Minami-ke...why?
By RJay_64 3 Comments
Well I am extremely new to anime. On a completely random whim, I decided to stop by my university's anime club last fall to check things out, despite having very, very little to no knowledge of anime. In the club, they didn't just show comedies, there was a bit of each genre. But for some reason, the show with the least hopeful premise on paper won me over. It didn't happen at first. I came away from the first meeting thinking most of the shows played were average to not interesting. I even skipped a few meetings over the next month, unsure if I wanted to continue with the anime club. One of the shows though that I considered "average" at first, Minami-ke, stuck in my mind more as time went on. I found myself re watching the episodes over YouTube on my own time. Eventually, I became a bit addicted (obsessed) with an anime starring 3 cute sisters who live on their own.
I mean on paper, this is one boring show! Three sisters, who live on their own for some reason, go to school, go home, and that's it!!! I mean yes, the contrast in their personalities sets up interesting situations, but one would have to look past the description to figure that out. That saddens me, because it's for that very reason Minami-ke will probably never come to the United States officially.
People say that because this is a slice-of-life comedy, that Americans will not be able to understand the humor (see Lucky Star). However, the situations in Minami-ke do not necessarily rely on any knowledge of anime or Japanese cultures. In fact, it requires almost none. I mean all the funny scenes are based on sister rivalry, their cross-dressing friends, a psychopathic stalker who hallucinates whenever he thinks of Haruka, and the old fashioned love triangle (Fujioka, Kana, and Riko).
Anyone can understand any of those situations and find humor in them! It's just that these tried and true situations are put into a Japanese setting, that's all. I once read a blog where the writer described my feelings on this show perfectly. He or she said something to the effect that the characters take their perceived solutions to their problems to such absurd lengths that one can't help but laugh.
How is it that an episode where the entire first half is spent on hoping the rain disappears is made funny? Why by Kana tying up her little sister, hanging her from a pole, and making her beg and plead the sky for sunshine, that's how!
So it's strange that not being into anime before I saw this, and being given a variety of anime to watch in the club, that I chose the obscure Minami-ke, so ignored outside of anime circles that it cannot even convince an American company to license it.