Recap: With his house missing, Yoto makes the only logical move, stay over at Tsukiko’s! Normal hijinks ensue, and Yoto hides to find an even larger Stony Cat in her house. The next day, her sister Tsukushi has plans to get rid of his “younger brother” once and for all. After inadvertently discovering the power of the new cat, Azuki is brought to him, and then we take dive off the deep end of perversion.

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back Goodbye My Home

This was a bit of a transition episode as we start into what I’ll call the Monkey’s Paw arc. This show just loves throwing tropes at us and making us guess whether they’ll play ’em straight or throw us for a curve. His house is gone, and he has to stay at Tsukiko’s. It’s a standard trope albeit a weird circumstance as usually that’s because of family issues and not magic. Then they do a double switch, you think he’s going to catch Tsukiko naked, but instead he reveals himself to the girls. Then later, when you thought all the normal tropes were over, he goes into the bath and the trope actually becomes realized.

I’d say the worst part of this episode was how everyone’s hidden feelings get revealed in sleeptalking. That’s just lazy writing if you ask me. Everything about it is so convenient, like the one friend of Azuki’s spouting some sleeptalk remorse at the exact second that they are talking about it. Doesn’t help that we already get that Tsukushi’s problem is already not that she really wants to marry her sister, but instead has deep seated abandonment issues. Having her spell it out to the audience strikes me as insulting.

At least this episode was pretty funny. Every time they used some imagery instead of nudity I got a pretty good laugh out of it. I also love how, since Tsukiko’s emotions are still locked up, instead of yelling as Yoto carried her through the streets, what we heard almost sounded sarcastic. Even Tsukush’s stupidity was starting to grow on me. There’s just something so-weird-it’s-funny with the way she ogles and obsesses over her sister like some weird stalker. It was kinda easy to tell that Tsukiko was at least involved somehow with the disappearance of his house.

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi Welcome, My Friend

Every week I think Stony Cat has reached the peak of sexual weirdness. Each week they endeavor to prove me wrong. It’s kinda getting to the point that I feel like I’m just watching some guys manifested fetishes than actually watching an anime. The scene with Azuki was totally unnecessary and just caused me to cringe. Why were there handcuffs, seriously why? Does the cat grant wishes at some subliminal level and Azuki is really a masochist or something? At the very least they sidestepped the trope of tsundere characters blaming their love interest for something that was completely their fault. Speaking of, honestly Azuki barely acts like one at all. Sure she gets embarrassed, but she has good reasons to be embarrassed. She even initiates all of the intimacy in the episode, something you’d rarely ever see from a tsundere.

Tsukiko is also a complete subversion of the stoic silent girl. While she still cannot express emotion, every bit of her dialogue oozes with her true feelings. It was kinda weird that it looked like she wasn’t wearing anything under his shirt, but watching her act out Yoto’s earlier compliments was absolutely adorable. It goes to show how good the animation is that any emotion Tsukiko wishes to express can instead be inferred by the rest of her body language. Something as simple as slamming a bowl can do as much as a tone of voice very easily.

In the end, it seems the story is going back to Tsukushi and her abandonment issues. It is very true that it’s hard to understand the idea of growing apart when Tsukiko is the only family left, but even this desperation seems a bit heavy handed. I’m sure we’re going to learn more about the tragic history of their parents next, and my money’s on them seeing them die personally. We saw glimpses of it, but it would appear Tsukushi’s wish proves that the Stony Cat is not a benevolent deity, and his wishes are more on the lines of the Monkey’s Paw than Aladdin’s Genie.  Only time will tell what such a destructive wish has truly wrought.