YuruYuri (Season 3) Episode 7.
I'd say this was a contender for my favourite episode of this season, which is particularly impressive given that Sakurako only appeared in the eyecatch and Himawari didn't appear at all. Ayano practising her Tsundere at the start was great and it was mostly uphill from there.
I really liked a lot of the little character details highlighted in this episode, especially some of the moments with Chinatsu and Akari. Chinatsu is kind of an interesting character in general, I was a little concerned that they were just forgetting some of her previous characterisation but it does seem that they know what they're doing and it's all character development. Akari is pretty solid too, it's much nicer getting to watch her be a character without the show feeling the need to torment her in some way. They even seemed to be making something of a joke out of that themselves, which was interesting.
It's possible that I'm reading way too much into something but the way Akari responded to one of Chinatsu's requests was kind of interesting. Saying "it's not that I don't want to" has some interesting implications, perhaps to the extent that she would have agreed had circumstances been different. I don't know if that was intended since it could be a translation thing or even just Akari's way of being polite, and even if it was intended there's a good chance that it was more as a tease than a genuine "plot point", but it still stood out to me. If it was intentional, it probably makes Akari an even better friend than she already seemed to be. It would also raise the possibility of a more genuine kind of Akari suffering, which I think I might actually be interested in seeing (though I'm not sure I'd say I want to).
Mirakurun looks like it could be a fun show from what I've seen of it (though I suppose a lot of what we've seen is Kyoko's fan made efforts), I wonder if they'd do a spin off at some point. Thinking about it, the relationship between the main characters in it seems to have certain similarities to the relationship between Chinatsu and Akari. I wonder if that was deliberate.
I hope we get more episodes along these lines. The ones that put some effort into exploring the characters and still manage to get some comedy out of it as well do tend to be the ones that I like most.
Mr. Osomatsu/Osomatsu-san Episode 7.
This one wasn't my favourite. It had some nice ideas and moments but tended to go a bit too far in the wrong ways for me. I'd say I probably liked the short and simple "Four" segment best.
I know the characters are kind of supposed to be "losers" but I think I just tend to prefer seeing losers win sometimes (or at least lose because of their own flaws but with the possibility of gaining something). There's a tendency for the show to treat suffering as inherently funny, which just doesn't appeal to me (this was sometimes my issue with YuruYuri in the past too, it's interesting how these two compare at times).
I do wonder if I'll want to watch a whole other season of this, I guess it depends if there are more episodes like the fifth one (it might mostly depend on what note the season ends really).
