Posts in Kamichu Category

  
  

First off... this isn't the end end, only the end of the TV broadcast. This episode will actually be episode 15 of 16 on the DVDs (8 of them, 2 episodes per DVD), which contain 4 extra episodes... that's one way to get people to buy 'em :P Anyways, summary and review (well, if you can call what I usually write a review) and such of Kamichu! after school.

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We jump from New Year's last time all the way to almost Valentine's Day this time. Which means it's a good chance for Yurie to do the kokuhaku thing and say she likes Kenji.. Kenji, of course, has no idea that Valentine's Day is coming up (^^;;) Yurie makes some chocolate over at Matsuri's (after a bit of work) and the big day comes. On the way to school everybody says "Good luck!" and "Fight!" and "Do your best!" and such to Yurie.. And when she gets to school.. of course, Yurie forgot the chocolate she made to give to Kenji. That's our Yurie-sama! (^^;;) Matsuri and Mitsue gather help from the other girls in the class to talk about Yurie around Kenji and such while Mitsue goes to Yurie's to retrieve the chocolate. Got some good friends there, Yurie :) Meanwhile, the townspeople visit the shrine and pray that everything goes well for Yurie...

  
  

After doing all her duties as a god for New Year's Yurie is tired. Really tired. So tired and so lazy she won't move from the kotatsu (table with a heater underneath) for this entire episode. Yurie gets Tama/Binbougami to bring her food after she wakes up, and when Tama/Binbougami heads back to the kitchen, thinking no one else is home... Yurie's brother spots her walking. Ooops, the (walking) cat's out of the bag :P Yurie tells him that Miko gave her a mikuji (fortune) to give to him, and since Shou-chan has something for Miko he's very interested in seeing it... but she kinda left it in her clothes (^^;;) After that Yurie wants to watch TV... but she's too lazy to go over and turn it on, so she uses a rolled up newspaper to switch it on. But it's on the wrong channel... no problem, one Ka-mi-chu and it's on what she wants.

Her parents finally get home as Yurie's on the phone. She remembers that her parents haven't given her her お年玉 otoshidama -- a gift of money parents give to children on New Year's -- so she tackles her dad and asks for it. He'll give it to her later... She then starts going through all the 年賀状nengajou (New Year's cards) she's gotten from friends -- however, one is missing. Kenji's... Yurie's rather depressed as she talks to Matsuri on the phone... After talking with Matsuri, Yurie takes a look at her otoshidama. 5000 yen -- not too bad, in fact, a record... but after Tama/Binbougami touches it, Binbougami powers go into action (not on purpose), and she's left with 1000 yen (^^;;)

  
  
  

Yurie goes to Izumo for a month to attend the Gods' Convention there. She transfers to a middle school there where she's treated very much respectfully... though she'd rather be just a normal girl first. A few girls from the class want to invite Yurie to do things with them, but when they go to do so InoShikaChou (the boar, deer, and butterfly) arrive with Yurie's ride to the Gods' Convention -- a nice big bull. The convention itself looks like any other convention, excepting the fact that a lot of rather strange and interesting gods of all types are milling around. Yashima-sama's there to see his idol, Benten-sama, and we see Tama/Binbougami chatting with a shinigami and also showing off a bit of her cat side ;) Since Yurie's a new god she has to attend various things and participate in activities to learn the ropes and such.

The staff evidently remembered that Mario's 20th birthday was this week -- among the other new gods is a very kawaii Famicom god :)

  
  

The time for elections for student council president is near and it seems there's no one to challenge Ukaru Nishimura... until Matsuri decides that she's going to make Yurie student council president, with Mitsue helping of course. Yurie doesn't want to do it, but after Matsuri mentions that she could get a room for Kenji's Calligraphy Club Yurie gets a bit more motivated. Said Ukaru Nishimura is not pleased that Yurie's challenging him, and especially since people seem to treat Yurie differently since she's a god. Yurie runs into him after school and Matsuri pushes her into saying something to him.. but she can't and runs away.

Matsuri, Yurie, and Mitsue have a strategy meeting after school. Matsuri's planning for them to get up early and do some campaigning in front of the school. And it seems Ukaru would be a rather strict president, forbidding associations between guys and gals for one thing. Yurie seems ready to get serious about it... So in the morning they pass out flyers to the arriving students. The flyers themselves say stuff about Yurie changing the world and granting wishes, and even that the PM endorses her (^^;;) While having lunch on the room as usual Kenji comes down to grab one of his odd pieces of calligraphy that's blown away. Matsuri and Mitsue tease Yurie a bit as she hands it back to Kenji, saying that "someone" is going to get Kenji a room for his club soon, etc... While Yurie does her usual thing of hearing people's problems after school (with Miko's help this time) Matsuri dictates a speech to Mitsue. It's a bit overdone and doesn't really portray Yurie as she is...

  
  

Kenji runs out of class quickly -- there's talk that he's going on a date, so Yurie, Mitsue (or should I call her "Biggu Boin" now?), and Matsuri follow him. Turns out he's only helping out an old man, Gen-san, do some repairs on his house. Gen-san takes a hard tumble and ends up in the bed for a bit. Yurie notices a picture of a huge battleship on the wall -- it's the Yamato, the biggest battleship in Japanese WW2 fleet, and Gen-san served on it. Four months after Gen-san was forced to get off due to injuries, the Yamato was sunk near Okinawa. As they all go back home Matsuri comments that Kenji really likes older people -- Kenji enjoys listening to their stories among other things... As they pass some water we hear a voice say "I've found her!"...

Back at Yurie's home, we see dinner being made from an interesting viewpoint -- inside a nabe. And while Yurie eats from her bowl a ship pops out. Its name is Mitsubamaru, and it's got a request for her coming from Okinawa. A certain Yamato-san wants to come back home. Yurie gets a long-distance seaweed call from Yamato-san -- yes, the sunken ship. It wants to go back to its former glory and go back home. Yurie will do her best to grant its wish, of course. After consulting with Yashima-sama, Yurie does some serious research to find out all she can about Yamato-san so she can bring it back perfectly. We get a history lesson as Yurie tells Matsuri and Mitsue all about the ship. Learn more about it here if you're interested. She even puts in a call to the good ol' PM, much more friendly than he was back in episode 4, to get some classified materials about the ship.

  
  

Yurie, Mitsue, and Matsuri head off to the beach this time in the promised swimsuit episode. Since the main beach is rather crowded they head off to what used to be the popular beach spot, but it's empty now. Yurie's wearing a very kiddish swimsuit, as expected. Matsuri's got some stripes, and Mitsue's is just plain yellow... but Mitsue... is she really only in 7th grade with those? The animators put what they learned about fluid dynamics in their physics classes to work (^^;;) For some reason "Chichi wo Moge" (y'all have heard of that song, right?) comes to mind here.... well, something for everybody, I suppose ;) Anyways, after splashing around a bit they look in an old run-down beach house called Hamakaze. Up on the second floor there are some old pictures of people who were there -- a blonde surfer and a young girl among them...

Back at home Yurie's parents talk about when they were young and went to the beach. Yurie doesn't say much since she's got one heck of a sunburn (I know how that feels...). As she rests in her room Team Happiness make their usual entrance to deliver her a message. The gods are holding her welcoming party so she heads off to the gods' rest area. There, she receives some clothes a bit more fitting for a god from the president of the Gods Association and gives a little speech. The other gods seem a very friendly bunch :)

  
  

After getting over her cold from last time, Yurie's back to work. This time Matsuri's got her doing "Yurie-sama's Happy Summer Love-Love Fortune Consultation", and she's working pretty hard to try and come up with answers to the love problems girls talk to her about. One girl comes in and talks about how she likes a certain guy. But the certain guy would be Kenji. Uh-oh... The girl ran into a what looked like a rather mean dog and Kenji came along and fed the dog to calm it down, so that's how it started. Yurie ends up telling the girl to join the calligraphy club so she can be closer to Kenji -- and Yurie will come with her to be support.

  
  
Opening: 「晴れのちハレ！」 ("Hare nochi hare!") by Maho Tomita - I can finally write something about the song since we've got an actual OP this time! Song's nice and the lyrics really fit the themes of Kamichu! well. Really nice detailed animation with some personality, too. GJ!
Ending: 「アイスキャンディー」 ("Ice Candy") by MAKO - Ehh.. don't care for it much..

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One thing before I fall asleep:
ゆりえちゃん可愛いよゆりえちゃん！！
Yurie-chan kawaii yo Yurie-chan!

Sorry, had to say it, went through last week without seeing Yurie, you know. Just watching all she does makes me smile :) The rest to come later.

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While Yurie eats breakfast with her family and Tama -- cats don't eat with spoons, you know (^^;;) -- something falls out of the sky and lands near the house. A chibi deer, boar, and butterfly pop out and announce themselves as "Team Happiness", sent from the God's Association to bring Yurie a request, a very special one. Before she opens the scroll, Tama points out what's on TV -- an alien spaceship has landed near the parliament building in Tokyo. Yurie opens the scroll -- seems word about Yurie's gotten out, even to the highest levels of the government in Tokyo since the Prime Minister -- yes, the PM -- wants Yurie's help with this little problem. So off to Tokyo she goes.

Army tanks surround the martian spaceship as Yurie arrives. She's given a nametag that has "God" written on it and the PM takes her to speak to the martian, wanting her to see what it came to Earth to do. Said martian is a rather cute-looking pink thing wearing a ribbon. They lock Yurie in the room where the martian's being held. She tries to talk to it and gets "pikopikoponponpon?" as a reply.... After the butterfly gives her some advice Yurie approaches again. The martian puts out a feeler and touches her hand, then her forehead, and talks. She wants a phone. Wow, talk about long distance calls... Actually, no ;) She puts part of the phone on her (Can you hear me now?) and now can talk to Yurie normally. She can also see the deer, boar, and butterfly for some reason. She's come to Earth to bring back a lost "child" -- she draws a sketch of a NASA lander on the floor... The PM watches what's going on while talking on the phone to some American officials about turning the martian over to them...

So Yurie, thinking everything's taken care of walks around in a gift shop with the deer, boar, and butterfly. She also gives the butterfly a name -- Chou-chan, because she was chou (super) helpful with her advice. Not because she's a chou (butterfly) or anything (^^;;) The deer doesn't quite trust politicians, but Yurie thinks the PM wouldn't lie... as soon as she says so, there's a ruckus outside as helicopters try to take the spaceship away -- Yurie gains clearance to enter the area by showing her "God" nametag and sees the martian girl tied up and about to be handed over to Americans. Yurie gets taken away by a solider, but the martian picks a radio off someone and uses it to make everyone sleep. After putting her ribbon on Yurie, Yurie wakes up and they run into the pariliament building to try and find a place to hide.

  
  
  

Still no actual OP this time, just scenes from the previous episode as it was last time...

Tama, Yurie's cat, has run away from home and Yurie can't find her.. and at school, Matsuri's got a booth set up for Yurie where students can ask her to do things for them, mostly involving money matters, so she's having quite the rough time. Matsuri calls Yashima-sama for some help and he (in chibi form) comes flying in on a bird and possesses Mitsue to talk with Matsuri. Seems there's a 貧乏注意報, a binbou warning (like a weather warning) since a binbou god is approaching the area, and when it gets there it'll cause some problems, making everyone into binbous, poor (like Sayoko and Asami from Mahoraba).

  
  
  

I'm assuming that the actual OP sequence isn't ready yet since they reused scenes from episode 1 this time. Hopefully they'll have something next time.

Matsuri's going to have a big festival at the temple for the new god in town, Yurie-chan. After school, Yurie and Matsue go over to Matsuri's since she said she had something to do... when Matsuri's little sister, Miko, comes home Matsuri asks her to open the inner sanctuary of the shrine so she can talk to Yashima-sama, the god that lives there. Why? Yurie's going to become the shrine's god. However, Yashima-sama hasn't been around for 3 months now, and Miko didn't want to tell anyone since she thought'd hurt her father's feelings. Her father's not really suited for shine work, preferring to work in the fields instead, so the number of visitors to the shrine decreased and the finances went into the red, enough so that some of the furniture is going to be repossesed. Good reason to use Yurie to gain visitors to pay back some of the debt ;)

After putting on seals which allow them to see all the spirits around, they all go out around town searching for Yashima-sama. Doesn't seem like he's in town, though. A shark and his buddy on the beach point them to the top of the nearby mountain where an "entrance" is. A small shrine is there, along with a warning that only authorized persons may enter the god's "Rest Center". Yurie would be that kind of person, so she opens it up and is sucked inside.