Yuru Yuri Eps08-09

Up until now, I'd been watching SHiN-gx/HorribleSubs, but I'd finally had enough of the (terrible) localization. This batch was an experimental one. I tried Asuka-subs and Coalgirls. When all's said and done, it was really not a very pleasant experience.

...twins...!!

This batch fluctuated on the "love-love" content, with ep08 having much of it and ep09 playing it down quite a lot. Both episodes had introductions of new characters - ep08 produced Chizuru, Chitose's younger twin sister, while ep09 finally fully showed the Student Council president. Overall, these two episodes only continued to increase my like of this series.

Actually, they didn't end up appearing in the episode at all...

Ep08 began with Chitose announcing that, since it was April Fool's (wow, time went by so quickly...), she would begin a conversation riddled with lies and, after their task of cleaning was complete, she would reveal which ones were lies to see how good Ayano was at catching them. I was amused that Ayano assumed all of them were lies, given how outrageous they were (that Chitose saw a ghost in the girl's washroom or that Kyouko had been sniffing Ayano's shoes earlier), and I absolutely knew that the twist would be that all of them (or, at least, most) were true. Were this A Channel, I'd assume that Chitose actually was bad at lying. But, with this kind of anime, it's clear that ridiculous things are going to happen. Out of all the lies, the ones that intrigued me the most was that student council president had earlier gone berserk and yelled at everyone (anything about that girl will interest me!) and the announcement that Chitose has a twin.

The fashionable female's alternative to the top-knot.

The scene thereafter was Kyouko and Yui heading to the library to study, and finding "Chitose" there. Due to the earlier scene, I was absolutely sure that this was Chitose's twin. It's amusing how I didn't even realize their eye colours were different until after the two were shown together; it just reveals how little attention I paid to Chitose earlier. Anyway, Kyouko's attempts at getting "Chitose" to pay attention just got more and more ridiculous with time. If I had a "friend" that blatantly ignored me after a chance meeting, I'd think something was very, very wrong. However, putting that aside, what is up with Kyouko's hair?! I was really reminded of Ika Musume's tentacles, given the amount of control that Kyouko seemed to have. It was honestly quite freaky.

Drooling has nothing to do with youth and sexual virility!

After the revelation that the green-eyed girl was actually Chizuru, the younger (identical) twin to the blue-eyed Chitose, the rest of the episode essentially followed them around. (In the process, all of the "lies" that Chitose had told earlier in the episode were shown, such as her love of pickles and sexy lingerie.) Chizuru, voiced by a different seiyuu (I think; the voices are different, but the same woman could've potentially done it, if she has talent), is much quieter than Chitose, although she exhibits the same "Fantasy World" power. Her relationship with her older sister is quite cute, though I wonder if the anime is introducing them to be able to include the "incest twins" concept. It doesn't really bother me, as I absolutely love twins and the introduction of Chizuru made Chitose's popularity with me just soar. The scene from the preview at the end of the last episode, where Kyouko and Yui were once again sharing a futon at Yui's house, played for only a few minutes at the very end, and it wasn't even really highlighted that they were (once again) in bed together. Instead, the scene was about Kyouko's realization that Chizuru disliked her (due to the annoying antics at the library, everyone assumed), and Yui comforting her with some rum raisin ice cream. I feel kind of duped; I had fully expected some kind of focus on the sleepover.

I will lay awake at night thinking about this item.

Before I get to the quality of Asuka-subs, I really need to talk about this device. So its purpose is to be a calendar, right? My questions about its outrageousness are many. For one thing, why does the first cube need to have a 6? I mean, at most, the first cube needs to have 0, 1, 2, and 3; there just aren't any more days in a month. But, putting that aside, how can that first cube even have a 6? A cube only has 6 sides, and one side being 0 means that the other sides would chronologically count up to 5. Where is that 6 coming from? Now, about the second cube: it actually needs to represent all 10 digits (0-9), which generally doesn't work with a 6-sided cube. I mean, one side can technically represent both a 6 and a 9, if the cube is free-moving, but a cube still can't account for 9 sides. Is there a 3rd cube, maybe? My questions are eating me up alive!

I'm fond of pickled things too, actually.

I'm not that fond of Asuka-subs. There were typos here and there; the one I remember the most is Chitose referring to Kyouko as "Yoshino-shan". The fact that the typo was carried over to a flashback of the same scene makes me wonder if it was a copy-paste error, or if Chitose had some kind of slur when saying that word. (Everywhere else, she used the usual "san", so it's not her style of speaking.) There's a little bit of localization that I don't particularly like; Ayano said, "Omoshiro so ja nai," and the translation was, "Okay I'm up for it"; while it's not that off (Ayano's meaning was that), I just don't like the gap. The pros, of course, are that it's much better than HorribleSubs (which titles the anime as as "Sway 'n Shake", by the way) and that the honorifics are intact (this is always a plus for me). I'm kind of against using this group for my archives.

Bullying?!

The first half of ep09 featured rapid-fire conversations between the 4 club members, first beginning with Kyouko's suggestion that they tell spooky stories. I've always questioned the logistics of this concept (that, since ghost stories make you feel chilled, they're good for a hot day), mainly because it's never worked with me. But, anyway, Kyouko had no stories of her own to really tell, instead sharing just a random occurrence of her desk rattling at night. Yui followed it up with the idea that it would be really creepy if a hand clutched at you upon opening a door, which caused Chinatsu to immediately freak out. Once again, I question Japanese horror. After looking into it more, it seems that J-horror is generally based on gore and other such creepy sights. Meanwhile, K-horror (which I tend to like more) is usually based on psychological goings-on, something that I feel leaves a longer lasting impression on me. But, anyway, I digress.

Reminds me of Morita-san wa Mukuchi's scenes.

Continuing the theme of sudden conversation changes, they first talked about things to do to Ayano in order to scare her and, after ditching that plan, they began to talk about how hot it was (which is what brought around the ghost stories to begin with). Kyouko produced some kind of spray that froze fabrics, which sounded incredibly cool. Somehow, that led to Kyouko asking the girls what kind of superpowers they would want. After commenting that their powers were all useless (Akari wanted to talk to animals, Chinatsu wanted to fly, and Yui wanted to warp), Kyouko came up with the brilliant plan that she wanted to be able to project a burglar alarm. Really, now...

A legendary glow.

But the most amazing part of ep09 was definitely that introduction of the president, Matsumoto Rise. Since the Student Council Room had AC and a fridge, the group headed there - only to find Rise calmly sitting inside once they opened the door. They ran away screaming (and leaving Akari, who had fallen, to her assumed doom), and the remainder of the episode began focusing on Rise. I was seriously edgy; I had previously been torn between wanting to see the president and not, for fear of character butchering. Rise seems to be unable to speak very loudly (perhaps why Chitose's claim from the previous episode that she had lost it and screamed at everyone had seemed so asinine), which is why her foil was introduced in tandem: Nishigaki-sensei. She seems to be a crazed scientist masquerading as (perhaps) the science teacher, who shares a "forbidden relationship" with Rise, since the president tests many of her experiments.

Yeah. I might look up if such a thing were going by.

A good chunk of the episode thereafter was devoted to Nishigaki's character-building. Her latest experiment blew up, destroying the lab, and the principal became very angry with her (all of these seem like recurring occurrences). After many opportunities to state that explosions were necessary in science, she offered to test an experimental "serum" on Rise, one that had amped up her voice earlier. Since Nishigaki (thus far) seems to be the only one that can "hear" Rise, the president took it gladly. Not only did it not work, but it also led to an explosion somehow, causing the girls (minus Akari) to run in. The last bit of the episode was dedicated to Kyouko, Yui and Chinatsu trying to find Akari in order to apologize for having left her while running away; however, upon finding her, she apologized first, for not being able to attend the club meeting that day (since she was helping a teacher, with Sakurako and Himawari). Spirit Akari!

I remember Rise actually sitting next to Chitose in ep04...

I'm less than pleased with Coalgirls' subs. I was immediately suspicious about the file size (~90MB), which is more than half the size of the usual sizes I'm used to. However, I did give it a chance, and found the video to be choppy (which can be seen in the screens, actually). The subbing wasn't superb, but there was nothing incredibly wrong with it. A good thing is that the honorifics were left in, but that can't counter the various (minor) issues I had with it. I'll probably stick with Asuka-subs for the remainder of the episodes, though I'm checking out Tonde for archiving purposes. Based on the first episode, I seemed to like them the best. In the end, it'll just be a "gut feeling" for which one to archive, I think.

She's cute, I'll give her that.

Three more episodes to go! I'm having mixed feelings about Rise being introduced; I'll give her more appearances before passing judgement. So far, she doesn't seem like a bad character (and the lack of a voice is interesting, somehow). I'm looking forward to the next episodes already~

~Aaro