Never trust the Professor to bring the laundry in when it starts to rain is a good life lesson.
What They Say:
Yukko tries her best to teach Mio. Sakamoto and the Professor have a fight. And we witness a high level, no hold barred game of Igo Soccer.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I will admit that while Helvetica Standard does not appeal to me in terms of the stories and gags they run with, it is a segment that often has some of the most fascinating styles of anime used for it. The opening to this episode does just that with a curious little action parody/homage piece that really shows once again just how versatile the crew here is and how beautifully they can capture so many different things. While I may not care for what they’re conveying most of the time, I can definitely appreciate the visual beauty and diversity of it all and am generally glad that they’re a part of the show.
The show has a lot of variety to this episode right from the start, from a cute segment with some of the lesser known girls trying to do something different but failing to the guy that does the daifuku promotions wearing the large mask on his head. Seeing that he has a tiger’s head underneath it is hilarious and watching him go through his time as a newbie on the job is definitely surreal. Yuko and Mio have some good time together as well as Yukko is trying to teach her to jump the bar for the gym class. Yukko’s pretty good at it while Mio has a lot of problems as she can’t quite get it. She’s not poor at athletics, but as she says, she just gets out of control when she really does them and ends up going in all sorts of unusual directions. There’s a great little montage of them that’s pretty priceless and really makes you feel for Mio and her desire to try and do them right.
We do get some good material involving the Professor and her gang, especially right from the start of it where she ends up knocking over the laundry while trying to bring it in as it rains. There’s the usual comedy with it but it’s just adorable where the Professor is almost ready to cry over it when Nano gets back and Sakamoto panics about it all in general. The episode does go a little unusual with its final main piece as it deals with a few of the boys and a curious use of Go pieces, but it has a great visual look to it and simply reminded me of Hikaru no Go which made me smile. But it also goes into what you could conceive of as an action scene for this series. The show does unusual things often, and slightly surreal many times, and this is just one more of them that really stands out.
In Summary:
My Ordinary Life hits some good fun here with this episode but lacks something to make it a very good episode. The early scenes involving Yukko and Mio were a great deal of fun and I particularly liked all the Professor material in the middle here. Even the last segment was a good bit of fun though it made no sense. But like the sports piece at the start, it’s one of the few times the show has gone for an “action” feel and their take on it is positively enjoyable through and through. The smaller bits of comedy throughout the episode work well, but nothing really stood out as hugely enjoyable. It’s doing its smaller slice of life style gags here and it works, but just not the kind where you’re doubling over with laughter at it. It certainly doesn’t derail the series, but it makes you smile and hope that we’re back to the bigger laughs soon. Do make sure to watch the ending though as the new song over the same animation truly gives it a surreal feeling.
Grade: B
Simulcast By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
