Lookin’ kinda busty there, Kyo.

Impressions:

So, this DVD (the last DVD I believe… boo…) actually came out last week. I am so sad that I didn’t notice that sooner, because this episode was awesome. Easily the funniest of all the DVD specials, and aside from Kyo stuffing her bra like a madwoman, good times all around. Sure, I’ve forgotten that one girl’s name since I haven’t seen her for half a year, but I have absolutely no complaints about this one. There was Guchuko. There was Nene. There was Kyo. There was crossdressing. There was Sunao in drag. There was abundantly more Kyo. Everything you could ever want out of Potemayo… except for the announcement of a second season. Come on, JCStaff. If you can go for a third season of Zero no Tsukaima, you better the hell give me my second mochimochi season. I’ll miss you, Potemayo Guchuko. God speed and I hope we get to see more of you soon.

The school fair starts. Kyo is apparently stuffing her bra for this one.

The teacher from the next class over goes nuts at the competition. Even Potemayo is part of it, dressed up like a waitress and delivering flan. Sort of.

Guchuko is doing a better job of it… even if she does get tempted to steal the drinks every now and then. After being chastised, she sulks in the corner until giant breasted Kyo gives her some encouragement.

Guchuko goes back to work… slicing off the top of the paper straws.

Nene’s brothers show up with Nene in… uh… a penguin suit. Her pants are huuuuuuuuge. Seriously… MCHammer huuuuuge. The brothers quickly make a nuisance of themselves.

Whoseherface that I haven’t seen for 6 months comes running up to visit the school fair after being invited by Mikan… and gets mistaken for a boy on the way in. She gets roped into a game of hit the target and nails it in one. She wins a pack of tickets for the festival as a prize and enjoys them to their fullest.

BACK TO GIANT BOOBED KYO, her fans want pictures with her. Nene takes the chance to tease Guchuko about being left behind a little bit.

The mochimochis keep working. They run into eachother and get into a little war. Guchuko’s worm eats the food Potemayo is carrying, then Potemayo’s chick attacks Guchuko’s cake. Things only get worse from there.

Word has spread about the beautiful girls of the restaurant. Two boys gossip about it on the way there… but then they run head long into the crossdressing shift of the cafe.

Yasumi tries to check out the cafe and is also dragged in by the drag queens. The women loooooove the drag queens apparently. Sunao is also in a giant maid suit… but without his glasses, he trips over Potemayo and spills crap all over Yasumi.

Sunao wasn’t allowed to wear his glasses… and as he’s explaining, Potemayo pounces on him and he ends up glomping Yasumi. All the girls squeal and take pictures.

The girls of the class finally make it back… and Mikan goes nuts. Mudo takes offense to Sunao’s flashing and replaces his shorts with the proper underskirt for a maid… frilly and puffy.

Whoseherface comes home with a fish.

The festival ends and the 3-C class won the best exhibit/booth/whatever.

They celebrate in style. Potemayo and Guchuko are KOed from their gluttonous battle.

I missed you, Guchuko!

Impressions:

Hooray! Guchuko! Finally! It took us five DVD specials, and I’ve forgotten the names of half the characters, but Guchuko! I love you, you crazy little rascal. I have to wonder why she doesn’t just eat the critters that she brings people… they’ve got to be more healthy for you than the hot dogs that she was filching. This one was a lot closer to a normal episode than the other DVD specials so far. Not particularly heartwarming, but lots of random humor popping between characters every 10 seconds. I still laughed. Mostly at Guchuko, but the class rep’s deadpan reactions to her are what sealed it. Love love Kyo also made me laugh. At least the guys in the class know who the best of the bunch is.

One more DVD special to go… and I am so hoping and praying that it comes with an announcement of season two.

Summer time… which means school fairs. The whole class assembles and prepares to deploy their forces. Mudou has his own cheerleading things which whose-his-face (man, it’s been awhile) is eagerly filming.

Nene and Mikan cart stuff around while Kyo cooks pilaf. The triplets watch on with their usual aplomb. The class rep swings by and they all sample Kyo’s cooking. It’s great… obviously.

Kyo’s a bit downcast though, since she wanted to do a stall. That wouldn’t have enough ‘impact’ though.

Kyo hands the rep the foodstuffs list while Guchuko steals hotdogs. The classrep gives her the evil eye and reminds her that guests need to pay.

The male classrep gets poked at by the teacher for another class, but he quickly turns it back on the teacher’s own class for their own uncreativity.

Outside, Potemayo works on some kind of giant strange painting while some guys watch on. Sunao walks up, apologizes and sets to painting the banner for real.

He immediately spills pain on his glasses, so has to take them off. Everybody decides that Pote’s work may be preferable to blind Sunao’s.

Yasumi is alone in a classroom with a shoe, talking to it. Mudou does his little cheerleader routine through the window to cheer him on… and then tries to feed him lines..

Everybody’s teacher swings by as they get ready to open up the restaurant. Nene phones in to her brothers to prepare the after-prep festivities.

The female class rep opens her shoe locker to find a dead snake and mouse from their ‘guest’ earlier as… well… an unacceptable form of payment.

The females enjoy a hot bath care of Nene. Kyo and Mikan chatter onward about how much fun it’ll be. Kyo even yells over to Sunao on the other side of the bath.

On the male’s side, they’re fantasizing about Kyo. Nene’s brothers show up to be the morality police (for a given definition of morality) and chew them out.

After the bath, everybody heads home. Sunao and Mikan end up walking near eachother.

Welcome to Pom Pom Burger, home of the Pom Pom Burger. Can I take your order?

Impressions:

Guchuko! Finally! Alright, it was only about a quarter of a second… and we’re still totally missing Kyo and Nene in these DVD episodes, but I’ll take what I can get. Not too much else to say other than that. Another warm slice of life story of Potemayo changing some poor unsuspecting person’s life through the power of gluttony. Too bad there wasn’t a mini-pirate lurking somewhere. What do you expect from me? It was all of six minutes long. It was Potemayo. It was good. Go enjoy it or I’ll hit you repeatedly with a blunt object. Now be off with ye!

Potemayo is all fired up and trying to communicate… something to Sunao. He gives up trying to understand her and kits her up with money and whatnot and sends her off. She makes it about 15 feet before chasing after a passing food truck.

Potemayo wanders through the shopping district. She sees Pom Pom Burger and runs inside. A nervous worker struggles to smile when Potemayo leaps up on the counter.

Both bow to eachother… then the woman scowls at the strange thing. Potemayo barks at her until she brings up a picture menu. Potemayo puruses it and decides on a chicken burger. The chick bounces around. The woman looks at it… and then turns back to Potemayo. The two stare at eachother for a moment.

The woman then pulls out the salad menu and asks if Potemayo would like one of those too… then we make it a value meal, and since we’ve already got one value meal, let’s go ahead and expand on that too.

A small girl watches the strange happenings. Soon a crowd gathers to watch the craziness unfold. Potemayo just keeps agreeing to every food that the counter jockey suggests. The crowd grows more and more at the crazy sight of the mochi-mochi buying everything in the store.

The next day, Mikan brings cookies to Potemayo, but they’re munching on Pom Pom burgers. Potemayo came home with too many and now they have to eat them all.

Mikan looks out at the autumn weather. She decides that tomorrow, she’ll definitely have the courage to give her lunch to Sunao. As she’s lost in her reverie and holding out the cookies, Guchuko snatches them away.

Meanwhile, the Pom Pom Burger worker has discovered true happiness in her job thanks to Potemayo giving her confidence.

I can’t imagine a more petrifying angel of love.

Impressions:

Boo for having three DVD episodes and no Nene or Guchuko. This is a travesty! The DVD episodes continue the trend of being decent, but nowhere near as much fun as the rest of the series was. This time, we get a milquetoast office lady who subsists on convenience store food and her adventures with the little furry catblob. Man, her not having a name until the last 20 seconds of the episode made writing this one awkward. I’m still not even 100% certain what her name is. Inamiya, I believe, or something similar. Something with a lot of syllables and too many vowels. It was a nice little story about how Potemayo changed her life though. Assuming she doesn’t dump the counter jockey after a couple weeks of hot lovin’. Since it was focused on her and all of 6 minutes though, it’s hard to form too close of a bond or empathize with her all that much. One more to go. Hopefully they’ll end it with a bang… and by bang… I mean announcement of a second season.

Night reigns over the land. At the convenience store, a woman shop. She’s already bought carbonara and keeps browsing around. She hears a strange sound and looks down. Potemayo is there, looking at her. Potemayo makes strange gestures at her.

She calls over to the store manager, telling him that there’s something strange here, but Potemayo clambors up her legs and clings to her ass. She recoils in fear and screams.

The store manager chastises Potemayo for her behavior. The woman is reliving all her past tragedies. Potemayo scampers over and points at something and goes back to barking at it. The woman finally gets the message, but doesn’t figure out that ‘cho’ means that Potemayo wants chocolate. After three tries, she gets it and gives it to Potemayo, who waves ‘bye bye’ and trots off.

The woman leaves the store and finds Potemayo being attacked by a cat. It steals her chocolate and runs off.

This became something of a routine between the woman and Potemayo. They’d meet at the convenience store, she’d help the little creature buy things, and then the cat would steal them.

One time, she wasn’t paying attention to Potemayo, and the little beastie ran off to cling to the store manager instead.

She jealously fetched the snack Potemayo wanted and ended up being tackled by moecatblob.

Later, the lady walks home. She passes a clock, thinking about how late she is. She quickly runs to the convenience store and finds Potemayo asleep on the counter. Browsing around, she finds a new flavor of ice cream. She asks Potemayo if she eats ice cream, and Potemayo tries to run at her. This time, she gets slapped away.

On a bench outside, Potemayo is recovering after eating the ice cream. Potemayo gives the lady… a thing. She looks at it strangely, but finally tries it, and it’s delicious.

Now the meal time continues, with Potemayo getting to share in the store-bought carbonara and other foods. They have regular little picnics.

At her office, the woman works just like everybody else. An office mate thinks that she seems a little different.

She walks home, thinking about trying new things. She waits at the convenience store, but Potemayo never shows up. Soon, it starts to rain, and she walks home.

Another day, she’s buying her carbonara again. She’s lost in thought as the owner asks for money. He then follows it up by saying that if she’d like, they could eat together.

Sunao walks past the convenience store with Potemayo and Mikan. She struggles to get free and go in, but she got into bad habits from eating that food all the time, so he won’t let her.

After they leave, the man walks out of the store, on the phone with the office lady and making plans for later.

We be the tooth pirates!

Impressions:

Even for Potemayo, this episode was strange. Sunao drinks what he thinks is an insect, and it turns out to be a tiny horned pirate. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take that. It’s some kind of transcedental humor to practically demands ingestion of mind altering drugs. At least JCStaff seems to be having a good time with the DVD episodes. They’re not totally up to the same level as the series, but like a junkie, they’re enough to string me along and keep anticipating the next quarter ounce of Potemayo flowing through my system. The total absence of Guchuko in them is making me very very sad and angry though.

At Sunao’s house, Potemayo wanders around in her oversized sweater. She sees Sunao lost in thought and runs over and leaps on the table. She tries to get his attention, but his dark mood depresses her too. He finally says hello.

His father then wanders in and has just the thing to cheer them up and does his usual routine of flipping out with props from various cultures.

Later, Mikan and Sunao walk to school. She wonders why he’s so quite and tries to strike up casual conversation with him about the weather or going to the bath.

Yasumi lurks behind them and smites Mikan. Sunao looks over at Yasumi and transfers his dark mood to him as well. Both Sunao and Mikan back away from Yasumi as he yells in indignation.

At school, Sunao is still depressed. Kyo wonders what the problem is, but nobody knows. Potemayo is worried about him too. Through the lesson, Potemayo and Mikan watch Sunao with concern.

Afterwards, Mikan and Potemayo get together to make a wish, but don’t know where the nearest shrine is. The teacher is there with an explaination of where Boston (not Buddha) is, but Mikan pulls up his wig and they try to use him instead. Probably… it’s some terrible pun involving Boston, Buddha and Berkely at any rate.

After classes end, Mikan tries to get him to eat something to feel better. She gives him her usual sandwich set. He thanks her and seems to perk up a bit, but when he tries to take a bite, a sharp pain in his mouth knocks him out of his chair. He falls into Mikan’s arms for her usual shocked routine.

As Sunao recovers, a tiny bug leaps onto the desk. It’s a pirate… thing… who looks around and then hops over to Sunao’s sandwich. Before it can dig in, the bird tries to eat it. It hops out and leaps away, vowing to fight the bird… and then gets eaten and swallowed this time.

The guys in class start flipping out about how strange it was.

Flash back to Sunao pouring a glass of milk and seeing something swimming in it. He wondered about it for a moment, but then drank the milk anyway. Everybody in class yells at him for not being normal.

He’s all better now though and apologizes to Potemayo for worrying her. Mikan is still knocked out and emitting a high pitched whine.

At home, Sunao’s dad is making pancakes for dinner while going on about how Sunao’s is still a kid for not wanting to admit that his tooth hurt. Sunao says that his dad’s not one to talk since of his dad’s mouth is swollen and scary.

Outside, the bird leaves its (huge) poop. The pirate bursts out of it, intent on revenge… and is stepped on by a dog.

POTEMAYO SMASH!

Impressions:

Apparently Potemayo is having some short episodes released with the DVDs, so at least there’s some more to be had. This is the first of hopefully five or six (or for all I know, the one and only). Honestly though, it really wasn’t that funny after the initial joke of Potemayo being huge. I mean, it was still pretty decent for the series, but 8 minutes of almost nothing but Potemayo and Sunao? Yeah… I can think of other characters I would so rather see. I mean, I’m greatful for more Potemayo, but this was honestly pretty weak.

Caps are a bit dense compared to what’s going on since the episode was so short. *shrug*

It was a morning like any other. Sunao opens his eyes to the feeling of something heavy…. a giant (naked) Potemayo on top of him.

At breakfast, Potemayo is grumpy with a HOOOOONNNNNIIIIII. Sunao wonders what happened, but tells her to not worry about it. She tries to glomp him, but ends up crushing him. SUUUU-NNNNNAAAAA-OOOOOOOO.

A bit later, Sunao is drifting to sleep in Potemayo’s giant lap. She falls asleep as well, and dreams of running on the beach with him back in her little form. In her sleep, she ends up eating his head.

She tries to follow him to buy groceries… but can’t fit through the hallway. She somehow makes it through the hallway, but then becomes wedged in the door. She struggles to get through, but Sunao tells her it’s impossible. She makes all sorts of freaky faces in the attempt.

Sunao has bought his bread and is heading home. Predictably, he passes by Mikan’s store and wonders if she can’t help him.

She interprets his slow ask as… something else and she and Yasumi flip out. Then Sunao asks them a somewhat erotic question about making things shrink which have become engorged, prompting the elephant roar that Inukami fans should be familiar with.

Eventually, he ends up at home to Potemayo still stuffed in the door and accidently blasting him away with her breath.

He makes it home and consoles her before settling back into her lap, saying that it’s fine like this. She crushes him in another giant hug.

The next day, Potemayo is back to normal, though totally naked. On the other hand… the room is now filled with about 50 naked Potemayos.

First person to figure out the father of the Mochi Mochi spawn wins a bagel.

Impressions:

Yeah yeah, I’m getting to it. I let it start capping while the Shana stuff was uploading… then the problems with that… which means I’m slow to get started on the summary. It looks like a very nice episode though, ending with Potemayo’s freakish spawn and Guchuko’s very cute spawn. I’ll leave who fathered them to your imagination. Summary, normal impressions, and my final thoughts on the series should be up within a half hour or so. Some caps may also change if I see something that MPlayer missed.

A rather nice episode to end the series, bringing everything full circle with the… things… blossoming and becoming mothers themselves. Guchuko’s little kid (Guchuchin?) has its work cut out for it, though Potechin already shows all the signs of taking after her mother… what with chewing on everything and anything within arm’s reach. I feel a little insulted that they seriously though anybody in the audience would really believe that they’d kill the little Mochi Mochi, and could have used a bit more Nene and Guchuko in the episode overall, but Yasumi in drag was scarring enough. Sadly… and strangely… I think Kaoru is the only male to show up in more than half the episodes who never put on a skirt. We’d have to go to the polls to count the number of episodes that Sunao’s dad has been in, but it’d be close.

Seriously though… what the hell ‘pollunated’ Potemayo to produce that? It looks like the rabid offspring of Potemayo and the residents of The City With No People.

Final Thoughts:

I don’t think anybody was really sure what they’d be getting into when Potemayo started airing. Here was this show absolutely oozing with bright colors, small cute creatures and very young character designs. What we got instead consisted of a lot of gender bending jokes, the compressed violence of Guchuko, and the sheer unabashed weirdness of a little anthropomorphic cat beast. I mean, seriously. Potemayo and Guchuko have all the dynamic range of pokemon. Hell, for all we know, they could be pokemon.

The show was an absurdist comedy though. Making sense is something that happens elsewhere. There was nothing fundamentally deep or cerebral about Potemayo and that’s what made it a lot of fun. JC Staff managed to use the two girls to their utmost and found all sorts of jokes to make with them instead of relying on the same thing over and over again, and really, the strength of the show was in how strong the characters were. Every single one was very well defined, and while Mikan and Sunao are archetypes that we’ve seen a thousand times before, the rest of the cast are all dynamic enough to contrast well with their predictable personalities. Hell, I’ll even say that the two provide a centering point in reality for the rest of the absurdity to take place around them. It’s an old trick in comedy used in everything from Who Framed Roger Rabbit to Rozenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

And now that I’ve tangentially mentioned Shakespeare and Eddie Valiant in the same sentence, I’m probably rambling. Potemayo was an absolutely wonderful show full of charisma, charm, and absurdist humor that really seems hard to come by in an anime world that all too often seems filled with pandering and the same nosebleed punchline over and over and over again. It’s a crying shame that it only aired for a few short months.

Rock on, JC Staff, you crazy devils. Rock on. 

Potemayo, Sunao and his father are sleeping together. He keeps remembering what Mikan said about being kind to his father and looking at Pote’s flower. He falls back asleep, dreaming on a tropical island when he was young. Sunao sits on the porch reading when as generic a triabl guy as you can find tells him that his mom’s fallen asleep and they can go play. Sunao agrees and leaves with him, though looks back at the house that he left, thinking about his sick mother. She has ‘typhu’, which I can only imagine is typhoid fever… and you’d be amazed that typhoid fever has never come up before

The tribal dude asks Sunao what he wants to play. Sunao says anything is fine, so the tribal dude suggests sumo saying he’ll use half of half of his strength.

The two go at eachother… with Sunao getting thrown off a cliff and into the ocean. He washes ashore a little later… the dude saying he’ll use half of half of half of… etc his strength next time. Sunao remembers how good of a friend Moriya (?) (tribal dude) was and how much time the two spent together, learning to write and whatnot. The two both write letters to their mothers, yada yada.

Sunao’s mother reads the letter he gave her and laughes from her bed.

She calls him over from hiding around the corner and makes him sit next to her. She thanks him for the letter, hugs him and makes him read it to her. It’s a pretty normal letter about looking at the flowers with Moriya and wanting to do it with her too.

She thanks him and tells him that she’s feeling better because of it and will cook dinner for them. Moriya tries to stop her, but she continues and creates a giant mess all over the place.

That night, Sunao falls asleep on her bed in her lap. His father comes in and the two talk about what a good boy he is, etc until he starts waking up. They quiet down and Sunao’s dad starts nuzzling her leg. He stops when she calls him a little kid… and then he apologizes to her. She calls him an idiot for worrying about such things.

Soon after, Sunao was sent away from the island with his mother. In a hospital, he’s reading a letter from them with his mother. He wants to show her the cherry blossoms, so he takes her outside in a wheelchair. She tells him that Japan is really the country that she likes the best.

Not long after, Sunao is dressed all in black and reading another letter from Moriya saying that Sunao shouldn’t be sad etc etc. His father comes to get him, but Sunao darkly walks past without saying a word.

Sunao’s father wakes up with tears in his eyes. He wonders what kind of embarrassing dream he was having… and Sunao gives him the elbow drop. Sunao’s dad wonders if the two were having the same dream.

Potemayo tries to bring Sunao some… danish thing… and falls over backwards. Potemayo in general is having issues keeping her baalnce with the huge flower on her head.

Mikan is brushing her teeth at home, thinking how stupid she is and how she should deal with Sunao. Yasumi is brushing his teeth next to her… in a skirt. Their mother busts in and tears the clothes off him.

Kyo wakes up as well, slow and lazy as usual. She hears a knocking on the glass door… and then it breaks. She looks over and sees Guchuko repairing it after breaking in. She leaps over, scaring poor Guchuko half to death. She slams her head into the door in surprise… with one of the worms leaking blood from the impact.

Mikan and Yasumi are walking to school, both still annoyed at various things.

Guchuko tries to communicate to Kyo why she’s in. This is mostly done by hand waving and little grunting. None of Kyo’s family can figure out what she wants, though she does start growling when her father shows up. Guchuko looks around the room for… something.

Nene and her chariot are at the crosswalk. Poor poor Mudo.

Mikan wonders what she should say to Sunao when they meet. She runs into Yasumi, who has stopped because Sunao turned the corner right ahead.

She blurts out multiple apologies. Sunao tries to say something, but Yasumi grabs Mikan’s hand and walks past him. Sunao watches them go for a moment, but after Potemayo shakes him a couple times, he follows.

Guchuko finally makes a decision and walks right up to Kyo and puts her little paws on Kyo’s knees.

Mikan is trying to get Yasumi to let her go when Sunao grabs her other hand. On his head, Potemayo goes into sort of a trance. At Kyo’s house, Guchuko is doing the same. Both start grunting and straining… it sounds very uncomfortable… and then both their flowers bloom. Potemayo and Guchuko both float into the air for all to see…

Guchuko smiles and blushes, then the flowers burst, sending a shower of petals all over the place. Potemayo falls as Sunao’s mother says how beautiful the cherry blossoms are.

Sunao catches Potemayo… but she’s totally lifeless. Mikan tries to wake her up. Both her and Sunao have tears in their eyes… and Mudo falls to his knees. Kyo is holding Guchuko and telling herself that it’s not possible. She hugs Guchuko close.

Mikan puts her hands on Sunao’s cheeks and hugs him. Yasumi gets annoyed, but decides to do nothing. Sunao weakly thanks Mikan for always being with him and caring for him. She puts her head on his and simple nods.

The chicken flies around them and then lands on Potemayo, who stirs and wakes up. Sunao lifts Potemayo in happiness.

At Sunao’s house, all the cast is there to watch Potemayo dance. There’s karaoke too. Kyo tries to feed Potemayo a gucho ball, but Guchuko predictably kicks her away, starting the two fighting again. Mikan and Sunao are in the kitchen making food for everybody. Yasumi is about to interfere, but Tomari drags him away. Guchuko and Potemayo rush past… almost. Sunao grabs Potemayo and chastises her for dangerous play. He smiles at her. On her head, the chicken pecks out a seed.

Next on the karaoke is some other crazy dance. The party continues long into the night. Finally, everybody has gone home and Sunao is cleaning up. He finds the seed on the ground and throws it in the garbage.

That night, while everybody else sleeps, the trashcan rumbles.

In the morning… Sunao wakes up to a strange thing on his crotch. He asks Potemayo what it is, but she doesn’t know either. She tries to communicate with it… but it bites her head.

As the ED song runs, we see scenes of everybody walking to class, meeting the new creature, etc. Kyo has a new little beastie too, but it’s shy, shaking with fear, and far more human looking… clearly Guchuko’s shy little offspring. Even in the end, Potemayo has been outdone by the little one.

Martial arts! Drama! Wrath of the Guchuko!

Impressions:

Episode #22 was great. Guchuko’s deadpan and brutally efficient way of dealing with the silly upstarts who challenge her is nigh on perfect. I had totally forgotten about the sonic screams that she did too. Watching Potemayo try to imitate martial arts was just weird. And yeah, I couldn’t get Mecha Shiva out of my mind for the Potemari combination attack. Or should that be Tomayo? They just need a little fusion dance to complete the masterpiece.

The second half had silly pretenses of drama which was weird. I’m watching a show about strange catcreatures growing plants on their heads, one of which carries an ax and has symbiotic worms in her hair. I think it’s safe to say that I can live without drama. I think maybe it was supposed to be touching or bring Mikan closer to Sunao or something, but seriously… who cares. Let’s go back to the Children of the Corn vs Guchuko.

Next week… final episode #24… Flower. :sadness:

Summer time, and the living is easy. Tomari is off visiting her grandparents in the corn fields with Potemayo… who has now bloomed.

The two pick corn until they hear someone rumbling through the stalks. They go to investigate and as the stalks fall, find Guchuko, who springs off Tomari’s face and drops some corn as she jumps.

Tomari and Potemayo combine to form MECHA SHIVA to face Guchuko, but she smacks Tomari in the knee with the back of her scythe, knocking both over. Tomari then tries to use the snake fist from the ground, but Guchuko just walks off.

As she leaves, Tomari yells at her, and tells Potemayo to face Guchuko. Potemayo and Guchuko prepare to fight… Guchuko just standing there, while Potemayo takes a martial arts stance and tries to psyche Guchuko out… before losing interest and wandering off to eat.

Guchuko starts walking away again, and Tomari yells at her asking what Kyo would think. Guchuko imagines Kyo praising and hugging her. Tomari yells that’s wrong. This time Guchuko remembers back to being fed for by Kyo and her stomach rumbles. Potemayo starts drooling at the thought and Tomari yells that that’s also wrong.

Guchuko’s next thought is Kyo saying how she should behave, so Guchuko starts unloading all the corn she took while Potemayo and Tomari watch. She then pulls out a snake she stored away and they run off.

She keeps unloading corn, occasionally pulling out and then storing away other things… like a struggling crab. Yes. Guchuko has a living crab in her pants. You heard it here first. She finally finishes and walks off. The Tomari/Pote combo attack starts to chase after her, but the snake pops out of the corn and chases them into a bush where they bark at it and then try to beat it with a stick.

Guchuko hears the ruckus and wanders back. As the snake crawls onto the stick, Guchuko releases her demon sonic ray and knocks all three out… and an eagle that was passing overhead.

Once recovered, Tomari gives Guchuko three corn ears to give to Kyo. Guchuko stuffs them in her pants and then walks off as the snake recovers and returns to harassing the other two.

Back at a home, Tomari and Potemayo just chat until a hand knocks Potemayo over. Sunao’s back to pick up Potemayo. Him knocking her over stuffed her face into the glass she was drinking out of.

Potemayo gives Sunao some corn. He asks if it’s okay, and Tomari says it’s fine because Pote helped harvest them. Sunao pats her for being a good girl and the flower on her head grows a little larger. Tomari looks at it with wonder as they get ready to go.

Sunao thanks Tomari for looking after Potemayo and they head home.

At Kyo’s house, she’s enjoying the corn while Guchuko is also eating one of her ears. She thanks Guchuko for the corn, and Guchuko blushes. Her flower also blooms a little more.

Tomari is eating with her grandparents, thinking all about Yasumi and the others. He imagines him smiling at her and chokes on her rice.

Later, she’s heading over to Yasumi’s store with corn as a present for him. He takes it and she proudly asks what he thinks. He turns around… writes something unaoon a little board… and then puts the corn out for sale. He’s just screwing with her.

Sunao and Potemayo are getting ready to sleep. Sunao asks her about her day and whatnot, and they leave some corn out for his father.

Mikan and Yasumi are also enjoying the corn. She asks him where it came from, and he doesn’t tell her.

Omake time! The merchant guy is inspecting the corn… it’s good, but not as good as his new popcorn ball. He’s telling all this to Yasumi… who could not care less.

Side B, Sunao is thinking about all the places his father has gone. He thinks about to when he was young, travelling with his mother to visit his father. The two find him hanging to a cliffside… and then he falls off and vultures descend on him.

Later, he’s recovering while his Nabe (his wife/Sunao’s mother) is boiling water for him. It boils over and they all cower from it. Sunao starts trotting in place and goes over to turn it off, but dad throws him to mom at the last minute… and then spills the boiling water all over himself.

Back in the present day, they’re drinking hot milk (milk tea?) and then sucking on ice cubes.

Sunao and Potemayo pray at his mother’s minishrine. He tells her that it’s his mother’s birthday.

At school, Sunao is reading some passage while Mikan beams at him and Potemayo sleeps on his desk.

After class, they’re getting ready to leave, but Mudo tells Sunao that it’s his turn to help clean up. Kaoru wants to help Mudo, but gets blown off.

The girls head off, with Mikan being teased by the others over Sunao as usual. Outside the gate, they find Sunao’s dad waiting for him. He’s holding a weird doll thing. I missed exactly what he said about it, but something about it being cursed, freaking Mikan out. As Sunao walks out, she manages to give it back to Sunao’s dad.

He scowls upon seeing his dad and walks away. His dad falls in step and tries to talk to him, but Sunao is especially pissed today, and shoves him away, sending the doll thing flying into the air. Sunao looks sorry for a second, but then scowls and walks away.

Mikan yells at him to wait and he turns and starts bitching him out for being an ass to his dad. Everybody is shocked that she’d say such a thing to him. She realizes it too and runs off in tears. The girls chase after her and Yasumi slaps (yes, slaps), Sunao. Mikan runs back briefly to wail on Yasumi for that before running off again.

Sunao and his dad are walking home together as the sun sets. Sunao apologizes, and his dad lays a hand on his shoulder.

At home, dad is writing on his laptop. Sunao looks in and hauls him out for more of the hot milk/tea fun. As they drink, his dad says that Mikan is a good girl and that Sunao must be someone important to him. Potemayo starts flipping out and attaches herself to his face.

They all pray in front of his mother’s shrine again. Potemayo finishes praying early and looks over to Sunao, but since he’s not finished, she yips and goes back to praying. Sunao’s dad praises her for her feelings.

In Mikan’s bath, she’s thinking about how she has to face Sunao tomorrow. She can’t understand how Sunao can hate his father. In her delerium, she doesn’t notice Yasumi stacking things on her head. Dude’s in there with her naked.

He then gets frustrated and gnoshes on some candy in general Sunao-based rage.

Sunao’s dad is sleeping with Potemayo and Sunao tonight. He starts his usual teasing and Sunao clocks him. Sunao then remembers Mikan bitching him out and apologizes again as his dad is leaking blood all over the carpet.

Cuuuuuuuuute~ <3
I’d live in her slave house without any objections.

http://rapidshare.com/files/55223807/pote_n.zip.html

Again, thanks to Bakaohki for bringing it to my attention and letting me know where this craziness is coming from.

The two dangers of being an adolescent mochi mochi.

Impressions:

The show continues to tread some strange line in a field I don’t even want to imagine. Mudo’s wet t-shirt was something frightening unto itself. I’m not even certain they’ve said Kaoru’s (his yaoi pal) name before this point, but they really bludgeoned you over the head with it this episode. Guchuko’s uses for the dog house without actually getting inside it are also rather entertaining. I’m waiting for her to start using it to store her kills in personally. I enjoyed the B side of the episode with the plants as well. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Guchuko outclasses Potemayo at every turn, though I still have absolutely no clue what those were all about. Maybe they’re like some form of freakish Chia pet, only mobile and spawn in refrigerators.

Summary:

Rain pours down outside. Kyo is excited about it, because this means that Guchuko will finally have to seek shelter in her dog house. They watch her go up to it, but instead of using it, she jumps on it and starts waving her scythe around… doing some form of rain dance or something.

At the Moriyama’s Potemayo is watching the rain excitedly. She sees a leaf fall and starts pacing. Sunao runs in and she tears off her shirt and tries to jump outside. He grabs her and pulls her inside and chastises her for trying to play in the rain, but his father is out there taking a bath.

At school, Kyo is lamenting with Pote about the rain and what Guchuko is doing in it. Cutting back to Guchuko, she’s doing situps on the doghouse’s roof. Mudo is trying to chew out Sunao for letting Pote go out in the cold and possibly getting sick. He thinks back to him and his oversized yaoi buddy running through the rain and taking shelter. After a little bit, he thinks that it’s letting up, but his yaoi buddy is enjoying the time too much with him and doesn’t want him to go.

Back at school, the girls aren’t fooled at all by the story and we see the real side… where Mudo’s wet shirt showed his nipple through it, making yaoi-boy freak out. Mudo still hasn’t really figured it out, but the other guy (Kaoru… maybe I’ll remember his name) is laid up now, ill from the overexcitement. All his family looks like him with the giant lips, even his dog.

After class, everybody but Sunao and Pote are at Kyo’s house to observe Guchuko’s doghouse escapades. Once again, she comes to the doghouse and checks it out, and then uses it to scratch her ass on the corner.

Mikan heads home, leaving Mudo to carry Nene’s crap home and generally serve her. She says that it’s good to give pets shelter and gives Mudo his own tiny house, much to his distress. Her maid calls her away to get dressed up, and her fetching look with her hair up makes Mudo think that she’s cute once again. Kaoru’s Mudo sense goes off and he calls out for Mudo from his sickbed.

Mikan is walking home with Sunao and Potemayo. She thinks back to how she enjoyed laying out in the rain, even though people thought she was dead or something. The rain starts up a little bit again and Pote perks up. She starts playing on Sunao’s head, but he puts up an umbrella. She smacks the umbrella away and then scrambles on top of it, but it quickly collapses.

Elsewhere, Yasumi is being yelled at to bring the laundry in. He reaches up and grabs Mikan’s bra in surprise. Even at dinner, hours later, he’s still in shock.

At Mudou’s room, it’s covered in posters of Potemayo, but visions of Nene suddenly flash through his head. Kaoru’s hyperventilating even more at the thought of Mudo with a female.

Potemayo is yipping at the rain, wanting to go outside. Sunao finally relents and lets her play outside for a little bit. They head outside and she runs circles around him and leaps all over the place while he takes in the rain.

The next day, it’s bright and sunny again. Guchuko is sitting in a tree, warming up uncomfortable. She heads to the cool shade of the dog house, but only as far as the doorway.

The second eyecatch this time was Guchuko’s pillow spot in the tree minus Guchuko. Foreshadowing of her eventual move?

Moving to the flip side, Sunao’s alarm is going off. He wakes up and finds Potemayo in bed next to him with a clover-thing attached to her head.

As Potemayo washes her face, he grabs the clover, making her immediately start growling and then glare at him in anger. Through breakfast, Sunao tries to think what the hell this thing means. He thinks that a seed might have taken root on her head, and now it’s flowering and she’ll eventually wither. Lost in his daydream, he was ignoring Potemayo and she gets pissed again at him.

On the way to school, Sunao thinks that it’s okay for now, though wonders if Guchuko has one. On cue, Guchuko appears, with her clover having three leaves to Pote’s two. Potemayo immediately jealously growls at her while Guchuko’s worms snicker.

At school, Potemayo is still grumpy about it. Kyo has her own theories about what the plant is, though she’s off in left field somewhere, as cutely hairbunned Nene is quick to point out.

After class, Kyo continues her ‘investigation’ into what it could be. Mikan thinks that maybe it was brought on the rain, so they showed Pote with a hose and then give her plenty of milk to drink, but that makes her sick and her clover starts shrivels instead.

Sunao leaves her in the nurse’s office and goes out to get clocks with a soccer ball. Now he’s in the nurse’s office and Potemayo is back in the care of Kyo, who immediately abandons her to the love and care of the other female classmates. As Mudo looks on, Nene narrates his fantasy of his life with Potemayo. She was very well drawn and animated for that creepy little interlude.

Nene can’t resist one parting shot at traumatizing Mudo though. Classes all over, Kyo and Mikan release Potemayo into the wild, completely forgetting about Sunao. They go running off to fetch him from the nurse’s office after remembering, as poor Mudo and Kaoru pass.

Having fetched Sunao, everybody is eating together in the courtyard. Suddenly they hear the other students talking about how much better the clover is on ‘this one.’ Potemayo flies into a rage and takes off. Off course, they’ve treed Guchuko again, who is munching on a riceball. Potemayo growls at her, but Guchuko just turns away. Potemayo starts barking and jumping, but Guchuko completely annoys her.

Later, Potemayo is trying to communicate… something… to Sunao. Mikan figures out that she wants to make her clover bigger. Sunao lays the law down though. Mikan gives her a little pep talk about a beautiful blooming flower. Potemayo goes running off to grab a book from some unsuspecting teacher and shows them exactly what type of plant is growing on her head.

Mikan is walking home with Pote and Sunao, only to quickly be lost in another strange daydream after saying how much more beautiful it’ll become every day.

At home, Sunao is thinking about something becoming beautiful, especially Potemayo growing up and ’blooming’ as it were. The next morning, Sunao wakes up, and Potemayo’s clover now has three leaves. On the way to school though, they see that Guchuko’s has already blossomed.