What They Say:
As an official member of the manga club, underclassman Matsushita-kun asks Yuki to draw a manga for him. Preferring to read rather than write, Yuki suggests they have a manga drawing relay. The relay begins with Chizuru’s excitement and Kaname’s disappointment. Each will have the chance to show off his drawing skills.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
You and Me has managed to keep to a relatively small cast overall and hasn’t really introduced much of a supporting cast. It expanded the core group a bit but interactions with other students is blissfully minimal at best, allowing the show to keep it simple. This episode gets a bit of an expansion, albeit it briefly, as it introduces a younger student named Matsushita who has asked Yuki to draw a manga for him. As we can tell from Yuki, he’s not the type to actually do, preferring more to read and consume than to create. His laid back self isn’t the type to really be proactive to things like this. And when you consider his twin, you still really suspect they’d both prefer to be napping more than anything else anyway.
What makes this amusing to watch is that the whole thing turns into a group effort with Chizuru driving events so that everyone creates the manga, sort of like a chain of participants where everyone gets involved in it. There’s a lot of fun when a good chunk of the artwork is shown with commentary from the group, but it’s also kind of a way to cheap out on a show that’s already limited when it comes to animation by showing all the manga sketches with a whole lot of voice overs. It’s definitely cute, don’t get me wrong, but it’s pretty much the weakest part of the episode when it comes to how it all comes across.
Unlike past episodes though, this one has a bit of a split to it. The main story focuses on Yuki’s side of it, but it also changes it up for the last few minutes as it follows what happens to Matsushita afterwards as he goes back and tells everyone what he got done with him. Things go kind of silly here as everyone is excited about everyone getting a chance to sell something for their club that might sell since Yuki is popular. But what makes it very comical, and something that I normally don’t care for, is that Matsushita sort of daydreams about the group being a sentai team in the vein of Power Rangers and he tries his best to come up with that version himself for a manga. They do a couple of other ones as well which adds to the fun and allows a form of cosplay for everyone that we might not get otherwise. Including an awesome Lone Wolf & Cub version.
In Summary:
You and Me has another amusing but laid back episode as it deals with the manga club and their hopes to get Yuki to make something for them. The groups efforts are just right and there’s a lot to like with what they come up with, but I just disliked how simple everything got as it felt like a cheap way out of things for a show that’s already very simple in its designs. On the flip side, Matsushita’s story in the second segment was spot on in being able to have fun with the main cast in a way that didn’t feel forced and provided for some good laughs without having anyone truly act out of character. Though the cast of this series hasn’t exactly won me over in full and made me a die hard fan, it’s one that I like and enjoy as a nice way to pass some time on the day it comes out. It makes me smile and that’s what I want out of it.
Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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