Have faith in the power of chewing gum to drive away evil spirits. And chocolate will show the path forward to the future.
What They Say:
Episode 8: “Super Scary Story Gum, Typhoon, and…/Kendama, Popping Fortune-Telling Chocolate, and…”
Kokonotsu and the gang are cooped up in Shikada Dagashi due to a typhoon. So To starts telling scary stories to liven things up. On a separate occasion, To tells Kokonotsu that he’s been researching how to become popular among girls.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This is a slower and less frenetic episode and it may be that the comedy, at least for me, suffers a bit for it. While we all have different tastes in humor, this show has scored most of its laughs from me by going for the absurd or the ridiculous, fueled by the energetic insanity of Hotaru. So, it probably did not bode too well that we started with a couple of fairly typical summer ghost stories told by To Endo while the gang were all huddling inside Shikada Dagashi during a typhoon. The ghost stories he told were pretty much of the sort you expect from “ghost stories told in a darkened room during the summer,” a staple of anime/manga storytelling (one of the classic seasonal events that regularly appear). That Saya would be scared of the tales while Hotaru would be oblivious (Kokonotsu did not get scared because Saya did) was a given.
Overall, the problem with this episode was that there was just a bit too much focus on the less-interesting Endo sibling. The more that we see To in action, the less we really need to do so. The second half of the episode largely consisted of To vainly attempting to teach Kokonotsu about what will make guys like them popular with girls, a vain endeavor because To himself has no real knowledge of the subject. He tries to convince Kokonotsu that kendama, the old hammer-string-ball game thing (if you have been watching anime or reading manga for some time, you’ve seen and know what I’m talking about) is what is really popular among urban “hip-hop” youth at the moment…which even Kokonotsu doesn’t buy. It comes up, however, since it is still one of the old-fashioned novelty toys that a dagashiya would still sell, even if Kokonotsu notes that his store hasn’t sold one since he was a child.
We move back to candy as To turns to another attempt to show off his “knowledge” of girls and what is popular among them with fortune-telling chocolate. While fortune telling does appear to be a staple of fashion magazines aimed at teens and young women, the fortune telling in this case is uninteresting since it is To’s fortune that is offered to us. That his big wish of the moment is to see a girl’s panties…just shows you how limited and boring a character To is in the end. That the show does not fully give into the desire (there is a hint and a suggestion, but no full panty shot appears) yet spends so much time talking about it mainly serves to reinforce how lacking in range To is. As an occasional walk-on extra to divert attention or throw in a short gag, he has a role to serve. But from this outing, it’s clear that To is incapable of holding an episode by himself.
So, this episode reinforces the feeling that Hotaru, for better or for worse, is the real driving force to the show. Kokonotsu and Saya might each be able to hold up to leading the action for an episode, but To really is not up to the task. His personality and character as written and designed is just too one-dimensional to provide more than one gag that might spark a laugh per episode. Trying to have To drive an entire installment forward simply is not possible.
In Summary:
Being stuck indoors during a typhoon leads to scary stories that are not really all that scary, since they were created by gum candy company employees. They still scare Saya, naturally. Then To turns to fortune-telling chocolate in order to peer into the future and also attempt to take a peek up…well, up somewhere we cannot see. A lackluster episode which shows that the real humor is almost completely dependent upon Hotaru and her weird antics. When they are not present, it just is not as funny.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 12GB RAM, Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite
