I notice some of you guys read my posts for shows you don’t even watch. For those readers, then, I’ll just include a brief plot summary at the start of every post so there’s a bit more context to work with. For the rest, the plot summary will be short enough to be skipped pretty easily.

Sukitte Ii na yo.

Plot summary: Mei sort of guilt trips Yamato into adopting a kitten. Yamato then convinces Mei to come visit the cat. When she gets there, she meets Yamato’s imouto, who just happens to be very protective of her oniichan. Mei learns that the imouto has had trouble making friends, so she relates her own similar experiences from before she met Yamato. They bond.

• Like an amuse bouche for your heartstrings, the opening has a poor, abandoned black cat in a box. On the one hand, cats are usually resilient enough to live on the own, especially in the suburbs of Japan. Plus, the cat got a box! C’mon anime, the heartstrings ain’t gonna pluck themselves.

• Mei’s afraid the cat would be taken to a shelter if she leaves it in the park. I assume she thinks the shelter will also put the cat down if no one adopts it, because that’s the only reason why you’d be afraid of animal shelters. Around here, we have no-kill shelters though so… again, you’re not working my heartstrings enough!

• “He’s desperately crying for help.” I’m not hearing anything. :I

• By the way, we have two show now where one of the protagonists finds an animal and wants to take it home. But between the chicken in Kaibutsu-kun and some black cat, I’m going to go with the chicken.

• Oh god, they got a cat that hasn’t even been litter box-trained by its mother. Also, I’ve never seen anyone excited to see a cat poop. Cat poop is the worst, man. Funny factoid time: Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite in cat poop. Toxoplasmosis is the disease you might develop if you somehow get Toxoplasma gondii in you. When rats somehow ingest cat poop, the parasitic disease makes rats attracted to cats. The disease itself has been linked to depression and schizophrenia in humans as well, so some people speculate that the crazy cat lady trope is the result of the owner somehow ingesting cat poop. Well, the more you know!

Yeah, I’ll bet he does!

• Oh that devilish Yamato: I bet he got the cat to lure Mei to his home. One pussy for an-… so anyway, Mei naturally freaks out when she realizes the implications of going to a boy’s house (so hazukashii, ne~). Good ol’ shoujo beats.

• I’ll give Sukitte credit for one thing: Yamato’s home is big, but realistically big for Japan. In a lot of shows, the guy is so insanely rich, he lives on this massive estate with fountains and marbled statues or some shit. On the other hand, once again, we have the rich boyfriend trope. Yawn.

• Man, Yamato’s imouto’s a bitch.

• Uguu, m-my first time in a boy’s room… big fucking deal.

• “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do” sounds innocent enough, until it’s followed up by, “But your other lips are telling me otherwise!” Nuh uh, mister, I know what you’re up to.

• Dude has fucking loveseat in his bedroom. Mei can’t even walk five feet without tripping (and dropping her poor cat).

• You wouldn’t do anything she doesn’t want, huh?

Yep.

• Haha: “Mei, I can smell you.” “D-do I stink?”

• What’s with all the creepy, possessive imoutos in anime? Even in shoujos too. Ridiculous.

Most sisters I know don’t give a damn whether or not their brothers date, but y’know, anime. In fact, they’re more likely to tease their brothers more than anything.

• Oh god, even the creepy, possessive imouto has a sob story. WHY WON’T ANYONE BE MY TOMODACHI? I’d be a lot more fun if she turned into a giant spider tank and lobbed explosive macarons at Mei or something.

• “Her room’s amazing. It’s full of her creations.” Yeah, and I’ll bet they’re all named after you.

• You know how the imouto doesn’t like Mei, right? How do stories often get two people to get along? By leaving them alone together, of course. So what does Sukitte do? Nakanishi calls Yamato out of nowhere, and goes “Dude, you have to come pick up this gift I bought you.”

• As an anime girlfriend, you are either a max-level cook or completely terrible at it that you screw up cookies. No in-between.

• Anyway, Mei and the imouto connect, and so the rest of the episode is a bore… so on to a different show!

Final word: Saccarhine as all hell.

Kamisama Kiss

Plot summary: Narukami, the sky goddess, has a crush on Tomoe, and thus wants to get rid of Nanami. She steals Nanami’s rights as an earth deity, and shrinks Tomoe into a little kid. Nanami and Tomoe then spend a night at Kurama’s place before things come to a head, and Nanami decides to return to the shrine to confront the sky goddess. She and Tomoe eventually convince Narukami to leave.

• On the other hand, the guy here is the brilliant cook. For once, the guy makes a bigass bento for the girl. Hm, never thought I’d live to see that day.

• I always feel like these stories are copping out when the powerful gods and goddesses erect barriers in public places so that outsiders can’t see what’s going on. I mean, if you’re going to write a story about spirits in modern Japan, why not work it into the narrative?

• Why is it so easy for Narukami to remove Mikage’s symbol from Nanami?

• Tomoe says that since this is the human world, Nanami should have no trouble finding a new home. He then falls ill as it rains around them. The implication here seems to be that spirituality in modern Japan is now limited to just specifically designated religious sites. Yes, people come to pay their respects, but the gods and goddesses no longer have a presence elsewhere in contemporary society. I wonder, however, if this is as sad as the anime wants to make it out to be.

• So one of the remedies for a sick, marginalized Shinto god is a traditional Japanese snack. How utterly nostalgic.

• After all that, doesn’t it feel as though Narukami gave up rather easily? Meh.

Final word: The show is still just missing that spark that would make it compelling to watch.

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun

Plot summary: Yuzan confesses to Haru that their father sent him here to retrieve Haru. Yuzan, however, doesn’t want his younger brother back home at all, so he makes Haru promises to stay in school. Haru and Shizuku then share a moment at sunset, which is thus a cue for Chizuru to finally play a bigger role…

• Yuzan came all the way to Shizuku’s school just to see her. Hm, fishy. Meanwhile, Haru gets a bit familiar with Chizuru, the glasses girl.

• I like how he thinks a class rep is automatically popular.

• Oh, I guess Yuzan’s officially here to retrieve Haru. We learn that they have such a strict father that Haru was kicked out of the house before he even reached middle school. That can’t be legal, man. Maybe that’s why the father now wants Haru to return… ’cause the law’s breathing down his neck. :I

• Unofficially, however, Yuzan doesn’t want Haru to return at all. In fact, he came all the way here just to make Haru promise to stay in school. How pointless.

• But I guess we now have the lingering threat of the unreasonable patriarch lurking in the shadows, ready at any point to change his mind and throw a wrench into the narrative. Speaking of which, yet another male love interest with a rich family.

It’s not as though Mei or Shizuku even care that their lovers come from wealth, but why else do these stories keep throwing in that little tidbit? Is it because the audience cares even if they don’t want to admit it?

On the flip side, isn’t it funny how the girl must always come from humble roots? Of course, these are shoujos, so the target audience isn’t likely to be a rich ojousama. Then again, you can’t shake the feeling that rich girls have this stigma of being spoiled and snotty.

• Irony: Haru wants Shizuku to stay away from Yuzan because he can never tell what his older brother is thinking.

• Oh god, Chizuru has the sparkly eyes for Haru.

Please don’t give me a love triangle. Please don’t. It’s so cheap and played out. Why can’t we just have the main couple get together, and follow their lives as a couple?

Final word: It didn’t feel like I had much to say about this week’s episode. We learn a bit more about Haru, and a third wheel shows up. It just an average episode.