What They Say:
The club follows Ponoka to learn the secrets to her awesomeness.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Just when you think this group of kids can’t get any weirder, you get to see Ponoka turn into a sprinkler. Because nobody really knows that much about her, the gang follows her to see what she’s like on her own and it’s full of rainbows and animals. Which doesn’t help much in the end since Mai and Ai are still the same goofballs and incompetents as always as they ramble on about nothing. But when they come across her the next day, you have to laugh as Ponoka is completely empty of personality, having sprinkled it all out the day before, not that the kids thinks that’s what it is. From one isolated tangent to the next…
The tenth episode doesn’t have anywhere to go but up after that, at least you hope so, as the trio deals with the strangeness of having a dog at school. Reasons don’t need to exist here, it’s just something that is and it has some cute moments as we see the way dogs help people all around the world, leading Mi to come up with a plan to bring about world peace. Not that they think it through in the slightest of course, but that’s half of the stupid fun that the series is, such as when they release dozens of stray dogs into the city at large so they can provide happiness. Which they do anything but, and the girls have a whole “oh well” kind of attitude about it.
In Summary:
While there are some cute bits to the two episode overall, especially the way they walk for three days and end up in New Jersey, both stories are basically full of the usual kinds of weirdness. Well, the ninth episode is a little less “clear” than usual as it deals with Ponoka, but there’s still that sense that it’s just an anything goes kind of show that doesn’t quite go all that far and just does weird things for the sake of weirdness. In a batch of very fun short form shows this season, Ai Mai Mi continues to be the weak link in the chain.
Grade: C-
Streamed 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.
