guy and Kanae herself (“Let the killing begin!”). Yuri talks to Kondou and finds out her first name is Udonko and that her full name is a palindrome. Marimo gets a tiger for a scavenger hunt and during lunch, we’ve got lots of KFC sponsored by you-know-who. All the clubs participate in the relay. Because the tennis club is lagging, Marimo takes drastic action: She rides the tiger! Wow! She’s so fast! She’s got the speed of the tiger! In the end, they got disqualified…

Episode 20
Kanae is upset she is not tall. So Nasuno brings her to a cow farm whereby she gets pulled by the cows in all directions. Stretched? Here, they also try their hands at cow milking (making it sound horny), counting sheep (falling asleep?), look at potential friend chicken (aren’t you sick of it?) and horse riding (Kanae has motion sickness). On the way home, Yuri mentions that it’s not the size that matter because everyone is unique. They support each other with their own strengths and weaknesses. Friendship then rainbow. Aww… Next morning, Kanae is now a giant… Marimo is sick because she might have caught some hand foot mouth disease from the cow…

Episode 21
The tennis court is destroyed thanks to the baseball club who thinks they’re in the way. The girls are challenged over a baseball match and the winner gets to use the court. Shouldn’t it be tennis? But the girls know nuts about baseball and where can they find extra members? Don’t worry. Kanae has brought Mika, Bobby, Yukatan, Kondou, the bakery manager and even her own father as the coach. And that guy who challenged them isn’t even playing… Our girls seem to suck at batting compared to their other non-tennis club mates.

Episode 22
They might seem like doing something cool but in the end it’s just one big bluff and they flop. When it’s the bakery manager’s turn, Nasuno warns him about failing. You know what will happen if you fail… But he fails and gets hit by the pitch. So they consult a manga series on the rules and rule him out as dead! He ‘died’ for nothing. As more games pass, the tennis club is on a great losing streak. So big the score. Nasuno signals to her dad to make some shady calls and move. Then all the famous former players of Japan’s baseball league show up and win it! Though the guy admits defeat and gives up, the girls aren’t satisfied and want a rematch based on their tennis rules. However an Apache helicopter starts firing into the court… WTF?! So I take it, they lost? Whose idea was this?!

Episode 23
Marimo is visited by a cute space alien girl, Tomarin. Of course she freaks out and calls mommy for help. Unfortunately mommy thinks it’s all in her head and tells her to shut the f*ck up! Tomarin tries to convince her she is an alien like floating a clock. Now Marimo wants to help her untangle her computer wires… Do it yourself. As Marimo is not convinced with her UFO, Tomarin shows her true form! So hideous that Marimo vomits… Tomarin crash landed on Earth due to her punctured fuel tank. Marimo solves the problem by putting duct tape. She thinks beer is the fuel since she did say it runs on golden liquid. Grateful Tomarin leaves but her UFO soon crashes. Guess it doesn’t run on beer. Next day, Marimo sees Tomarin. Her ship is being fixed by the Autobots. Did she tell anybody about her alien encounter? Nobody believed…

Episode 24
Kondou hands the girls coupons to her udon shop. However it is in a bowling alley! The coupons enable them to have free water!!! Kondou explains her grandpa was so eager to have his own udon shop, he trained her, saved up and got so excited that he didn’t see the plan of this place. He also serves his udon by doing a bowling serve! Hot splash on Yuri! Maybe grandpa needs to practice his bowl. They talk about udon splashing which has become a sensation in the country. Long queues were formed and many bowling alleys soon try to follow this concept. Because the question of whether food was being wasted or not, this topic was greatly debated in parliament. It’s been a week since the debate whether to ban the udon splashing. The debate continues…

Marimo has broken teeth thanks to boxing! WTF?! She goes see a dentist. She should also get her brains fixed. The little girl customer next to her cries because Marimo is scarier than the visit to the dentist. Marimo doubts if this hippy dentist can do the job. He doesn’t even know his instruments. After taking x-ray (some crotch goes boom joke that I didn’t get), Marimo is shown photos of his ex-wife and Mercedes Benz before her own set of teeth. He lets her bite a loaf of bread just to test its mouldiness. Marimo is given braces to wear but since she can’t eat anything, she has to go back again. More photos of his imported car… Now she has metal teeth like Mr Jaws from James Bond. She can bite through 5mm of thick steel!

Yuri is at the shrine and prays for the sanity of her friends to be normal as well as this manga and anime to do well. Who knows, she accidentally breaks the bell! The old shrine lady wants her to pay. Clearly, she’s marking up the price. Otherwise, she must pay with her body! Don’t worry, this won’t be turning hentai. Yuri is made to wear the miko priestess dress because there are lots of sickos on the internet who would love to pay pictures in this outfit. Yuri notices the big shrine that she needs to clean up and wonders if granny does this all by herself. Her husband helped her till recently… He went away… Not to another world but Hawaii! He’s on vacation?! Why didn’t she go with him? Something shady about her past that prevents her in getting a visa…

Season 3

Episode 25
The girls are going on a skiing trip but there are no seats riding to the top! Hang on to the poles! They are going to take the beginner’s course but misread the sign and end up taking the super advanced course. Suddenly it becomes a side-scroller, attacked by wolves, yeti and even Chihuahuas! They even get a life indicator and some score. Any skiing mishaps they get into, they lose a life. After all those dangers, the girls are relieved that they have made it to safety with 1 life left. Thing is, they’re on the edge of the cliff. Stranded! No lives left! Game over!

Episode 26
The heavy rain has the girls stay in school. Though, Nasuno calls her limo to pick her up but it seems it was death who almost picked her up! Thankfully she is revived by Kanae’s CPR. Yuri wants to go home so the rest get this evil idea to stretch her enough to cover them as umbrella. As they walk home in the cold rain, Kanae gets strike by lightning and shoots out some beam from her mouth. They finally made it home and the convenient blackout means we can’t see the fanservice of them bathing and touching each other. Next morning when they leave, they see holes courtesy of Kanae’s beams everywhere. That powerful, huh?

Episode 27
Nasuno is being hounded by punks who want to play pogs with her? She is saved by a guy named Youta. She is grateful but suddenly her chest hurts! Her bra was too tight…  She tries to repay his kindness with a gold bar or a bottle of petroleum but he settles for a dorayaki snack. Asking her about those punks, she thinks her beauty attracted them. Looks like she attracted more. Several of them in Guy Fawkes mask confront her and tell her to obediently follow them until her father pays. Youta tries to attack to let Nasuno run but here comes to pogs punks. I’m not sure if it’s because they said something inappropriate for a gag anime. Eventually Nasuno’s dad and the police arrive to arrest the culprits. Nasuno learns Youta is Yuri’s brother. As thanks, she gives him a big tuna.

Episode 28
Nasuno’s hair is so long while Kanae cut hers the bouzu style! At the hair salon, it is natural that Nasuno and Kanae are fooling around with their antics while Yuri plays the straight guy. Wanting her hair to be cut according to this manga? Kanae feels her balls itchy? Does she even have them? Then their hair turns out weirdly. Afro Kanae? Horns growing out of it? Nasuno’s hair is longer than before! Then she turns into a big lump of hair so much so she doesn’t seem human anymore. Yeah, even their skeletal structure changed… In the end, Nasuno becomes a temporary blonde (thank the animators for this screw up) while Kanae although has her original hairstyle back, she turns into a demon! Who the hell is she?!

Episode 29
The girls are praying at the shrine. Wishing desperately for another season… Later they burn all their cursed dolls… When they drink the sweet sake, it seems Yuri is the one who is greatly affected. She suddenly falls hard. Then she acts weird… Using her broken arm as a pantomime? Beating up arrogant villains? At the karaoke, she makes an Eifel Tower with fries and forces the rest to go along with her pace. This is the true her when she is drunk? Not even Nasuno can escape. In the end when Yuri returns to her normal self, she sees her friends totally exhausted. Hard to keep up with her, eh? Yeah. Now how does it feel like because she always had a hard time trying to keep up with their silliness?

Episode 30
The bakery guy is going to hang himself due to bad business! 300 million Yen in debt! Yeah, Nasuno wants to help kill him. Kanae suggests a pyramid scheme where a customer must bring 2 or more customers. In no time he’ll have the entire Japan. Nasuno suggests shaking her hand. Who wants to shake her hand? Marino comes up with DLC. Can you download sexy cake? They also come up with cake designs. Yuri is normal. Marimo is an arm! Hair is chocolate and blood is strawberry jam. Yum, tastes good. Nasuno is a black credit card (dark chocolate?) while Kanae is some beardy guy’s face. Since their plan isn’t working out, they resort to extortion! Eventually thanks to Bobby telling the kids’ moms, they slowly gained customers and the manager is able to take up his administration studies. Oddly, the cakes the girls design became a hit. In the end, hi bakery becomes a parking lot because the capital investment required for it is extremely low and it was easier to convert it into so. He has hedged against all the risk. So this is what he studied?

Episode 31
When Yuri managed to enter high school, lots of clubs hound her to join. Even a loan shark club. Not to mention a very familiar light music club. But in her mind, she wants to join a tennis club. Eventually when she meets Kanae recruiting (why does the recruiting form look like it’s from the loan shark club?), she wonders why her table is at the train station. More people? Oh look. Here comes the police. Not to join but to arrest her. Kanae mentions the other members are in African and Alcatraz so Yuri started to have doubts in joining as the tennis club has weird members. Maybe the light music club will do. However Youta thinks tennis fits her fine because she’s a weird person. Yuri apologizes to Kanae that she can’t join but she changed her mind when Kanae’s beautiful smile and hope that she will still love her got to her heart. When Kanae suggests to play tennis, she takes out spatulas… Does she even know what tennis is? So when they get down to club activities, Yuri didn’t realize she just joined the loan shark club…

Episode 32
Kanae is sad that her tennis string broke. It was made from her dead grandma’s hair. They go to the shop and the little girl will gladly string her tennis racquet. Just don’t look into the room… Before that, she introduces a range of odd racquets that include sticky nattou and another made out of the tatami mat. Oh, here’s one that is used for the fence. Everyone sees the high technology hawk eye cameras used in tournaments that can be used to contest calls. They pester Nasuno to buy it but she suggests they but more balls instead. As the girl strings the racquet in the room, curiosity got the better of them to peek. They see her looking up the internet on how to string one. In the end, Kanae bought the nattou racquet and the old strings were made into a wig. Oh, grandma is still alive…

Episode 33
Yuri is at the funeral of her late uncle. The priest is a Shibuya gal?! Fashion freak? Yuri suddenly sees the spirit of her late uncle. Only she can see him. Seems he has business and can’t go over to the next world yet. He hasn’t said goodbye to a childhood friend and hopes to borrow her body to do so. However the sneaky uncle will only return it to her in 50 years and will start his life over again as a high school girl! As he runs away from Yuri (in spirit form), he bumps into the priest. She can tell her body is possessed and beats him up to exorcise him. Toilet bowl treatment? Yuri now believes she is a priest for real.

Episode 34
Marimo is playing a violent video game when she is sucked into it. She wakes up to find Kanae as some priest telling her to go save the princess but she doesn’t understand. Wandering around in this game world, she gets killed but gets resurrected. Thinking this is a dream, Marimo fondles her boobs till she gets up. She didn’t. She is told she cannot leave till this game is cleared. And so Marimo begins her quest to save the princess. She dies many times, gets resurrected many times, over and over again before she clears it. Then she’s back in her room but her body is buffed up like Mr Universe. Holy cow! All that training and deaths affected her real body in the real world?

Episode 35
Finally a National tournament and something to do with real tennis! Their first opponents will be from Usakame High. So what will be their practice menu? Eat stew, go to night club and go home. WTF?! I was a fool to have hopes. And the tournament is tomorrow. Better get going now! Yuri is embarrassed that her pals stand on the opponent’s side. They courtsey like aristocrat instead of bowing and form a sumo ring instead of a discussion ring. Nasuno is up first and is confident she can win. Yeah, she bribes the referee! In the end, her real skill is what got her the first victory. Next up is Marimo but she lost before you can even say begin. Yuri-Kanae doubles match is the decider. Remembering all the unrelated good times and some unrelated guy named Michael as motivation, Yuri is dumbfounded that Kanae somehow ends up on the opponent’s side. Of course they lost despite bringing out their bond and friendship thingy. And this means this is the end to their National tournament arc…

Episode 36
The exams are near and Nasuno warns those who fail will have their pancreas torn out by demons! How are they going to prepare for it? Wearing armour plates won’t do… A group study seems okay till you realize that they are fooling around asking all sorts of question (the universe!) that isn’t really related to school curriculum. What more, they always bring in this Michael guy into the picture and do this joke to death. Yeah, he becomes their mysterious tutor. On the day of the exam, looks like Michael is on the test too. Think you’ve prepared for it? Well, Marimo got her pancreas ripped out by him!

Marimo’s adventure with Tomarin continues. Now alien girl makes her home as hers. Yeah, she bribed her mom to let her stay. Shouldn’t she have bought her own place with that amount of money? Who would want to sell a place to weirdo like her? I’m sure the amount of money would have convinced them… She lives in the attic and to Marimo’s surprise, it is a hell lot bigger than her home! It’s got even a bar! She already invited her alien friend over. He doesn’t talk and use facial expressions as communication. Yeah, Tomarin could exactly guess every word he says. Or could she? Oh, mommy is dressed like Tomarin and enjoying the drinks too! Since when were they good friends? I guess money talks… Suddenly a black hole opens behind Marimo…

Everyone is holding on to their horses as the black hole is sucking everything in. It got the alien and Marimo’s mom. Marimo wants Tomarin to do something about this stupid situation but she can’t since she is hungry. Who the hell cares?! Then Marimo’s mom heard it, gets out of the black hole to go fix dinner. Eh? What? Yeah, Tomarin could smell she is making curry. Better get out of this or you won’t even be alive to taste mom’s curry! Mommy returns and scolds them for fooling around. She duct tapes the black hole. Eh? What? Order is restored. Later in the evening, the alien returns and he is so pissed… And no, that face is not the I-want-to-use-your-toilet-please face. So upset that he scolds them! He could talk… Marimo notices her mom returning from buying ingredients. She went out dressed like that?

The Mouth Is Faster Than The Hand
So will there be another fourth season? Mr alien looks to us as if he is demanding another one. I as an addict won’t argue if there should be another one. Oh God. Am I really addicted? Must find a way to get away from this drug… Oh what the hell. All I can say is that these seasons are still as funny as hell because everything is so random and nonsensical. Especially this series’ trademark of fast talking and fast yapping that would have put all the rappers in the world to shame. The jokes and funny parts are so instantaneous and fast that it leaves you no room for recovery. Every time you laugh at the insane hilariousness of the joke, it is over and here comes another one. No breathing space for you to catch your breath. Oh man. Also thanks to the odd visuals, everything is so fast paced that it’s like if you blink, you miss everything in your 2 minutes worth of Teekyuu. But even you can catch all that, it makes you go WTF because really, it is indeed insanity in motion. If that is what this drug is leading me to, then I NEED TO HAVE MORE OF IT! Yeah, you could say I would really have laughed myself to death. It still makes me wonder if the voice actresses really have the ability to talk this fast or they just did a little fast forwarding in the editing room.

Once again, the girls did pretty much absurd in everything except playing tennis. Even that single episode meant to showcase their tennis prowess was as usual a farce. It ended as fast as it began. They should have become a comedy club instead. But we all don’t have any qualms about it since the girls are so funny in being silly that we would wish for more anything goes. Yeah, maybe save the world from invading aliens or become super heroes in another world. I don’t care. Just make me laugh! It’s ironic that with the short duration of each episode, I saw it all in one sitting and before I knew it time has passed so quickly. And in the end, it’s the end of 2 seasons. Wow. Gone in a flash before my eyes. So that was where my one hour of that day had gone to? Yeah. It was very well worth it. Let’s say the girls have outdone and surpassed everything in here better than being in Wimbledon. You don’t need that when you can have this. Three seasons of nonsense. It transcends everything!

The characters are still the same as we know them. Very quirky and odd. Like Marimo the big tall girl who is a pervert and Nasuno the rich girl who thinks money can buy anything. Then there is Kanae who seems to defy physics or the laws of everything because sometimes she can shoot beams or change her physical shape just to suit the joke that is being played out. Yuri is the only ‘normal’ one in the gang and the only one who takes things seriously. Because everything is so farcical, all her retorts are in vain and she too in no time starts sounding like an idiot. Well, when you have hang out too long with a group as idiotic as this one, it’s easy to be influenced and get into their silly pace. The other new characters like Mika, Bobby, Kondou and Youta add a little variety but it is still mainly the quartet that brings the house down. Even aliens like Tomarin are idiots. Yeah, everybody here is one. And those who watch this like myself. Hahaha! Ballooballooballooblooooooooooo~. Blame the drugs for that.

The one thing I noticed for both these seasons is that the titles of each episode are named after a famous Hollywood movie. From classic movies to recent ones such as Full Metal Jacket, Transformers, Cider House Rules, Mad Max The World Is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies, The Hangover, just to name a few. Although I cannot see how that particular episode is related to the Hollywood movie. Even so, it is very subtle. For example, the episode that was named Ratatouille, the one whereby the girls visit Kondo’s grandpa’s udon shop in the bowling alley. It may not have a French rat trying to be a chef but it still features a chef who is her grandpa who has a dream of owning his own udon store. For the Mars attacks episode, you don’t see the relation of it as it was the girls going sightseeing after their ping pong training stint. Only in that short last bit that they so called revealed themselves as aliens. The episode that has the girls visiting the barber shop pays a subtle tribute to Edward Scissorhands and was thus named as so. Running was all we remember in Run Lola Run, right? Probably that’s why it was given to the sports festival episode. Coach Carter was for basketball, right? How did he end up as the girls’ private tutor for the exams here?!

The second season’s opening theme is Menimenimanimani by Kyouko Narumi (voice of Nasuno). As you can already tell from the nonsensical title, the carnival-like atmosphere of the song compounded with the crazy lyrics and the crazy over-the-top animation means everything is just one big crazy animation. Just like being high on drugs or having too much caffeine. Yeah, I hate to admit it. It’s catchy. Addictive. For the third season, the opening song is Nufutto Teekyuu Potoracchi by Naive. Whatever that title means. It’s like as though the one who wrote the song was high on drugs and was rushing to name and submit his song before the anime runs. However the animation for this one has more fanservice scenes. Butt shaking? Boobs shaking? And it ends with them in a swimsuit pose…

It goes without saying that after spending a few minutes with Teekyuu, one can get irresistibly hook on it. That’s why a fourth season better be made so that those hooked on it can get their fix of insanity. Otherwise we will be rampaging the production studio and office to demand our daily pot and ice. Yeah people. There will always be a sunny with chance of little clouds and instant dizzy energy if you take your Teekyuu dosage. Smoke Teekyuu. Take you. Thank you. Just be careful of the withdrawal and overdose symptom that come later. You might find how dull reality is when you get back down to Earth. Oh, and remember this. Don’t do drugs in real life.


May 17, 2013

Finally they have made sequel to soft tennis’ Softenni! Oh wait. This isn’t. Teekyuu as I have read is a sports comedy manga of the same name being adapted into anime about a group of 4 high school girls in a tennis club. What is even weirder is that it only lasts 2 minutes! Two stinking minutes of nonsense tuck into it. What more can you expect? Just watch the show. It won’t take a big chunk out of your important and precious time in life.

Episode 1
Yuri Oshimoto gets ready to serve to Kanae Shinjou but the latter starts making weird poses and calls, ultimately missing the shot. Seeing that was awful, Yuri wants her to practice her stance. However she messes around with different odd stances. No, this will not increase her max MP by 20%. She panics when asked about her dominant hand. She doesn’t know. Which hand does she use to hold chopsticks? Don’t know. She eats naan with both bare hands! Yuri starts serving anyway and Kanae gets tired after exercising just one swing (she missed anyway). She hugs on to Yuri with excuse of being tired. She even needs an oxygen mask! As they practice hitting the balls, Kanae’s streak of not hitting them continues. What’s with that same weird pose too? Why keep hugging Yuri when she’s tired? More importantly, why is she missing? Don’t blame politics, girl. I guess it’s back to basics as Yuri talks about motivation. I guess Kanae took it too literally and spouts devilish words for her own self motivation. Finally Kanae manages to return Yuri’s serve but it hit her stomach! So pain. So pitiful. Please aim carefully next time. Then Kanae starts sinking into the ground because she’s too tired. WTF.

Episode 2
Kanae found a new racket! Hey! That’s a toilet plunger! Guess what? She manages to hit a tennis ball away! Kanae wants to eat lunch together and though Yuri finds it awkward, it’s not awkward as before since Kanae used to eat lunch alone in the toilet! Later Yuri meets her tennis club senior Nasuno Takamiya. She just came back from some unpronounceable place in Central Africa. Yuri is shocked to see Kanae ploughing the court with a couple of bulls. She’s taking care of the court? More like destroying them. They even suggest planting plants since there are now holes in it. Kanae suggests playing doubles since Nasuno is here. How? There are 3 of them. Don’t worry, Kanae clones herself! Don’t ask. Kanae even made a stupid joke that her balls are itching. She doesn’t have any… After learning the centre of the racket is called the sweet spot, the girls are trying out cakes at a bakery on their way home. Nasuno’s father pays for the operations for this store so they can eat to their heart’s content. Kanae realizes the sweet cake tastes familiar. It tastes like the strings of her racket! This shocks Yuri and she feels like vomiting. Kanae is going to fix it with her toilet plunger. This won’t end well…

Episode 3
It is narrated that Marimo Bandou is a beautiful and wonderful senior. However… She’s a pervert. What the heck is she doing with Yuri’s panties on her head?! She thought she could eat it…. WTF. Lame excuse… But her harassments did not stop. In fact it escalates so much so Nasuno thinks Marimo swings that way. Maybe it’s a way of showing her affections that she loves her. I don’t think Yuri is going to like that idea too. She hopes Marimo is just being friendly. One day Marimo calls Yuri. Hope nothing perverted. Seems she needs her help in handing a mountain of handouts since their teacher assigned the class to an encyclopaedia. Why don’t they just copy or download them? Along the way, Marimo trips and falls. Yuri finds her clinging on to her. Marimo wonders if she hates her clinging like this since she is not good at talking to people. They fear her since she is bigger but when she holds people like this, she feels she isn’t so bad at talking anymore. Yuri gives her permission to be clingy just for this once. But she had to spoil it by asking permission to eat her underwear. No way! Next day, the TV news reports Marimo’s arrest for wearing and eating underwear… Real pervert…

Episode 4
Everyone stops by Kanae’s home and her mom pretends to be the entrance mat as she loves getting stepped on. Don’t even ask. Nasuno sees a stain on the wall resembling like a face and tries to talk money with it. Marimo thought the tea tastes good till Kanae realizes it is poured from an oil pot. Nasuno asks the kind of clothes Kanae wears and she takes out an odd looking one (one that even defies laws of physics). She puts it on Yuri and the clothes change into something nice. Marimo wants to try too but she’s too big and it rips. Kanae feels everything has become livelier now that there are 4 of them (previously there were only 3 of them – minus Yuri). But Nasuno notes this is the first time she is here. Kanae hopes everyone can continue to be friends. When they leave, Kanae realizes something… This is not her home!!! WTF????!!!! Horror face!

Episode 5
Marimo swings too hard that not only her racket came loose and hit Yuri right in the head, she also dislocated her shoulder. For some unknown reason, it just healed by itself. Kanae and Marimo make stupid jokes about the sakura tree and kabaddi. Not that Yuri understands. Not that I understand. Nasuno wants to get serious in playing tennis with Yuri. She serves but Kanae grabs the ball with her mouth! Don’t try this anyhow. Nasuno notes she has earned a point due to a hybrid rule she is employing. The next time she serves, Marimo catches it with her mouth this time. Nasuno is going to remove her training cast and reveal her true strength. She’s removing her panties… I can see what that would be a strength to distract opponents. Yuri reminds the rest to properly train. And everyone really does… What a boring end…

Episode 6
Kanae got a flyer to an amusement pool near the station. Nasuno also got something there: A yakuza’s waistband! Worse still, Marimo got a lost child! So the girls patron the pool. After some tennis jokes, Marimo pees inside the pool. Nasuno wants Yuri to rub oil on her body. Isn’t that vegetable oil? Marimo and Kanae slide down the water slide and crash inside somebody’s house! Let’s do it again? Not! Yuri warns they will catch a cold at this rate but being the idiots they are, they are confident they won’t. Soon, all her friends catch a cold and Yuri is left to nurse them. Why she?

Episode 7
Kanae wants to recruit new club members. Or else the club will be cancelled! The girls come up with stupid ideas like using money, putting frills on fliers, doing a live tennis performance, putting up a live music performance (tennis racket can be a music instrument?). Feeling the need to show the joy of tennis, the topic shifts to what they find fun in tennis. Opening new can of balls? Tennis beer extract? In the end it is decided that they should distribute flyers. However they failed. Everyone jokes they stayed back a year so that they can be the same year with Yuri. Yuri notes it is fun being with all of them. A big hug from them but Marimo takes advantage by molesting her boobs. Though Kanae is confident next year there will be more new first years joining, Yuri notes that she won’t get to hog them all to herself then. Oh, never mind.

Episode 8
Nasuno’s father’s birthday is coming up. The way she describes him feels he is like a certain colonel of an international famous fast food chicken restaurant. Yuri suggests baking cookies but Marimo and Kanae went ahead with their own fantasies. So they are starting from scratch to bake dorayaki. They don’t have to go back 1000 years ago to the beginning of civilization… Obviously Kanae and Marimo know nuts about cooking. Kanae only hits the gong while Marimo holds the knife the wrong end to slice a tiger! A tiger?! Kanae suggests waiting for Yuri to get married. Then Nasuno calls the baker from her bakery (money is involved of course). Nasuno sucks and wants to take the easy way out by having the baker do it but he tells her she needs to make them herself. With some lessons of putting her heart in them and under his watchful eye, Nasuno’s dorayaki turns out delicious in the end. As they head to go give it to Nasuno’s father, they think he is coming in a helicopter that lands suddenly in the streets. But it’s just a distraction because he is actually sitting outside a bench outside the restaurant.

Episode 9
Marimo tries to work at a pork ramen shop. Owner asks if she has experience. She doesn’t. But she had someone call her a pig before. I don’t think that’s experience. Then she goes on lying about being born in Scandinavia and thus is half human, half pig. Liar! Owner wants her to tie her hair so she can start some actual work. However she ties herself in S&M bondage style. Then she’s supposed to take their ticket orders for meals but she deals them like a casino. I think the owner is going to blow his top any time soon. He has no choice but to teach her the kitchen. Luckily they don’t use knives. Unfortunately I don’t even know how Marimo got so clumsy and spilled everything. She thought she saw a bug but it turns out to be a golden stag beetle. I guess this means she is fired. Definitely not a job for her. However she begins her sob story she needs money for her sick dad. An illness called fake illness. Liar! Actually she wants money to spend. Sounds so criminal… Then her stomach growls as owner gives her a free meal on the house. Marimo tests his patience when she says she’s abusing the ticket meals. Just shut up and eat. Then she starts crying. Is the meal that delicious? Actually, she thinks the pork is her mom! Get out you pig!

Episode 10
Uhm… They’re supposed to be a tennis club, right? What the hell are they doing practising football? Now that they are sweaty, they decide to bath at a public bath. Even inside the bath, the idiots can be so idiotic. Kanae thinks she saw flowing noodles and the scrubbing stone is ginger. Marimo compliments Nasuno’s nice back. Because it looks like her dad’s. That wasn’t a compliment… Once they’re done, Kanae realizes her bra is missing. She accuses Marimo first. Can we blame her? She denies that she stole them when Kanae realizes she doesn’t wear a bra because of her flat chest. Ehehe… Then Marimo realizes her panties are gone. Yuri thinks she ate them herself. Then Marimo realizes… She doesn’t wear them in the first place. Don’t be proud of it!

Episode 11
Wondering if Kanae has found her yukata, she didn’t but her tanned Mexican friend called Yukatan. Don’t ask. Then she finally finds them… Isn’t that a ninja outfit? The girls had their fun at the festival and as they go line up to buy takoyaki, Kanae sees her Yukatan friend opening up a stall. Seems her homeland is filled with mafias that she can’t do business there. When they return, they see Nasuno being hit by a couple of guys. However she notes that they are their muscle. The first display of fireworks is beautiful. It is followed by low ‘fireworks’. Turns out to be a local gunfight between the Mexican mafia and Japanese yakuza!

Episode 12
Kanae manages to hit the tennis ball away with some nonsensical move. A club like theirs and they only have one stinking tennis ball? Time to go look for it. Trekking through the jungle, they chance upon an old abandoned school building. Marimo thought she found the ball but it turns out to be a chick. Because it’s yellow and fuzzy… Don’t that make dandelions and omelettes balls too? Then they see something inside the building holding the ball! Freaky! Marimo tastes a plate of salt outside and goes into seizure. Salty alright. Yuri wants to buy a new ball instead but Nasuno disagrees seeing it costs money. I don’t think compromising and calling the chick a ball will do either. I guess they’ll have to go in and find it real quick. Just when they are talking about the floor not falling through, Marimo then falls through. Though she is fine (can’t say about her messed up leg but that’s not the point), Kanae finds the ball. Suddenly a gorilla appears behind them. They make a run for it but realize they were so scared that their souls came out of their body. It took their sheer willpower to return.

More Teekyuu? No, Thank You!
What… The… Hell… Those are the words that exactly describe my feelings once I finished this anime series in just one sitting. The sheer nonsense and ridiculous madness is what makes this short series funny. No doubt about that. But more than that, I think if you want any long term value about this anime, there is none. Imagine this short anime is filled with drugs, toxin and caffeine in them. Watching it makes you feel like you are on a high with all the garbage crammed into 2 minutes of screen time. Make that 1.5 minutes since 30 seconds are dedicated to the opening theme song. Thus there is no nutritional value or herbal remedy effects in the long run. You just watch this for fun, laugh your ass off for that short moment and then forget about it. Don’t get addicted to it too.

Despite being a sports comedy, you don’t actually seeing the girls play tennis in every episode and about only a quarter of the episodes you would see them hitting the tennis ball. It’s like tennis is just secondary and a setting theme, that’s all. Other than that, the random silliness sees the girls visiting one of their member’s house, having fun at the pool, taking a bath, working part time at a shop, making a birthday gift for somebody and go looking for their tennis ball (the last one isn’t really considered a tennis activity, don’t you agree?). Because of the very short duration of each episode, one aspect that you will find is the fast talking. You will notice that the speeches feel like being played at 1.5x faster and the jokes can be so fast that if you aren’t paying attention, it is gone in the next second. You’ll never know what hit you. Imagine there are no full stops in between their sentences. No space between the conversations of the characters. They quickly speak after one finishes her sentence. In a way, it makes things funny but at the same time very chatty.

So out of all the wacky characters, I suppose Yuri is the only normal one. So normal that she is often the one making comebacks and bear the brunt of the backfire of the rest. Poor girl. The rest are just idiotic who probably don’t even know how to play tennis. Kanae’s jokes and humour sometimes defy the law of physics, airhead Marimo is a pervert and a nuisance to society while rich girl Nasuno has a little quirk about herself. Don’t bother with any character development considering how odd these girls are. They can be good stand up comedians (or even mental asylum candidates) than tennis players. Besides, with Marimo involved, you can bet there will be a handful of fanservice scenes. Some scenes are also bloody too in the name of comedy but you will be laughing too hard instead of getting freaked out in horror. For the voice acting, Kana Hanazawa displays her cute side in voicing retarded characters. I’m sure I could name a few characters that sound as close as Marimo (Fractale’s Nessa anyone?). The rest include Yui Watanabe as Yuri (Hibari in Mawaru Penguindrum), Suzuko Mimori as Kanae (Himiko in BTOOOM) and debutant Kyoko Narumi as Nasuno.

The opening theme is wacky itself, Botsuraku Kizoku No Tame No Teekyuu by Yui Watanabe. Even the animation itself is crazy. See it for yourself and you’ll understand what I mean about this anime is like under the influence of drugs. It’s like you are hallucinating things too. Even the lyrics of the song makes us wonder what the heck is Teekyuu and what should you do with it. Like the gentle wind, a delicious rice cake, a clamorous city and a precious every day. Do you know it? Do you read it? Do you watch it? Do you have it? Do you adore it? Be warned. Symptoms of watching this series might lead you to have: A) Your jaw dropping so low that it would be close to be dislocation; B) A fit after having idiotic laughs so much like Spongebob Squarepants; C) Sudden mind blank out when everything ends; D) If you love it, you’ll hope that they’ll aim for a second season rather than a shot at Wimbledon. E) If you don’t, your piercing scream can break the sound barrier with this mindf*ck; F) And remember, tennis or not, don’t do drugs.


April 7, 2012

Finally. This is the girls’ version and answer to the bishonen of Prince of Tennis (POT). So I thought. However Softenni (derived from Soft Tennis) comes nothing close to being an epic anime to match the popular POT. I mean, with only a dozen of episodes as compared to hundreds in POT (excluding its OVAs that lasts for who knows how long – I wasn’t a fan of POT so I didn’t really bother to find out), there isn’t going to be much development for the characters and plot. Heck, will there even be tennis play?

Actually I didn’t even know there was a thing or difference in tennis. So if there is soft tennis, there should be hard tennis, right? I’m not a tennis fan so I didn’t bother to find out ;p. The only thing I know is that Wimbledon is hard tennis (none for soft tennis) and the ball they used in soft tennis is softer. That’s why it’s called soft tennis, right? And even so, I only knew this fact was because I was watching the anime and they mentioned about this. Sheesh.

So why the heck am I watching this series if I have no interest in tennis whatsoever? Besides the attributes of the game, why is this anime called so? I have the same answer for both questions: Fanservice. Having pretty girls in short skirts (so short that if they bend over by 5 degrees, you can see their slip) is somewhat an excuse to insert lots of fanservice into a game to garner interest that hardly receives any worldwide popularity. That’s why for the second question, I always thought that the ‘soft’ in the title meant soft porn. Everyone hail fanservice!

And though we have a group of wacky middle high school students playing soft tennis, however due to the randomness and nonsensical nature of the skits and of course the overwhelming fanservice, it overshadows the sport more than anything else. You might be wondering if this dark horse group of girls will be able to power up and increase their skills in time to even reach the Nationals. No wait, will they even pass the preliminaries? Don’t put your hopes high on it, though. Admit it. You’re just here for the fanservice, not the sport.

Episode 1
Asuna Harukaze isn’t just a farm worker on a ranch with her mom, but she is also a soft tennis club member. Seems normal? Till you find out she is a perverted girl who loves fantasizing perverted things. Very easily. Weirdo number 1. With 2 months to the tournament, she starts running to school as practice but gives in to her temptation to ride the bus. So her fellow club member, the ambitious and headstrong Kotone Sawanatsu (weirdo number 2) reprimands her for taking the easy way out. Shiratama Middle High School is a newly opened school so don’t be surprised to see it like a dead cowboy town. The girls meet up with their club coach, You Mishimagi AKA Misshi for morning practice. Kotone has a crush on him while Asuna loves fantasizing the forbidden love between them. The club captain, the bespectacled Chitose Akiyama is a glutton. Third weirdo. The only thing she is good at is food and eating it. Her tennis skills suck. Big time. As good as she never joined the club. It’s amazing that she is the club’s president. But the club’s prodigy and genius goes to the enigmatic Kurusu Fuyukawa. By enigmatic, I don’t mean in a serious manner. She may look stoic and emotionless but you can’t really see what’s on her mind. She loves wearing very strange full body costumes and can do so in a flash. Despite all these, she is the best bet the club has if they ever want to make it to the next round. Still, that makes her weirdo number 4. So besides the introduction of the main characters, we see the girls doing some practice, some fanservice, more of Asuna’s fantasies, Chitose’s flop (she can’t even hit the ball once) and some soft tennis tips from Misshi (are we really interested in this?). All in the usual comical fashion that you will come to expect for this series. Whether it’s picking up balls (cue for Asuna’s fantasy to run wild), milking cow milk (what the heck has it got to do with tennis?), tennis balls that look like tasty daifukus (at least to Chitose), Kurusu throwing a daifuku to Chitose in which she instantly leap in her quick reflex to accurately grab it with her mouth (but she still misses every other ball shots), Kotone’s super jumping serve ace which ends in a fault and the tennis ball ended up stuck in Asuna’s racquet.

Episode 2
Kotone’s father runs a dojo. And with 20 guys lunging at her, they still can’t beat her. She takes them out with no sweat. Useless guys. Kotone calls Misshi early to school because she wants to have a special tennis training with him. He points out her bad habit of swinging her entire body when she swings her racquet. Kotone also tries tying the racquet to her feet as her unique style but that is against the rules. Asuna and Chitose see them both so close to each other that a certain pervert thought they already went so far together. Kurusu scares the daylights out of Kotone. Then they put fake boobs to make it up for her. You can see Kotone’s face lighting up over her sudden growth till the fakes drop out. When everyone gathers, Misshi has them train by hitting empty cans. Misshi demonstrates and is able to knock them all with ease. Wondering who this bugger is, the girls refer to a magazine and learn he was a former national soft tennis champion! All the girls start hounding Misshi to teach his special moves, beating Kotone to it. Because of that, Kotone takes out her frustration on the dojo guys. Asuna’s class gets a new transfer student from England: Elizabeth Warren AKA Eri. Sitting next to Asuna, the pervert learns she too plays tennis back in UK and invites her to join the club. With her in, that completes the weirdo quintet of Shiratama soft tennis club. Chitose thinks of coaching her but instead the power balance reversal with Eri surpassing her within an hour. Then when Misshi comes in, Eri instantly hugs him. Seems they know each other. When Misshi was part of the All-Japan soft tennis training camp at UK and stayed with Eri’s family. Eri’s return to Japan was stemmed by a promise they made: If she continued to love tennis after growing up, he’d do anything. Even marry her. The shock is too much for Kotone to bear so she beats the coach up and runs away. Flashback reveals how Kotone fell for Misshi. He invited her to join the tennis club since she was the top of her league in the karate class. Misshi advised that to continually stay at the top is unexpectedly tiring. If she wants to conquer a different summit as a challenger, feel free to join him. That was a year ago. So the same thing almost happened now. Only thing Misshi forgot what he wanted to say to her. Kotone’s blood boils easily, doesn’t she?

Episode 3
On a stormy day, Misshi gathers the girls to have a singles league because the next tournament is based on single matches and this is the perfect chance to get rid of their weakest link. Oh Chitose. You’re screwed. Actually he’s just joking. It’s to rank the members only. Haha. Everyone is burning with passion to be at the top. Competition is good, right? Though it starts raining, this doesn’t damper their spirits to play on. So we’ve got lots of antics like Chitose giving herself a handicap head start, a 5-minute rally between Asuna and Kotone (the wind is always blowing it back to Asuna), Kurusu being blown away to the sky, it’s raining fish (and shark!), Chitose riding a Japanese salamander naked (WTF?!) and a long streak of censor over the entire screen (WTFFFF???!!!). Once the storm gets too heavy, Misshi takes the girls down to a secret level beneath the school. Behind the giant metal sci-fi like door lies… A hotspring? So the girls soak in along with another teacher, Kyouko Miyoshi, take a sauna, ride a water slide (is this an amusement park too?), wash themselves clean and sleepover for the night. Feels like a training camp if you ask me. Oh, the pressurized water that Kurusu made with her hands caused a hole in the wall. It’s like a laser beam! Kotone thought she could drink a strawberry flavoured milk but it turns out to be something spicy. As they prepare for bed, the only pyjamas available are Kurusu’s weird costumes. I guess they would rather sleep naked rather than don those embarrassing outfits. Oh, it must be vegetables theme tonight. And I supposed Eri is the only one who takes after Kurusu’s weird fetish. They’re like a comical duo from now on. Due to the storm, nobody could sleep so they pass the time by practising their tennis. Misshi joins them and because they stayed up too late, they got reprimanded the next day for being late to school. Oh, as for the rankings: 1) Kurusu; 2) Asuna; 3) Eri; 4) Kotone; 5) Chitose. As expected.

Episode 4
The girls are going out to shop for soft tennis items with Misshi. Can you imagine all of them cramped into a car? So they borrow Miyoshi’s SUV. You can’t have an outing without ‘trouble’, right? See Kurusu fitting herself in a bag? See Kurusu and Eri trying out clothes that are over or under sized. As Asuna tries to get her dropped coin underneath a vending machine, Leo Amachi spots her and fell in love at first sight. Maybe it’s because of her panties rather than her angelic smile. He tries to strike up a conversation but it seems both of them are talking different things. As we know Asuna is here to find a new racquet but Leo misinterprets she’s here to find a new lover. Kotone thought she has found her dream racquet but she picks it up at the same time with Sumino Kiba. Both are hot-headed, both are stubborn, both aren’t giving it up. They learn Sumino and her captain Seriha Amamiya (I thought she look like a bug devil) are from Akadama Middle High School’s soft tennis club, their neighbouring school and powerful team that qualified for the prefectural tournaments every year. Kotone and Sumino continue to talk big about becoming champions so the only way is to settle it with a tennis match. Oh, Leo is Akadama tennis club’s manager. Kotone and Sumino are getting physical even before the match so Seriha tells them about some ancient Greek legend of how tennis came about. The word ‘te’ in tennis means hand because the used to hit the balls with only their bare hands. Wait a minute. Greeks know Japanese? Even if it was a load of crap, the stubborn ones believed her. Totally. Leo was made the referee and is in a dilemma to call which side is out. If he sides his team, he might lose Asuna and if he sides the opponent, he might get beaten up from his own. Eventually he screams out he wants them both to be happy. Eh? What? So the duo continue with their hard hitting moves complete with ridiculous techniques with equally ridiculous names and illusions. Just when they are to call it a draw and shake hands, Leo instantly gives them his massage as he believes this is to reduce muscle fatigue and for the body to stay in top condition. Well, he is so good with his hands that it may look something so stimulating… So good… So perverted. You can say he has God Fingers and comes from a family of famous masseurs. At the end of the day when the girls part and leave, Chitose feels that they are missing a few people. Yeah, Eri and Kurusu are doing some flower dance? WTF?! At least they got some money from their performance.

Episode 5
Misshi announces that they will be doing practice runs with Akadama since they offered a challenge. But they have no time for training because the match is tomorrow. Still that doesn’t stop them to do last minute tactics like the use of flashy moves to distract them. Asuna comes up with useless ideas of entertaining opponents, in-depth English study to make soft tennis a global appeal and a fashion show. Chitose then gives pointers to her mates (except for Kurusu who is perfect) on their weakness but she couldn’t do it for her own. Then she leaves for training in the mountains the salamander. Meanwhile Kotone gets irritated each time she sees Eri and Misshi together. So pissed that her Zero Gravity Lightning Lob sends the ball flying into the sky like a rocket and crashing down almost killing Misshi. Then she tries to impress him with her Ancient Dynamite Cut and almost murdered the coach. Luckily it was just a portion of his hair that got cut. While Kotone is upset about this fact, she thought she saw naked Chitose riding on a salamander like a wild horse. She’s chasing after her wild boar stew… Next day as the girls prepare for their match, they see how Akadama is really serious. They have a bunch of dedicated guys cheering out loud for the team and the number of members that could easily fill a football team. Since Sumino and Seriha are up first, this means Kotone and Asuna will be going up against them. Somebody wants to settle a grudge… Kurusu cheers them on with words, “If you die, there’ll be a replacement”. That’s not very supportive, isn’t it? Maybe it’ll work as reverse psychology.

Episode 6
As usual, Kotone and Sumino trade insults and taking big with their hyped confidence. The Akadama pair easily exploits of Shiratama duo’s weakness and earns an easy point. During time out, Misshi advises his girls, for Asuna ‘to show off her legs more’ (he meant running not being a sexy female panther) and Kotone not to get worked up and not use her brain but her instincts and play. With renewed motivation, Asuna and Kotone are able to make impressive comebacks to stun their opponents. However in the end, they still lose though it was a good fight. Meanwhile a girl comes rushing in to the tennis court. Actually ‘she’ is Leo cross-dressed as a girl, Leona. Is he defecting to Shiratama? I don’t know. Perhaps something to do for his one-sided love for Asuna. Next is Kurusu-Chitose pair. Chitose is confident that she brought something back to help for her game. My, THAT’S A GIANT RACQUET!!! You don’t need to even move to return any shots! But isn’t that legal in the first place?! They’ll be up against Azusa Mizumori and Ayaka Kazamada. Azusa unleashes her Seven Coloured Somethings (you see illusion of 7 balls) but was easily countered by genius Kurusu. And by Chitose because of her ridiculously big racquet. In the end, the big racquet turns out to be a big liability as the ball’s momentum was too powerful for Chitose to return, thus whacking her own head. With Chitose out means they lose the match by default. For the final game, Eri thought of pairing with Misshi but Leona offers to be her partner. They will be against Shouko Tsuchida and the very tall Shiho Nagumo (as found out, she wanted to be an actress). Leona’s reason for wanting to join the game is to show off to Asuna. Shouko sympathizes with Leona and gives ‘her’ an easy ball to take. When Leona does so, the wig came off. Leon shouts to Asuna if she had saw it all but his team noted they saw clearly everything that is happening. Prepare to face their wrath. At the end of the game, both sides shake hands over the practice match. Shiratama still dreams big of aiming to the top even though they lost all of their matches. But Seriha notes that an easygoing team like them might go further. As for Leo’s punishment, he is made to run back chasing after the bus.

Episode 7
The mysterious captain of Kurotama Middle School soft tennis club is asking her fellow club mate, Yura Hiratsuka to spy on the Shiratama soft tennis club girls. Yura happily accepts her assignment. Till she drools over that she’ll go as far as investigating their sexual desires and fetishes! Privacy invasion! Oh no. Another pervert. Yura’s job is going to be a tough one as she spies on Asuna reading a sex novel in class, Kotone’s super willpower to get up and finish her run (she was just acting), distracted by Chitose’s boobs, watching Eri do some voodoo doll curse as a love charm for Misshi and the mysterious Kurusu in a masked wrestling costume. Yura thought her presence was busted by Chitose but that dimwit thought she was interested in joining the club and invites her to look around. What an easy infiltration. Then meeting the members, she is made to put on a swimsuit outfit since they don’t have spare tennis clothes. This attracts the stares of the guys. The other girls also come back in swimsuits and Kurusu beats up the boys. Yura may get more than she bargained for when she gets hit by a returning serve and Chitose refusing to play with her citing she is not up to mark when we all know it’s an excuse to escape. Lastly, Yura ends up playing water with the girls. So when Yura returns with her report, all she has to say is to be thankful of the fun times. She sure enjoyed her stay, eh? Captain not happy… What was the point of this investigation again? Soon the Shiratama girls are happy to know they’ll be going on a training camp. But all that expectation of the clear blue sea by the beach and sunny skies came crumbling down when they start hiking deep into the mountains. Are they lost? Resting by a river that has unique attributes of a hotspring, they use stones as makeshift tubs to enjoy their bath. Suddenly they feel someone staring at them and even getting this weird feeling in the water. Turns out to be the salamander. Then as they prepare to leave, they encounter a giant bear. So huge that it’s taller than the trees! Kurusu fights it and it ends in a draw. So much so the bear acknowledges her and they shake hands. Did Kurusu just tame the wild beast? The bear gives them a ride to the training camp. The girls make their way to the tennis court but see the Akadama girls being beaten to a pulp. Seems the Kurotama captain, Misaki Shidou is disappointed that they couldn’t handle the warm up.

Episode 8
I don’t know. Akadama got beaten so badly that one of them was crushed into the ground. So deep till her butt is just showing up. One of them just the head sticking out. It’s like a war zone. But what is Kurotama doing here? Well, the mountain area belongs to them. So before even going through the prefecturals, they’re already at the ‘big boss base’. Oh, did I mention that Misaki is the current national champion? Shiratama is in real sh*t. Misaki invites to do several secret warm up training beneath the building. If they can pass it all, it means they have finished the warm ups without problems. But you’ll notice how the Shiratama girls breakthrough each one not with their sheer skills, but luck and coincidence. First test: Crashing Wave Dash to test strength and agility by jumping over hurdles; Breakthrough: Kurusu throws a daifuku for Chitose to crash through so the rest could run over with ease. Second test: Hand-eye coordination that will electrocute you if you don’t hit the ball at the sweet spot; Breakthrough: Asuna’s daydreaming perverted fantasy. Third test: Balance Heaven which has sitting on balance balls and bounce up the narrow path; Breakthrough: Kurusu dons the ball like one of her outfits and pulls the rest up like a train. Fourth test: Boobs Straining Hell is actually monkey bars; Breakthrough: The Shiratama girls start falling down and each grabbed onto the other’s leg till the last one pulled down Misaki’s panties and skirt. This has heart swing them away to the other end. Fifth test: Scorching Closet is just a hot sauna; Breakthrough: Just sit through for 20 minutes. With the trials over, Misaki hopes to get all the footage from Yura who was secretly filming them all. Unfortunately all she filmed are Misaki’s panty slip and cat ears… “Delete all that!”. Akadama has freshened up as they meet their Shiratama counterparts. As they prepare to sleep, they spot a kiddie-like futon which belongs to Misaki, though she denies. Yura is capturing footage of the girls frolicking in the room. She has been warned that if she films more unauthorized footage of her, she’ll end up in solitary confinement. I’m sure she would love to continue taking lewd photos and videos of her captain, eh? Better buck up this time. Then she accidentally took a footage of Misaki slipping on a banana slip (courtesy of Chitose) and revealing her private assets. Asuna and Leo talk outside and the latter finds the former more erotic than usual. Just his imagination? Elsewhere, Eri sees Misshi at the vending machine. She is happy to be with him now. To Kotone’s dismay, she sees them very close together. Close enough to kiss! In tears, she runs away. But actually Misshi was just trying to take off a civet that somehow crawled up Eri’s back. Asuna spots a very emotional Kotone. Because the way she ambiguously put it, Leo misinterprets something erotic must have happened to Kotone (notice the bloody background of the girls fighting each other?). Once it’s time to shut the lights, everyone cuddles up to Chitose because she feels warm. But she can’t breathe… Next morning, everyone is rudely awakened by distressed Asuna. She has found a note from Kotone that she has gone on a journey.

Episode 9
Seems there is a sophisticated tracking facility in this camp too! Is this an experimental lab or what?! Everyone is so infatuated with the place instead of listening to what Misaki has to say. They manage to locate Kotone but since they also detected Misshi close by, they think he went after her and everything will be okay. Kotone is still upset and her thoughts are so distracted that she falls off a cliff. Luckily Misshi grabs her hand. But he also falls off… Kotone throws a tantrum that she doesn’t want to go back because she saw him having fun with Eri. Misshi understood that she too wants to enjoy the flavours of an adult. Is Kotone ready for this? Well, he gives her a Haba-Peach drink. What was she hoping? What were we thinking? Still, she doesn’t want to go back because it’s embarrassing if she returns too quickly from her journey. Kotone is afraid of the scary ‘faces’ in the cave (somebody thought this was a short cut) so Misshi carries her all the way. As for the others, everyone has a practice match with Misaki. Sumino thinks it’s revenge time and unleashes her ultimate killer technique, Moratorium Jet Fire but Misaki counters that easily with her Invisible Counter. The ball vanishes and appears right before Sumino and blasts her through the wall and away into the sky. If the ball is faster than the speed of light, don’t you think Sumino would’ve been blown away even before they finished talking or noticed that the ball is ‘missing’? Then Ayaka. Not even Seriha’s flashy named Flower Under The 16th Night’s Moon, Azusa’s Ten People Ten Colours and Shiho’s Paparazzi Requiem could defeat Misaki altogether and they end up the same fate as Sumino. Misaki thought there was all to Akadama but I guess after seeing people being blasted away, Shouko stays quiet (she’s acting as the referee) and agrees that there are no more Akadama players left. Outside, Kotone thought there was a human cannonball competition after seeing a few people flying away. But Kotone tells Misshi that she has powered up. Which part? Her heart.

Meanwhile the Shiratama girls are having a rock-scissors-paper game to see who fights Misaki next. Why do they all end up the same hand? It’s a ploy to stall her because they don’t want to be the next victim. Because everybody else finally volunteered to be next, Asuna felt she too has to play her part and volunteers. But it’s a set up for her to go next. Of course Asuna is scared because she doesn’t know how many kilometres she’ll be blown away. To stem that fear, Kurusu pairs up with her and puts make-up on Asuna to increase her confidence as a female panther. But still they are no match for Misaki. Kurusu pulls off a sly tactic by using a salamander as a shield. Misaki knows she’ll be done for if she hurts this endangered species. Because of that, Asuna gets targeted and is sent flying away. However she is caught by Kotone who has just returned. Kotone pairs up with Eri as Eri asks her if she likes Misshi. She can’t say so Eri gets straight with her and admits she likes him. Kotone doesn’t want to lose out and tries to be straightforward too but got smacked by the ball in the face and sent flying into the sky. So Eri thanking Kotone was it because she admitted her love or she took the hit for her? So the final one is Chitose. Oh, doom befalls everyone. However Chitose has psyched herself to see the ball as chewy daifuku so that’s why she is able to grab them all with her teeth! Because this goes on for several rounds, Misaki got tired and her ball hit the net. Would you believe it? It was Chitose, the first one who scored the first point against Misaki. Everyone leaves for home at the end of the training stint (the giant bear really does make a good transport). Of course they vow to score real points next time they meet in the real tournament. To Misaki’s dismay, Yura is still videotaping everything on her to the point of mimicking her voiceovers. So it’s confirmed, the solitary confinement for her.

Episode 10
When Yayoi Hiragishi was young, she wanted to follow in the footsteps of her sister in soft tennis but onee-chan was killed in a car accident. Asuna-Kotone pair defeats Chitose-Kurusu pair in a soft tennis practice. Wait a minute. The Kurusu team lost? Unless Chitose is totally useless that even a soft tennis prodigy can’t help. Because they felt sorry that Eri is always being left out without a partner and doing referee duties, they decide to recruit more members. However, the way they recruit seems to be scaring everyone away. What’s with those space idol-like jackets? They spot Yayoi spying from afar and their desperate instincts have them chase after her like a wild animal. They corner her to a river and they thought she was desperate enough to jump in. Actually she slipped on a banana peel. Who throw that skin there? Yayoi is saved by the salamander. She mentions that it isn’t her that wants to join their club but her sister. Big sis was a student at Shiratama. Was? She died 2 years ago on her way to a soft tennis tournament. Yayoi has a little experience in the game so they invite her to try out and demonstrate her skills. Unfortunately she is no better than Chitose! Yeah, her experience meant 1 year of experience. Suddenly Yayoi starts doing shadow boxing. Is it part of her training? Well, the truth is she can actually see dead spirits. Oh sh*t! That’s why she moves like that to avoid them. Oh, there are spirits everywhere! Even at school! As Yayoi continues to practice, we can see how clumsy and slow. Suddenly her aura changes and she turns into an evil-like person!!! WTF?! WHO IS THIS?! This profanity spewing tough chick is Yayoi’s elder sister, Uzuki and you could say this girl has somewhat a split personality. When she changes to Uzuki, I thought she looked like Grell from Kuroshitsuji… When Yayoi returns to normal, she explains that Uzuki’s soul continue to live in her. She can’t go over to the other world till she has a shot with that tough opponent she’s supposed to play with on that tournament day. So this means the girls will have to take Yayoi/Uzuki along to their matches and if they screw this up, she’ll haunt their f*cking b*tching lives forever! OH SH*T! So this girl is going to be Eri’s new partner? Well, she doesn’t mind.

Miyoshi hands out test results to her class. Because she likes Asuna’s nice reply, she gets free 5 marks. Only thing is, she still fails her test. 15 points only? The other failure is Kotone and she is unfazed since her priority is the club not studying. However she has to start thinking of improving her grades when Misshi informs that the school will not allow those who fail their upcoming mid-terms to participate in tournaments. Remember Uzuki’s warning? Better buck up. So for some reason, the girls decide to use Misshi’s apartment to study. But first they have to clean up the bachelor’s filthy place. Causing more ruckus than anything. Especially when Kotone thought she touched his boxers, it actually belonged to Kurusu who purchased it at the 100 Yen Shop. Because Yayoi sees ghosts, I guess there are lots of them in Misshi’s place too, eh? The girls go through the numerous trophies Misshi won. But he just chucks them into a box. It’s like he has no respect for them. However he disagrees and says some of them are useful. Uhm… Why is he growing plants in them? Asuna sees a racquet with loose strings so Misshi explains this was the racquet that made him a champion. Though he lacks power and speed, he had accuracy but wasn’t good enough to go against big shots across the country. Everybody gets prepared to study so Chitose is willing to help them since this will be her last year and wants everyone participating in the tournament. However after seeing she can’t help them answer their questions, she changes her stand to say that they still have next year to participate. Late into the night, Misshi wants the girls to go home but they insist of staying. How did he agree? There are ghosts lurking in his place… The girls are surprised to see Shiki Nishioka coming in. She is the former soft tennis club’s president and to their surprise, she is Misshi’s cousin. And Kotone thought she was intimate enough to come over and cook for him. Shiki agrees to help Asuna and Kotone to pass their mid-terms. How? With instincts. She flips up all the books and randomly circles the pages. Then she tells them to remember the check marked parts. Oh my. Isn’t that just luck? And what do you know, everything she circled came out so the failures not only pass their mid-terms, they score a perfect 100! Shocking, eh? Next time I should just follow my guts too!

Episode 11
Again another training camp to focus on their teamwork. But this time it will be the Shiratama girls. I guess they want to make up for last time so bad that the training camp this time will be at the beach. Bikinis, sand, sun and fun. So where is the training actually? As Chitose points out, it’s about taking a break from training and refreshing your mind in preparation for the main event. So it’s like killing 2 birds with 1 stone because you’re levelling up and relaxing at the same time. Sounds neat but feels more like an excuse. As the girls prepare to dig in their BBQ lunch, they don’t see Yayoi around. Misshi spots her at the cliff alone and decides to call her. However he sees her talking to a spirit of a dead fish and changes his mind! After this, I guess he got so spooked that he went on a journey to visit different temples. All 88 of them! Kotone and Asuna have a series of competition but Kotone tops them all. Kurusu notes that her athletic performance heavily depends on her mood. Kotone teases Asuna to try harder or she can’t be her partner at this rate. Meanwhile Chitose returns with a giant shark! Ingredients for New Year? On the drive back home, everyone falls asleep except for Asuna and Miyoshi (she’s at the wheel). Asuna feels they’ve forgotten somebody. Yeah, they left behind Yayoi and she’s still talking to the dead fish spirit!

Back in Shiratama, Kotone’s words are affecting Asuna that she’s been slipping up a lot in practice. She is worried that she is not up to par as Kotone so much so she didn’t see a racquet coming her way (it slipped out of Chitose’s hand. Don’t ask). The racquet hits bulls eye at Asuna’s head and though the good news is that she didn’t die, the bad news is that she can’t remember who her mates are. Temporary loss of memory, eh? Kotone thinks her body may not have forgotten about soft tennis but it seems she totally does when Asuna plays the racquet and the ball like a circus monkey. They need her to regain her memories before the tournament so Kurusu has a chair that will jog her memories. Besides doubling up as a massage chair, it also sends shocking (literally) electric currents through Asuna. Is she screaming in pain? Asuna is sent back into her memories, the day she enters Shiratama as a first year. Many clubs were recruiting newbies but Asuna felt she wanted to join a club that can polish her feminity. Till she saw Chitose from the soft tennis club in her underwear. I guess that settles it. Yeah, Shiki thought such brilliant idea will attract members. They’ve got lots of perverted stares from the guys. What more a pervert like Asuna. Yeah, the first thing she did to join the club was to pull down her skirt! This club only attracts weirdoes. Soon, Kotone joins in for some personal reason of her own. The newbies are given the basic training by Chitose (seriously can she?) but Shiki doesn’t give them any since she would prefer them to practice by themselves and do whatever they want. She believes each one has their own style and if there were 100 people, there would be 100 different styles. Shiki observes that though they are weird, with more power and effort they should improve in no time. At the end of the day, Shiki announces that Asuna and Kotone will be a pair since she has her hands full with Chitose. But Kotone doesn’t want to play doubles and prefers to go alone. And if Asuna wants a partner, she’ll have to find another one. In present time, Asuna continues screaming… I wonder how long has it been.

Episode 12
Naturally the chair overheats and explodes. What do you expect? Because of that Asuna ends up in coma in hospital. Her flashback continues. Asuna is down and really thinks Kotone is really bent on going solo since the latter is asking if she has found a partner yet. Though they still practice together, Kotone’s powerful shots has her always hitting it out. Kotone thought Asuna was holding back while serving a weak shot but as told she always gives her best. She doesn’t believe it and will gladly teach her how to use her full strength in exchange for learning how to hold back. They practice so hard till it’s nightfall. On their way home, Asuna asks one more time if she would like to be her partner since she couldn’t think of anyone else. This was the first time she had so much fun that she lost track of time. She is sure it’s because of her. But Kotone still wouldn’t change her mind. In present time, Akadama members and Misaki pay Asuna a visit. Leo wanted to wake her up with his God Fingers but was taken away. Sumino is worried that Kotone doesn’t have much time to find a partner before the tournament. So Kotone remembers how Asuna was bloody persistent in asking her to be her partner. Yeah, she popped up just about anywhere. Shiki notices this and persuades Kotone to pair with Asuna against a handicap match with her. During the game, the pair got into each other’s way while being awed by Shiki’s amazing power. Kotone gets frustrated when she can’t return a single shot so Shiki tells her that what she’s doing is just gambling. All she does is rush to get the ball and if she hits it, how many points is she willing to lose? To put it bluntly, she may have athletic abilities but have no talent for tennis. Kotone is shocked by her words. Back to the hospital, Kotone continues to stay by Asuna’s side. Chitose feels that if Asuna doesn’t wake up in time for the tournament, she wants Kotone to pair with Eri. However Kotone says that if Asuna isn’t her partner she can’t do it.

More flashbacks as after that scathing remark, Kotone goes into overdrive training mode. Shiki meets Asuna to tell her she knows Kotone’s fault and that a partner is something of an equal relationship like a master and slave. Hope she didn’t get the wrong idea. Shiki wants them to play the same handicap game with her again tomorrow. As they start, Kotone starts losing confidence when she still couldn’t return a single shot. Shiki adds to Kotone’s misery by saying that only Asuna’s shot landed in her court even if it’s far from perfect. And since Kotone can’t even return a single ball, she doesn’t feel like this is a handicap at all. She confirms Kotone has no talent and will make them both single players tomorrow. To add salt to injury, Shiki says she won’t tell her to quit the club seeing she is serious but since she can’t let a useless player go up, she’ll just make her a bench warmer. Seeing Kotone crying, Asuna steps in for her and requests Shiki continue their game. She extents her hand to Kotone and imparts words of confidence. Kotone misses another shot but Asuna has got her back covered. It doesn’t matter how many times she fails, if they combine their strength, they can win. Shiki notices the teamwork between the girls and notes what she said to Kotone was only true if she was a singles player. With a partner that covers up her weaknesses, she’ll have unlimited potential. A player with wild beast instincts and a technical player who backs her up may seem like an odd combination but there isn’t a better pair if they know what they’re doing. Though in the end they still fail to land a single shot, Kotone agrees to become Asuna’s partner. With that, Asuna wakes up in hospital and has her memories intact. Kotone is so relieved that she hugs her so tightly that she could’ve killed her for real. Later both girls assert their togetherness and will move forward with their best. I don’t know why they keep the chair in the club room but the electricity is still running so it causes a chain electric shock for the girls when they touch it. So shock that could they have seen the future? Hmm… Looks like a pretty dramatic supernatural movie-like preview. Which of course will not happen!

These are actually short clips you get when you buy the DVD lasting around 3 minutes. It’s about the girls soaking in the indoor hotspring underneath the school while they chat about. Naked. The first one has them talking about the time Asuna was in coma. They note a mad bull came rampaging into the ward where she was. It is revealed it is her cow Hanako that she grew up with. Her mom tasked her of taking care of it but as soon Hanako grew bigger than her, their roles got reversed. The second special sees Kotone talking about her life growing up at the karate dojo. She practiced hard so she could be as strong as her dad who could take down bears. She won every competition undefeated and asked her dad if she could win if she fought a bear. He didn’t answer but smiled. Frustrated, she increased her training to the extent of going around picking fights with livestock. WTF?! With no true opponents, she was beginning to doubt herself when a ‘witch’ appeared before her and hand her a book with instructions on how to become strong. Turns out to be a ninja manga and she did test out one of the moves. To stand on water. Didn’t work of course. Chitose is supposed to tell her story in the third special but she wouldn’t reveal it and the rest are pretty much occupied with her big boobs. I wonder how many times they need to change the hotspring water each time Asuna goes into a nose bleeding frenzy. Kotone notes that around a year ago Chitose’s boobs weren’t that big. In fact it was flat like them. Eri starts pressing it and feels it’s as soft as pudding. I guess now it’s Asuna’s turn as she starts fondling Chitose’s boobs and wants to know her secret. Chitose is already knocked out in the fourth special. I think it’s not because of the heat but a certain people playing her boobs. Kurusu is supposed to tell her story next but she passed. Yayoi volunteers but the girls are surprised she could talk! Hasn’t she all the long? They even had some whispering discussion and when her aura turned scary, they relent. Seems this morning, Yayoi and Eri went on a day trip to several places and saw several ‘things’ like a Nessie-look-a-like (is that just finger shadow?), ‘two things’ connected by chains, some elephants and a park with bodyguards in strange outfits.

Chitose is already knocked out by the heat in the fifth special. Kurusu thinks of using this chance to do something dastardly. When she returns with a Dracula cape, behold! Beneath it, her boobs have magnificently matured!!! So much so it sends Asuna into a nose bleed frenzy. I think the water will be tainted at this rate…. Hey, even Liz and Yayoi sport big boobs now! WTF is happening?! Kurusu starts explaining about human evolution and pheromones. Yawn… We’re here to see boobs not hear your theories on them! So what she’s trying to say is that big breasts are essential to catch a man’s attention. Kotone gets pissed off with her explanation but Kurusu points out to her own big boobs. Woah. Now Kotone too has them. While she seems ecstatic, she realizes she hates this piece of junk and tears off the fake boobs. It landed on top of Chitose’s boobs as the girls note its resemblance. Double pair of boobs… Continuing in the sixth special, Chitose wakes up to realize that the girls have their boobs matured. Except for Kotone. She assures them that everyone has their own growth rates but the way she confidently says that pisses Kotone off. It’s like she’s bragging. Then realizing the fake boobs, she has a feel of it and finds it familiar. Kurusu explains that they are perfectly reproduced silicone boobs replicated from Chitose’s. Realizing Asuna is still drowning, Kotone goes to save her. Because Kurusu is fooling around over her, Kotone throws the fake boobs at her but lands on Asuna. When she wakes up, she notices her boobs grown big and starts fantasizing her horny delusions. Oh no. Another nose bleed bonanza. Just when you thought she is revived, here she goes dying again and dyeing the water redder. On to serious stuff, Chitose reminds them the tournament is in a week and though the girls get motivated to do their best and win. Time to get out of the bath and practice, eh? Chitose suddenly felt the extreme pressure. I guess she’s the one who has to work the hardest.

Soft Porn Tennis
So this is how it ends? Not very much, isn’t it? Very much of the series sees the odd and eccentric characteristics of the Shiratama soft tennis club girls and their misadventures. Nothing more. Heck, the supposed tournament hasn’t even start. It was never the focus of this series anyway. Therefore don’t expect to see it raking up to triple digit number of episodes like a certain tennis anime counterpart, each complete with their own special, flashy and impossible-to-pull-off-in-real-life moves and the tougher opponents they will fight that will eventually become their friend. Should this series be like a shonen genre? That’s why if you’re expecting all those, you might find yourself totally disappointed and thus it is better if you lose yourself in the wacky silliness this short series has to offer.

Having said that, it is pretty much the characters that make up for the story and plot of this show. But judging from the way it went, there wasn’t any deep character development besides the series ending with how Asuna and Kotone came to become inseparable pairs. The characters basically were the same as they were at the start of the series. Asuna is the ever perverted girl who wants to strut her feminine by any means so much the simplest misunderstanding could mean something perverted and sexy for her. She should’ve been a porn artist with such a creative mind. Sometimes I feel when she starts having those perverted fantasies, she reminds me of Maria+Holic’s disgusting lesbian, Kanako. It felt like she could burst into that nose bleeding lesbian just about any time. The only other pervert second to her is Yura if not for her crazy obsession over Misaki. Better watch out over your shoulders. Should’ve kept her in solitary confinement forever. Kotone dreams big and talks big but whether she’ll achieve her dream or not is another matter. Besides, she won’t achieve her dream of playing in Wimbledon. You already know why. If Kurusu was a genius, why hasn’t she been scouted by the national soft tennis people? Maybe her weird outfits are a turn off? Where does she get them by the way? The rate she wears those costumes, she could win the speed changing cosplay competition.

Chitose is still the lousy player from day one and she has never hit a ball. That one using the over sized racquet doesn’t count. She should’ve been in some food club or something. Her enormous appetite and love for food could be on par with Monkey D. Luffy. On second thought, it is better she did not stay in a food club or else she’ll eat up the world’s resources. See how determined she was when she was chasing down the wild boar for her stew? I was expecting a love triangle between Eri and Kotone over Misshi but even if that jealousy thing did happen for a moment, it lost momentum and never returned. So are they still love rivals in this area in the end? The love relationship for Leo and Asuna didn’t materialize too. Simply because it’s just one way and that guy just simply went ahead and assumed everything. Yayoi as the new member came too late and about after 3/4 of the series has passed. So it feels like she has no impact on the show. Like a ghost. Mind the pun. Badass Uzuki could’ve brought more hell to the club if she had appeared more. After all, the Shiratama soft tennis club only attracts weirdoes. That’s why in my theory if they should go into the tournament and play the usual way they are, they may surprise some big names and even landing the championship title. Not only their weird antics but their close knit friendship as well. Okay, maybe not so close but at least they treasure each other’s friendship and trust to work as a team when it matters most.

The Akadama soft tennis clubs members are equally as quirky as the Shiratama counterparts but just that they aren’t given more prominent screen time. Heck, this show is about the Shiratama girls, right? Though being just a practice match, it is the first and only real soft tennis match ever shown in this entire series (I consider the one with Misaki to be just a handicap practice game). Even that lasted for just about an episode. Which is much better than lasting for several episodes for a group match, right? Fast, funny and fun. Misaki may be last year’s national champion but she too is a girl beneath that exterior. So if we can take away that armour and expose some of her girly side, I guess anybody can take the crown from her. At first I thought the Hanako gag was going to be apparent at each end of the episode. Before the episode ends, Asuna will always be awakened by her mom in the middle of the dead night to find and secure Hanako who has somehow gotten herself loose. This gag stopped when the first training camp commenced and after that just to be safe, Asuna tied up Hanako to avoid her nightly wandering! Should’ve done that a long time ago. Besides Hanako, I feel the salamander seems to be another mascot of the series and Chitose’s ‘best friend’. It’s an endangered species in Japan after all.

I need to mention something about the fanservice. Yes, you have your typical panty shots zooming in and all but the annoying thing are the censors. But it’s not like the censorship is doing a good job anyway and it feels like they are doing a half baked job. Some scenes you will see the censors covering the girl’s ass. Then in other scenes the censor is absent and you can have a good view without any obstruction. It’s like as though that scene slipped through the hands of the censors who were probably half asleep while editing on what to censor. It’s like musical chairs being played. Each of the Shiratama girls has their own unique animal as their censor. It is always the cow censor that covers Asuna as with the salamander for Chitose and the bear for Kotone. I’m not sure if Eri’s one is a moth, butterfly or some bug. Sometimes you don’t need to pull off any flashy moves just for the fanservice. Get what I mean?

I’m not sure if Kanae Itou has been stereotyped to play perverted girls role. After that obsessed squid lover Sanae in Shinryaku! Ika Musume and the skirt flipper Saten in To Aru Kagaku No Railgun, is it any wonder if she plays Asuna here? Aki Toyosaki is very identifiable as Yura. If she was that airhead Yui in K-ON!, now she’s an obsessive pervert as Yura. And she sounds very convincing when she starts drooling about Misaki… Sayuri Yahagi is the voice behind Eri and I find her trying to make a foreigner trying to speak Japanese with an accent a little odd. It’s understandable that there will be some accent when British tries speaking Japanese but when her character says some English lines, it’s like as though there is some Japanese ‘Engrish’ accent to it too. So it’s a wonder if she’s trying too hard or on purpose. It’s not like she sounded like that in her other roles such as Suzu in Seitokai Yakuindomo, Miyoshi in Bakuman and the titular character in Karin. Other casts include Eri Kitamura as Kotone (Rin in Kodomo No Jikan), Satomi Akesaka as Kurusu (Chrome in Kateikyoushi Hitman Reborn), Shizuka Itou as Chitose (Hinagiku as Hayate No Gotoku), Haruka Tomatsu as Yayoi/Uzuki (Lala in To Love-Ru), Ayahi Takagi as Shiki (Otome in Da Capo II), Minako Kotobuki as Misaki (Tsumugi in K-ON!), Marina Inoue as Sumino (Kana in Minami-ke series), Kokoro Kikuchi as Seriha (Akito/Agito in Air Gear TV series) and Miyuki Sawashiro as Leo (Shinku in Rozen Maiden).

This series didn’t get me interested in the world of tennis after all. After seeing how a bunch of weirdoes going about, I am more inclined not to even pick up the sport. Not even if they include lots of teasing fanservice as eye candy treat. Would that constitute disrespect to the sport? Heck, Asuna’s delusions may be causing a great disservice to the game itself already. Like in every sport and team games, it takes a lot of effort, determination, teamwork and trust to be the best, the cream of the crop. But if you are like this bunch of jokers and misfits, luck would definitely help. Lots of it. Hope they don’t turn it into a freak show and sully the reputation of the game while they’re at it. Out, 40-love, game over.