| Title: | PaniPoni Dash! |
| Episode: | 17: Justice is Blind |
| Synopsis | |
| The school festival is approaching and Class C votes to set up a refreshment booth as it's project. Becky is unenthusiastic--she complains that festivals only increase the amount of administrative work she has to do. But Rei sees an opportunity to make some serious money. She unveils a plan in which the class will make cheap cakes using equipment she will borrow from her part-time job, then sell them at considerably marked up prices. Colored chicks (and a rabbit) will be for sale as well. Furthermore, why not sell shares in this new business of theirs? The fashion club will provide attractive maid costumes free of charge. As it turns out, the "Peach Moon Civil War (Sengoku) Tea House" proves wildly popular and business is booming. The greedy Rei dreams of creating a nationwide franchise, while Becky comments "You are not going to grow up to be a decent person"... | |
| Comments | |
| Several critics have accused Rei of being little more than a clone of Yomi from Azumanga Daioh, and that's probably the character she most resembles, except I don't recall Yomi ever revealing a dark, greedy side of herself like Rei does in this episode. If analogies are to be drawn, I would say Himeko is a combination of the hyper Tomo and the slow-witted Osaka. Becky, of course, is partly the cute Chiyo-chan, partly the careless Yukari-sensei, but also has some of Yomi's sarcasm. Perhaps Miyako is most like Yomi, being the study-bug that she is. There wasn't any Azumanga Daioh character whose main trait was being completely average, like Kurumi. Rokugou is most like Chiyo-chan, being completely innocent. And there was definitely no Azumanga Daioh character that was anywhere near as weird as Ichijou! Anyway, this episode gets "super-Japanese" towards the end, with all sorts of references to (I presume) live-action TV shows and movies that we've never heard of. So, you are left wondering what's going on and why it would be funny. On the other hand, sometimes these far-out cultural references are funny precisely because I don't understand them! Go figure... I swear, this episode had yet another rendition of the OP song, which would mean there are at least three (plus the secondary OP song, which is used occasionally). PaniPoni Dash is chock-full of eye candy, with all sorts of bizarre scenes and eye catches between scenes--it's quite difficult to trim them down to a dozen or so to include with this review. It may not remain in my memory for long, but I'll be damned if it's not fun while it lasts! | |
