Murenase! Seton Gakuen Episode 2

It’s time for episode two of Murenase! Seton Gakuen, aka Seton Academy: Join The Pack! After a mixed bag for episode one, did the show manage to pull things on track in this second showing? In some ways, yes. Let’s take a look.

Silly Fun

This episode was all about growing the cooking club, and in the end, we get three new members: a koala named Yukari, a cat named Kurumi, and a sloth named Miyubi. They each have their own thing going on which is presented via a mix of ridiculousness and animal facts.

For Yukari, this saw her on a quest to find a dish that she ate long ago. You see, koalas only eat eucalyptus, and she wants to try other things. But her Mum won’t tell her what the other mysterious dish was. Madness ensued with Yukari turning out to be quite good at cooking, and Ranka…creating a censored monstrosity. When Yukari tried it though, it tasted just like the dish she ate before: Pap (undigested eucalyptus from a mother’s anus, designed to pass on necessary bacteria). The arc was good fun, complete with a Food Wars styled reaction to Ranka’s meal from Yukari.

That segued into Kurumi making her first appearance. This kitty wasn’t actually interested in cooking, and just wanted a ton of attention. She played along a little, though she did use a special high-frequency solicitation purr to awaken Hitomi and Yukari’s maternal instincts. She turned on the purr again in an attempt to get them all to quit the club and form a napping cub with her, but that failed. In the end, it was revealed that Kurumi actually kinda envied the group, and her tail gave away that she really did want to join.

Finally, we had Miyubi.

Mixed Bag Antics

Miyubi’s arc was probably the clearest representation of the mixed nature of the series so far. Her tale was essentially one where she was lonely and friendless, but when Ranka found her, she built up the cooking club as a friendly place. There were a whole bunch of sloth facts tossed out, all of which resulted in the same thing thing: Miyubi dies. Not literally, of course, but she certainly passes out. Even with the repetition, it was actually pretty funny, in a big way due to the daftness of it all.

But then there’s the fan service. Miyubi passed out a lot, including before and during a bath, which led to some underwear shots and a barely covered by the water shot. Kurumi got the anime nosebleed too and had more of an effect on Hitomi and Yukari, so I’m guessing she’s going to bring the yuri factor here. The thing is, we didn’t need to see Ranka stripping Miyubi, for example. It was just plain unnecessary.

Misc. Things

There are some other fun things going on to balance this out though. For one, I’m beginning to notice that there are a lot of dinosaurs among the teaching ranks. I don’t know why that amuses me, but it does. My favourite thing though is probably seeing Jin react to the different animal facts given by the narrator. He can clearly hear the voice over and is paying attention. It’s a fun touch.

Overall

This is kinda reminding me of Magical Sempai last season. By that I mean that the premise is one that I’m a fan of, and the humour is landing, but the reliance on fan service feels disruptive. Where they differ as series is that Sempai was, as a character, so lovable that you could look past the other stuff. So far, none of the core cast here have drawn me in to that level. Will they? So far though, I’m entertained enough to stick with it for another episode at least.

So, those were my thoughts. But what about yourselves? Did you enjoy this episode? Do you agree or disagree with any of my observations? Let me know in the comments below.

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