Should girls let guys deal with putting away their laundry?
What They Say:
Akiko asks Akito for help changing her light. Akito has his hands full maintaining the dorm, from fixing the plumbing to repairing the doors. The girls have differing opinions over allowing Akito to take in the laundry. Akito helps Anastasia settle in.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With things in the dorm having settled down a bit now that we’ve gotten to know the very basics of the characters, we get to see a little more of how life goes. For Akito, it’s definitely a mixed bag of a gig as he has a good place to live, good friends and now his sister as well. The downside is that he has to do most of the repairs, maintenance and chores for keeping the place functional. Which isn’t too bad in and of itself, but the girls can take advantage of that in different ways for their own pleasure. It’s not horrible, but when you have someone like Akiko and her brotherly affections coming into play, she uses these simple chores as a way to really enjoy watching him do things for her that he has to do. Like changing the light builb.
The first half of the episode deals with some of this and then veers to an unusual situation in which we see Akito helping out by bringing in the laundry. The girls laundry. There’s mixed reaction to it overall on the part of the girls, but Akiko is totally against it since she wants it to be on her terms when he gets to see her underwear while others are just noting that he’s only interested in underwear when they’re dirty. You have to laugh at it at first, but it just goes on longer than it should and doesn’t really go anywhere noteworthy. Which is unfortunate since it had a good spark to it at first.
The second half largely focuses on Anastasia and gives us some good time between her and Akito as he helps her out in her room a bit and gets to know her personality a little bit more. Or at least it’s made a bit clearer to the viewer. The amusing part comes later on when, while Akito and Akiko are having lunch together, she sits squarely between them and asks him plainly to be her boyfriend while declaring in deadpan style that she loves him. Akito handles it well bit Akiko is just stunned at first and then gets into a high pitched screaming fit that wears her out. It is hysterical watching her react to everything and finding her reactions being ineffectual at changing what’s going on. Anastasia treats it all seriously and even gets Akiko in on the fun for a minute. While parts of the episode were a bit flat in general, this segment more than makes up for it.
In Summary:
OniAi continues to be an “against my better judgment” series in terms of liking it because it feels like I shouldn’t. Yet I do. It’s silly, sexy in a stupid way and deals with a brother-complex in a way that makes me laugh far more than I expected. I’m still not hugely keen on some of the girls, but Anastasia gets the real focus here and comes across well with some very fun moments and Akiko is forced to deal with them in a way that left me in stitches. It’s an empty comedy in a way but it’s making me grin and laugh, so it’s succeeding in its goal.
Grade: B
Streamed By: FUNimation
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.
