Kannagi has a special place in my heart as the show that compelled me to start blogging. Back in those days, I was nothing more than a new-born baby, with no clue what I was doing. Now I’m jaded, awash in a mountain of cigarettes and working on my 4th marriage. Man it’s been a rough 6 months.

Kannagi had a great bunch of characters, and was unfailingly hilarious. I think back over the past year, and I still feel like it’s the best slice of life/comedy in recent memory. So when it returned with episode 14 (or OVA 1 or the DVD special, whatever you want to call it), I was eager to dole out the Kannagi love. So it’s rather disappointing to report that my memories of the show are better than the actual episode, which was pretty boring except for a couple parts towards the end.

Just a quick follow-up to the fall 2008 preview that kicked this blog off.

ChäoS;HEAd

I was hoping it’d be Higurashi-esque. In the end it didn’t even come close. The first few episodes started off promisingly. Mysteries were compelling, atmosphere was tense, hallucinations were mind boggling. Then about halfway through it devolved into this utterly incomprehensible pseudo-science shounen. It was like matrix2^10 x clonewars^40 = chaos;head. Easily the most disappointing show of the season, considering my expectations for it.

Ga-Rei Zero

I think I’ve written enough about GRZ. But in contrast to CH, it was the biggest surprise of the season. I loved, loved, loved this show.

Kannagi

Same deal as with GRZ, I’ve probably written

I wasn’t familiar with the manga, but based on the buzz, I had pretty high hopes for Kannagi coming into the season (or at least high hopes for Haruka Tomatsu), and by the end, the show managed to meet and exceed most of those expectations. It was the zany, episodic, slightly romantic comedy I was looking for.

Even though they’re not really similar shows, it’s hard for me not to mention Lucky Star when talking about Kannagi, what with the choreographed dance intro, the shared director and the in-episode references, but they share the same charm and similar focus on making the characters memorable.

The characters are what makes Kannagi so awesome. You’ve

The beginning of the episode picks up right where episode twelve left off, with Jin sulking in front of his locker.

Fortunately for him, Tsugumi kicks him right in the balls (figuratively speaking, and dresses him down for acting like such a wuss. Kudos to Tsugumi. She’s not just a cute overran, but she’s a cute overran with a spine. Luckily for the rest of his, this snaps Jin out of his funk and he chases after Nagi with Tsugumi providing support. How Jin could possibly be the one person in Japan

Kannagi took a very sharp dramatic turn halfway through last episode, and they pick up where they left off, only increasing the melodrama this episode. Whereas last episode, I thought the dramatic shift was awkward, this episode, I thought the comedic bits were actually a bit clumsily dispersed.

I’ve mentioned this before, but for an episodic comedy, they really do a good job of making sure there’s week-to-week continuity. It’s the little things that count. Like Jin’s injuries from last week not magically disappearing. And all the