Kamisama no Memochou Ep02

After a brief hiatus, I'm back~ There's a backlog of posts to do, though, since it's one of those weeks when I have enough to say about every anime I'm watching. And I wanted to just lounge around, too... Sadface.

The universe, eh?

Ep02 of Kamisama no Memochou seemed to have fallen into the pace that I assume the rest of the anime will take; it's very reminiscent of Gosick (although I hope it doesn't fall apart at the end, similarly...). I can't even really remember what ep01 was about, but no matter. This episode began a new mystery, no longer introducing the dynamic of the group. The pace was quick, although the mystery of the missing yakuza dad was not solved by the end, leading right into the next episode. I was super confused about the going-ons of the episode, most likely because it's in the middle of a mystery and they're not really giving me enough information to solve it myself.

...Dr Tenma? Is that you?!

The episode began with the aforementioned father on the run from some suited men, all the while attempting to call someone on his cell phone. When he finally got through, it was his daughter, and he told her to take a bag and run - and also to never call him again. After the OP, Narumi was attending to Alice once more (I wonder if it actually is possible to be able to tell minute temperature differences with a can of soda), when a girl named Meo showed up at the door (wearing some seriously low-riding shorts).

I guess precision doesn't matter with a cursor like that...

Meo was a little on the slow side; when Alice deduced that she was Thai, Meo questioned how she knew, although she had announced at the door a Thai greeting (and also, the animation made it very clear that she looked different). At any rate, she revealed that her neighbour's boyfriend (Hiro!) had given her the card leading her to Alice, and she needed to find her missing father, who had been a yakuza member but fell in love with and married a Thai woman, leaving the business.

Hm, this scene could be so misinterpreted...

Obviously, there's more to the story since her father also left Meo a bag of money (to the tune of 200 million yen). Alice immediately got to work, sending Meo to live at the Hanamaru (under the care of Min) while she sent out her minions to work. One gripe I had with this episode was that Alice didn't really seem to do much other than be a know-it-all. It's not that I have a problem with those kinds of characters (like Victorique from Gosick, of course), but even in her knowing it all phase, she didn't seem to do much. I guess I just didn't like the slightly disjointed storytelling, wherein I'm sure Alice was doing things in the background.

What terrible ads. Doesn't make me want to click at all.

After Hiro managed to get a picture of Meo's father (you'd think that Meo herself would have carried it, perhaps in a wallet or something, but she didn't seem like she was carrying anything except the money...), Alice had a lot of problem sending it over to the yakuza leader from the last episode (I will call him Yondaime, because I genuinely don't know his name, and that's his title), at which point she sent Narumi over to fix their computer. (I have to wonder how a computer could be so infected as to have constant pop-ups like that, but I've seem almost similar things, so it's not so creepy.) As Yondaime sent out his underlings to photocopy the picture and perform a search for him, he had a chat with Narumi about how the high school student really had no business in such dangerous situations. Just like with Gosick, Narumi announced that he was Alice's assistant and wasn't going anywhere. Ah, such resolve; where does it come from?

The embodiment of stupidity: think before you speak, idiot!

I'll admit it: this episode was a little confusing for me. I don't really fully understand what happened with Meo's father. After meeting the leader of the group that he was a part of (through Tetsu's connections), it turned out that Meo's father had been the money launderer for the group, and wanted out since he had a family. Instead of losing a finger (since it's hard to get a good job while lacking a digit), his punishment was to leave and finish the job. I have no idea what that means. Apparently, though, he stole 300 million yen from the group, of which he left two thirds to Meo and probably has the other third on him. Narumi jumped the gun and told Meo that her father probably wasn't coming back, although they really had nothing to back that up, which caused her to take the bag of money and run off. ...and then it turned out that Meo's mother's cell phone was located in a secret compartment at the base of the bag. I have no idea what this means. I don't know what Meo's father is innocent of. I'm really confused.

It's ramen! What is there without noodles?!

So, all in all, this episode probably set the tone for this anime, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm pretty confused as to what is happening, much less what will happen. Remembering my time with Gosick, I think I was filled with the same kind of confusion as I am now. I think there's a chance I'll wait until each arc finishes to post about this anime from here on out. Otherwise, I'm just asking questions non-stop.

~Aaro