Welcome to episode 3 of our Spring anime shorts coverage! This week we have questionable academic testing practices, kunai dagger parlor tricks, and life lessons on why you don’t date guys in between evolutionary states. The latest on Aiura, Sparrow’s Hotel and Muromi-san, after the break.

Aiura

Recap: KanaKana’s penchant for nicknames gets her special credit on a rather strange pop quiz.

Jel’s Thoughts: I would just like to note I really appreciate the casting of the girls in Aiura. None of them talk with the shrill, helium induced squeal you’d expect at least one of them to. I actually really like KanaKana’s voice, which helps soften her potentially obnoxious character type.

As for this episode, the odd pop quiz was a pretty neat way to introduce Yanase. The fact that she was the only one who could spell the teacher’s name said a lot about her character with minimum effort. The fact that the teacher misspelled it herself helped define her as well. I’m telling you, this is anime haiku, and I’m still impressed with how much they can pack into the time frame.

Lifesong’s Thoughts: And this week with Steve Jobs: Three minutes was enough to perfectly establish the personality of the homeroom teacher. I am actually coming to look forward to these and kind of wish they were longer.

Sparrow’s Hotel

Recap: The hotel staff steps out for some cherry blossom viewing.

Jel’s Thoughts: Sparrow’s Hotel is going to get a lot of mileage out of me with these mysterious, super shady backstory jokes. Along with the mundane uses of her powers, like this week’s grabbing ALL of the cherry blossoms before they hit the ground, I’m having way more fun than I should with this. My favorite joke this week though was the simplest. Had I been drinking I would have done a spit take when Satou pops up from under the little grass cape thing and freaks out the normal straight man guy. So dumb, but I love it.

Lifesong’s Thoughts: Every week I watch this and think that it is incredibly stupid. This week I realized just how unapologetically stupid it really is. I suspect that is what THEY are banking on. Sparrow’s Hotel is something so bad that people laugh at it instead of with it… on purpose and by design! Or maybe these 4 minute anime bits are driving me mad and I am seeing conspiracy theories in the shadows.

Muromi-san

Recap: Muromi’s friend Hii-chan loves dolphins and sea mammals and wants to help Muromi overcome her deep seated hatred of them.

Jel’s Thoughts: Every peek we get into Muromi’s seemingly longer and longer past just makes this show more and more entertaining. The whole idea of characterizing a mid-evolutionary sea monster as a terrible, deadbeat boyfriend was just brilliant. The flashback where he’s just lazily laying on the beach talking about his big dreams was so perfect and hilarious. And let’s be honest: if sea creatures are capable of hatred, I’m pretty sure they all hate dolphins. Basically all the humor in this episode was spot on.

I have to say once again I really love the relationship with Muromi and Takurou. It’s so effortless. I loved the scene at the end where she shows up and says I just want to sit here and say nothing, and he just keeps on fishin’. Really simple and sweet but very effective. Muromi-san is really on a roll here, to the point where I think this is actually just “good” without any qualifiers like “better than it should be”.

Lifesong’s Thoughts: Muromi-san doesn’t push itself too far with it’s absurd humor. I appreciate how grounded Muromi’s personality is given all the crazy going on. Yes she totally hates dolphins and all aquatic mammals in fact, but in the end all that hatred comes down to something human. The moment when Muromi realizes that her hatred for dolphins is unfounded and runs off to cry on Takurou’s back manages to be sweet. Meanwhile our protagonist just keeps on fishing…

Marlin’s Thoughts: As the resident biologist I have to note how incredibly thorough and accurate this is about cetacean evolution. It still holds the outdated carnivore ancestor theory, but I can forgive them for not being completely up to date with the newest developments in taxonomy. Even I find it hard to keep that shit straight. Muromi-san continues to impress, besides the bio-nerding this allowed me to do it was a pretty hilarious episode in its own right. I love how Muromi looks almost unchanged in her flashback, but just by having them put her hair down it really makes her look younger. It’s the little details that I’m really loving about this show. I think Cromartie High proved you can’t count out half-episode series, and Muromi-san is definitely looking to carry the torch.