It’s time for another round of Anime Shorts as we take a look at episode 6 of Aiura, Sparrow’s Hotel and Muromi-san. This week brings us fake Jenga, siscon pimping, and the challenge of finding gainful employment when you’re a legendary sea creature.

Aiura

Recap: The girls get some time off school to “study”, which means crashing KanaKana’s little brother’s room and doing nothing.

Jel’s Thoughts: Pretty slow episode this week after last week’s Street Fighter parody madness. The responsible little brother/goofball older sister thing has been done to death. It was pretty funny to see them kill the Playing Dead On Your Doorstep joke once in for all though, and we did get 2 lovingly animated seconds of fake Jenga. I guess the name “Jango” isn’t just for internet radio services or Mandalorian bounty hunters anymore.

Lifesong’sThoughts: Her poor brother. It doesn’t surprise me at all that she can’t keep her room clean and the way they don’t show it just made it that much worse.

Sparrow’s Hotel

Recap: After the holiday rush, business is slow at the hotel. Having just gone on a shopping spree, the Manager takes drastic action to make sure she gets a decent meal.

Jel’s Thoughts: Speaking of overused anime sibling relationships, can we just get ONE older brother that is not a doting, creepy siscon? Considering that was the best joke, I can safely say this was another really bad episode. We need less Manager, more crazy ninja powers.

Lifesong’sThoughts: It probably says something when I feel like I’ve wasted time on a 3 minute anime… So boring…

Muromi-san

Recap: Takkun fishes up a legendary Oarfish who is currently unemployed and desperately seeking a job. As (bad) luck would have it, he runs into the fish’s former employer and gets tangled in another mess he wants no part of.

Jel’s Thoughts: This episode was apparently based on some Japanese mythology your average Muromi-san viewer might be familiar with but unfortunately I am not. So I’ll admit some of the jokes this week were lost on me. The humor of some legendary creature acting like a washed up salaryman and a mythical princess trying to pose as a fishing equipment store owner still made perfect sense though, so it wasn’t a total loss. Takurou’s personality as the ultimate straight man helped as well, as the episode’s funniest moment was probably the scene where he accidentally interrogates Otohime without saying a word. Basically this wasn’t the best of episode of Muromi-san, but still pretty funny. I’m ready to get back to Takurou and Muromi now though.

Lifesong’s Thoughts: I am with Jel and that I don’t really know the mythology behind this weeks episode. I still found it amusing enough and Takurou’s ability to torment Otohime without saying a word was pretty funny. I hope that next week will get some jokes that are a bit easier to appreciate.