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Impressions:

It’s time like this that I’m glad I haven’t read the manga. The episode was immensely funny and I’m sure I wouldn’t have been laughing as much if I had read everything beforehand. Aya Hirano also appeared! I mean the character she voices, Sanae Nakajima, the class representative and the girl who seems to like Koushi (and he seems to like her back). Some people are saying Hirano’s voice doesn’t suit the studious type that Sanae seems to be, though I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. Maybe it’s because people have gotten used to Hirano = Haruhi, and therefore all the characters she voices must be eccentric and outspoken like lord Haruhi-sama. Well, so far I’ve seen two series this season with Aya Hirano, and they are this show + Busou Renkin (Death Note doesn’t count as Misa hasn’t appeared yet – oh and I might be watching Galaxy Angelune too, since the sub is out). Out of those two, the Hirano here definitely sounds more like Haruhi…hey wait, why am I going into SHnY now? Meh…

So far, both the first episode and this one have been 100% humour-oriented, but now it seems like the last of our main characters is about to appear (main characters going by the ones displayed on the Sumomomo Momomo official site). She is Iroha Minamoto, probably one of those zodiac warriors or whatever trying to kill Momoko and Koushi. However, it seems like she’s gonna transfer to those two’s school. With this assassin thing brewing, it looks the story is going into more martial arty stuff, which hopefully will make the series much more interesting while retaining its comedy. At first, I though the one who Aya Hirano would be voicing was Iroha, as she seemed like the energetic type, but of course with the appearance of Sanae this episode, that is obviously wrong. I hope she keeps her character though (sometimes, characters start off with a distinct personality with a strong position in the story, but this whittless away over time).

Anyway, like I said before, this episode was funny. No, not just funny, it was comedy gold – I found myself re-watching scenes just to give myself enough time to calm down after laughing so hard. Even though a lot of the humour was easily predictable, if you just don’t try to guess them, you’ll have a good time. Momoko owning the PE teacher at whatever he did was the main thing, but there were other hilarious moments as well. Momoko’s transfer and near slip-up was, as well as Koushi’s deformed jaw face when he was pissed were some of the better laughs. Apart from the comedy though, I really want to see some more zodiaz animal vs zodiac animal in the future. Even though it probably isn’t intentional, I find the fights interesting and pretty funny in themselves. I wonder whether Koushi will gain any strength later on or if he remains the weakling he is. Maybe he has some hidden power that will awaken when he is truly aggravated or something…

Plot Outline:

- Momoko once again tries to get Koushi into bed with her, this time by pleading, but he rejects her as always
- Koushi’s father interrupts, wanting to train his son, but he refuses
- Momoko asks his father to train her instead and the two start going at it inside the house
- At school, Sanae makes her first appearance and we immediately know that she and Koushi like each other, but haven’t had the guts to confess to each other yet
- Momoko transfers to Koushi’s class (devastating Koushi of course)
- After having some fun with Momoko and Koushi, they proceed to PE class where their teacher is jealous of Koushi (since he is very popular with the girls)

- The teacher has a timed race in a 50m run to show everyone how much better he is than the student
- However, Momoko skips by the teacher as he is running at full speed, achieving 50m in an impossible 3 seconds
- The teacher then challenges Momoko to all sorts of events but loses all of them
- The final challenge is to jump up the side of the school, which Momoko does with the help of her dragon
- While all this happening, the gangsters from last episode try to get their (soft, poetry-reading) boss to teach Momoko a lesson, but in the end nothing gets done when they witness Momoko’s ‘dragon jump’
- When Momoko and Koushi get home, his father tells them that they are being targeted by assassins
- Elsewhere, two masked people are standing atop some high place, overlooking the city…
- (One of them is Iroha!)

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