Recap

The residents of the complex spend their break together, making giant bubbles, doing laundry, and watching horror movies. Usa meets the fifth and final tenant of the building but she may not be the sweet, normal girl that she appears to be.

Jel’s thoughts

I was surprised at the format of this episode as it was essentially three vignettes tied together by the fact that everyone was on break. The first one had me worried as it was definitely the weakest. It was nice to see Shiro’s sweet side as he’s yet to be anything more than a one-dimensional pervert up until this point. Using the bubbles to cheer up the girls with apparently zero ulterior motives was a nice development for his character, but the humor fell pretty flat as it all boiled down to making Kana Hanazawa say double entendres.

I was more encouraged by the laundry segment, as it finally brought our main couple a little closer together. Giving Usa an opportunity to flash a little wit, seeing Ritsu smile, and giving the two a little inside joke made for the sweetest moment Kawaisou has delivered yet. I have been trying to defend Ritsu as more than just a bland, emotionless girl and while she might be shy and quiet she is far from being a totally detached ice queen. I’m finding Usa to be a pretty likable leading man as well. Even if he’s not particularly remarkable, his desire to get to know Ritsu better comes off as way more believable than dozens of other anti-social anime protagonists.

The final horror movie segment was fun but did little more than reinforce the fact that Sumiko has Usa’s back when it comes to getting close to Ritsu. I’ll admit I chuckled at the bait and switch panties joke though. The real important part was introducing Sayaka, who didn’t give us much to judge just yet. Her uhhh… “outgoing” personality and the way she grabbed Usa’s attention makes me think she will serve as a good foil for Ritsu, but I’m not exactly sure what her weird quirk is going to be.

After two episodes I am still enjoying Kawaisou quite a bit, but there are still some nagging questions marks that will not go away. The characters are showing hints of depth but are ultimately defined by their one funny little quirk, making the humor flat and predictable. I have a feeling new girl Sayaka is going to follow suit. But then we get the sweet bonding moments like this week’s laundry session that make it all worth it. If things proceed exactly as they are now I’m not sure if I’ll be saying that in a few more episodes, but I am still looking forward to watching more.

Marlin’s Thoughts

Something just isn’t clicking for me with Kawaisou. Our protagonist is a bit too much of a pervert for his own good. It does pretty poorly for his character that he apparently gets a boner from hearing incredibly vaguely sexual phrases from his little crush. Obvioiusly the point of any quiet girl is to show her when she’s a bit more emotive, but considering she’s sitll used for physical abuse comedy I still have a lot of problems with Ritsu’s character as well. Shiro’s character was too scuttled on its very introduction to be redeemable in any way, and I hardly found him entertaining this episode either. He had one cute moment with the bubbles, but then went back to the tired pervert jokes the minute it was over. Still, even he got better character development than the drunkard. Protip writers: you should never have a character so annoying that the characters in your own story even find her annoying. From what the ED seems to imply the new girl is a bitch in sheeps clothing kind of character, which is the absolute worst, so something tells me I’m not going to find getting to know her very enjoyable either.