Recap

Seki-kun wastes time by playing with a robot family, building an elaborate note delivery system, inventing a new Shogi scenario, and knitting a stuffed toy.

Jel’s Thoughts

Tonari no Seki-kun has only gotten better over this last block of episodes, finding new ways to bring Seki-kun and his time killing accomplice closer together. It continues to be my not-so-secret favorite show despite it’s length and potentially gimmicky format and I wish I could talk more people into watching it. In a season full of great anime couples, Kana Hanazawa Yokoi and Seki-kun pull off that rare feat of building a completely natural relationship without any of the usual forced drama, and in this case through some of the most creatively mundane ways imaginable. There will plenty of time for gushing throughout the post though, so here’s what I thought about the individual episodes:

Episode 6 was simply brilliant and probably my favorite so far. It was rather amusing to see Yokoi reach her breaking point and take total charge of the situation after only dabbling in Seki-kun’s affairs up until now. It really shows she’s a strong character who isn’t going to be pushed around by Seki-kun’s carelessness. Let’s be honest though, this episode is all about the amazing “Robot Family” song in which Yokoi restores order to the situation. Who doesn’t like old guys passionately singing about mecha? ROBOTO, ROBOTO, ROBOTO KAIZOKUUUU!!!!

Episode 7 was also pretty great despite its lack of amazing insert song. Part of the fun in this series is seeing how detailed Seki-kun’s distractions can be, and this may have been his most elaborate set up yet. Even better was the fact that he could then use the red tape he built to fight off Yokoi’s protests. Of course the potentially big development is at the very end as there are now some rumors circulating about our main couple. Will that just be a one off joke or will that come back to haunt Yokoi later? I’m guessing the latter.

I was a little disappointed to see episode 8 go back to the Shogi concept again, but as the story became more and more ridiculous it quickly won me over. If you’re in the camp that just sees this as Kana Hanazawa Freaks Out: The Animation then this was the episode for you. Once again I love how Seki-kun is hip to Yokoi’s interference now, and the bit with the book wall felt as intense as any action anime scene… OK maybe not quite but I enjoyed it anyway. Having seen this episode I would now be OK with doing Shogi again, I just think of it like some of the recurring segments in Nichijou or other short scene comedies.

Episode 9 was interesting in that we learn a bit more about Yokoi herself and what she likes to do. With Seki-kun tackling something she’s personally good at, it added a new perspective on the usual time wasting. Rather than figuring out what Seki-kun was going to do, Yokoi was waiting for him to mess up. While I did find that interesting, I must say this episode wasn’t quite as thrilling as some of the previous ones as it dove into the minutiae of the craft. Still, it’s that level of detail that makes this series so ridiculous and therefore entertaining, so I don’t think I’d want it any other way.