Random Curiosity

The episode opens with Ayane sitting out on the porch having some seaweed crackers. Turns out they’re spiked or something by Machi, which causes Ayane to have an aneurism, immediately prompting the OP sequence to start. Looks like the psycho miko sisters will get more screentime finally!

As with all Japanese shrines, there’s always some arduous million-step stair climb before you actually make it to the top. Ikuto and Suzu are making that climb, carrying huge daikons on their back (Suzu’s is notably larger). Seems like they’re bringing the daikon to Chizuru, the priestess…who unfortunately never shows up in this episode. Anyways, when they reach the top, Suzu runs ahead while Ikuto melts down in fatigue.

Chance!

Machi jumps out of nowhere onto his lap and unleashes some of her slowloli voice combo’d with some tantalizing blushing. Machi episode, right? Right? At this point Suzu runs back and says she can’t find Chizuru, and Ikuto finds out that Machi and Ayane are sisters as he pops a few veins himself. Chizuru is out finding ingredients to make her special daifuku, those mochi things Suzu was eating while explaining the Naruto story to Ikuto in episode 2. If you can remember that scene, you’d know that Suzu is a daifuku fiend, raising questions about how she can keep that gorgeous figure. Must be all the heavy lifting they do around the island.

So it turns out that Machi is on the hunt for Ayane, and bribes Suzu with twenty (!!) daifuku for her capture. Naturally, Suzu’s eyes turn to large azure plates and scampers off to set up some traps. Ikuto wonders how she’s going to bait Ayane to walk into them, and Suzu responds immediately by jumping to the top of a hill and screaming something like “AYANE HAS NO TITS.” Quite effective, as Ayane shows up faster than the road runner spotting bird seed. Suzu gets some daifuku-powered purple aura and higurashi eyes as Ayane is almost snared in a trap, but her fat black chocobo jumps from nowhere and saves her, grabbing Ikuto in the process.

So as Ayane is explaining about Suzu’s daifuku fiendishness and Machi’s voodoo tendencies, Suzu jumps out of nowhere (a lot of these this episode…) looking like a possessed cat (her blue ribbon looks like nekomimi, freakin’ awesome). Ayane, seemingly more level-headed than her previous exploits, offers Suzu thirty (!!!!) daifuku to find Machi’s weakness. Suzu immediately complies and runs off.

At this point I’m thinking that if I was Suzu, I would go find Machi’s weakness and score 30, then as I’m reporting back to Ayane, grab her and return her to Machi, scoring another 20. Ah, the things that anime conveniently forgets.

Anyways, Suzu reports back with a startling Machi weakness: if you stop her heart, she’ll die, or something like that. Whoopee. Ayane gets pissed off and starts cussing out her sister with stuff like “old hag” and “middle-aged woman.” Of course, Machi has come out of nowhere and heard all this, and they seem to do a lot of damage as she crumbles to the ground. Could this be her weakness! Ayane declares victory and she grabs the voodoo doll that has been the bane of her prepubescent life. Oh well, Machi has more tricks up those huge sleeves, and does some t-rex ghost summon no jutsu. Poor Ayane.

The second part of the episode opens with Ikuto and Suzu falling off a cliff and landing on one of those Japanese gnome statues. The head breaks off much to Suzu’s horror, but Ikuto fixes it up with some head-to-foot rearrangement as they walk off. Unfortunately for the two, most things on this island are either possessed by some vengeful spirit or able to pop out of nowhere at the most inopportune moments, so naturally we see the eyes of the state start glowing red.

They head back and have dinner, while Suzu keeps feeling this chill going down her spine. Ikuto keeps telling her to stfu, but then Suzu actually sees the ghost peeking through the door, which causes her to freak out. For the next several minutes, we see Suzu wrapped in her blanket like one of those sushi rolls, kinda like a Suzu-maki, which would probably sell upwards of a few million yen at your neighborhood kaiten sushi restaurant.

Seeing her rival completely disarmed, Ayane starts poking fun at Suzu and saying stuff which freaks her out. Ayane keeps laying on the lame ghost teases, and eventually Suzu snaps and throws her in one of those “team rocket’s blastin’ off again” things. Honestly, though, if she can throw people that far, she should just start tossing Ikuto in Japan’s general direction. But after she’s tossed everyone, who would toss her? Oh Suzu.

So they’re having dinner now, and Suzu is still curled under her blanket. In some ways, she looks like one of those bomb koopas in Mario who turn into bombs when u step on them. Except rather than a face full of shrapnel, she’s an explosion of moe. Oh Suzu. Anyways, she explains that being scared reminds her of her mother, since her mom would always comfort her whenever she got scared. Doing the manly thing, Ikuto swoops in with the typical “don’t be scared, I’m here by your side” lame-o line, which makes me think up of how many different ways Suzu can repay Ikuto for his manly valor.

During all this, Ayane is outside, ready to pounce on unsuspecting Suzu, but decides not to because of her sobby sobby mother story. (Useless side note: you know when you’re in a flame battle with some nerd online, and they start making fun of your mother? In these situations my default answer is “my mother is in a coma” and they usually shut up. That’s sort of like what happened here…I guess.) Anyways, right as Ayane is about to walk away, the ghost mauls her as she unleashes a blood-curdling scream which gets Suzu all riled up again. Ikuto goes out to find a passed out loli on the porch, as I think of more doujin-worthy solutions to this problem. After Ayane wakes up, Suzu unleashes her own cry – turns out the ghost is uh… sitting on her, spouting some oogie boogie nonsense as Tonkatsu is passed out on the floor. Super genius bishoujo miko Ayane jumps into action to defeat the ghost, but is instantly KO-licked into oblivion. The ghost makes his move on Ikuto as he stands there confused at what a phantom tongue could possibly do to him…screw it, he thinks, as he lets loose a furious makinouichi uppercut that one-hit-KOs the ghost.
So uh, Ikuto scolds the ghost and tells him not to bother people any more. The ghost disappears, suggesting a return at a later date (as Ayane and Suzu freak out some more).

Thoughts:
Nagasarete continues its winning formula with its awesome characters and inexplicable antics. It seems that the anime skipped a chapter of the manga which involved more Machi time – as one that hasn’t read the manga, I don’t really care, but since Machi is all sorts of awesome I would like to see her get some more time. Ayane is growing on me, though – she just seems cooler, more diabolical, and uh…younger than Suzu. Anyways, I implore you manga readers to try to forget what goes on in the manga and just appreciate the anime for what it is by itself. You know, like pay more attention to how moe Horie Yui’s voice is and stuff.

-jaalin