AnimeSugoi

What do you get when you mix ARIA and Azumanga with three sisters? You get Minami-ke. Minami-ke is a slice of life anime that depicts the lives of three sisters and those they interact with on a daily basis. Like other slice of life animes, it has its comedic side that might bring pain to your sides if you laugh enough.

A girl steps out on to the apartment balcony to enjoy the nice morning weather when the teapot starts to whistle which she has to attend to, two other girls are just waking up from the same apartment. The youngest calls out to the early waker, “Haruka-neesama, good morning” which Haruka responds “good morning Chiaki.” Haruka asks if Chiaki would like to help peel a carrot which she agrees to when the last girl comes out of her room, her name is Kana, and yells “good morning” and exclaims that because its Sunday that she’s not going to do anything. But as Kana leaves, she feels the urge to help and is asked to peel a potato. She ends up slicing up the potato instead into a very small cube. This is the life of the Minami Sisters.

The next day, Chiaki has just returned home from school when Kana asks her angrily why she didn’t come home earlier to play with her as it’s Chiaki’s responsibility as her younger sister to do it. Chiaki is annoyed and says she has homework to do and tells Kana that Haruka told Kana to make dinner. But Kana can’t cook and begs “Chiaki-sama” to help, which Chiaki doesn’t care for. So Kana uses the threat that some mysterious and unappetizing dish would likely be made and Chiaki would have to eat it all, so Chiaki agrees to help. Kana looks in the fridge and doesn’t see much ingredients to cook with when Chiaki suggests they get take out instead so that their table can be filled with happiness again. Kana disagrees and suggests they make hotcakes instead which is Chiaki’s favorite and Chiaki knows that it’s idiot proof to mess up on, o how wrong she was. For just as the mix was about to be finished, Kana decides adding fruit, juice, and yogurt to the mix would be great and ends up liquefying the mix too much resulting in a “cream stew” effect. Later that night, Haruka comes home to find Chiaki forcing Kana to eat her concoction as punishment.

The next day, the girls are eating and watching a romance drama on TV when the TV showed a teacher and student kissing. Haruka immediately changes the channel to sustain Chiaki’s innocence. Chiaki asks why the teacher and student kiss when Haruka changes the subject to “How was school” for Chiaki. Later on, Haruka and Kana discuss what just happened and Kana says she will try to explain it to Chiaki. Kana talks to Chiaki and Chiaki says she feels that kissing is wrong, but Kana says its not weird but Chiaki fights back with “How would you know?” Feeling beaten, Kana quiets down, but comes back with the idea that the two of them should kiss O_o. So Kana starts chasing Chiaki all over the apartment trying to kiss her little sister and ends up being buried under a mountain of stuff and hitting her face against a wall before she finally pins Chiaki on the ground.

Haruka finds the two on the ground and asks Kana to stop when Kana comes up with the idea that Chiaki should kiss Haruka who probably has experience, which Chiaki doesn’t mind as Haruka is sort of her idol. Chiaki closes her eyes puckers her lips and Haruka is freaking out on what to do when Kana plants a kiss on Chiaki and ends up getting a hard punch to the face by Chiaki.

The next day, Chiaki tries to wake Kana to go to school. But when Kana gets up, she threatens Chiaki with another kiss and ends up getting threatened by a pillow whack from Chiaki. Haruka drags Kana to go to school when Kana, whose still half asleep, goes into the living room and asks for food. But everything has been cleared and theres no time to make more, for they would be late to school. So Haruka gives Kana a onigiri (rice ball/triangle) which is unsatisfying to Kana. Chiaki tells Kana how stupid she is, for food awaits her at school if she hurries, which Kana does. Kana has forgotten that food won’t be served until lunch and complains to her friend, Keiko, that Chiaki tricked her to get her to come to school without a proper breakfast. Unaware to Chiaki, a boy is staring at her. Later on, Chiaki looks in her shoe locker and finds a note inside. Chiaki rushes home and upon entering the living room yells out that there’s trouble and jumps up in the air and lands on the table, nearly knocking over the teapot 20 centimeters away from her. For she has received a love letter from the boy who stared at her before, Fujioka, and is freaked out when Chiaki reads it out loud.

But Chiaki interprets the letter as a letter of challenge which the other two agree on. The next day after school, Kana enters the “arena” which is the classroom where her “opponent,” Fujioka, awaits. Fujioka is about to tell Kana about his lover for her when Kana suddenly gives Fujioka a hard and sharp kick to left leg causing him to become unbalanced and on the ground and causing him to be a bit freaked out with what just happened. Proud about her victory, Kana goes home and gives a thumbs up to her sisters. This worries Haruka but is of no difference to Chiaki.

Impression:
Ahhhhh, another comedic slice of anime. This anime is hilarious and something I’m going to keep watching. It had a great start with the first episode and should be getting better from now on. I’m expecting some episodes where there will be some disappointment but that will be heavily outweighed by the good episodes this anime brings. The art is nice, I always look at the art before I decide if I want to watch/read an anime. The plot is just about the girls life and its not bad as it is something that I assume is based on real life for girls in Japan with a comedic twist to it. My favorite scene which I think was also the most hilarious was Kana returning home and yells that theres trouble while she’s up in the air and lands on the table, without breaking it lol. The animation for that one scene must have been difficult as well as they kept turning the point of view constantly. The next great one would be seeing Kana trying to kiss Chiaki, I was laughing throughout that entire part ^^. Seeing Kana kick Fujioka was pretty funny too, he must have thought “I like a crazy girl, great….” lol. I would say my favorite character is Kana because of her crazy antics and funny attitude towards life. I already watched the second episode and enjoyed that one as well. I’m going to go see if I can find the manga and buy it now lol. Watch Minami-ke for big laughs during this Fall anime season.