This is another episode that is split into two stories. The stories in this episode are: “Even if He is, He Wouldn’t Tell Some Jerk in Fake Glasses.” and “It’s an ultrasonic cleaner for glasses with lenses.”

“Even if He is, He Wouldn’t Tell Some Jerk in Fake Glasses.” sees everyone except Akira in the club room, with Mitsuki and Hayato wondering why Akira is late. Takuma says that Akira was made to run an errand for Mr. Shirogane, because Akira put a hole into the teacher’s overalls. While they wait, Mitsuki and Hayato have an argument as to whether or not Akira is afraid of anything.

Meanwhile, Akira is looking around the corner of a hallway. There’s an insect that looks like a praying mantis in the pathway, and it appears Akira is afraid of it. We get a bit of a flashback to when Akira was younger and he and a friend had caught several of these bugs. They discovered the bugs were eating each other and believed the bugs to be aliens. The majority of this episode focuses on Akira and his attempts to try to get the bug out of his path so he can continue on to the club room.

I have to say that of the stories I have seen in Meganebu! up to this point, this one is by far the least interesting and the least amusing. I also didn’t think it really accomplished anything in the way of character development, and it came across as being a “filler” story. I was also rather bored by the end of it.

It also didn’t help that a lot of shortcuts were taken on the animation. There are a lot more still frames being used than usual, and speech bubbles were being used instead of seeing characters talking in several scenes. It almost gave me the impression that the animators were running behind schedule when animating this story, so they found ways to cut what corners they could in order to keep their deadline.

“It’s an ultrasonic cleaner for glasses with lenses.” opens with all five members of the Glasses Club pedaling a five-person bike that is being kept stationary. This is a bike that Mr. Shirogane has lent to them. Akira has on the most recent incarnation of the X-ray Glasses, and there’s a wire going from the glasses to the bike. The idea is for the members of the Glasses Club to pedal the bike in order to power the glasses. Unfortunately, they end up pedaling too fast. This causes the glasses to short out and to explode.

Takuma decides to take the bike out for a ride without permission, and this causes Akira, Mitsuki, and Yukiya to chase after him. Hayato ends up joining in after realizing that he’s being left behind. Hayato being ignored is a running gag in this story.

They take the bike out a ways and stop at a place that has a glasses shop with an ultrasonic cleaner for lenses. When Hayato puts his fake glasses into it, Mitsuki asks if he’s making fun of the others.

As they start to head back, they are caught in a rainstorm. Yukiya has developed a pair of glasses with wipers on them. He decides to use them and ride at the front of the bike, even though the glasses are still in the testing stages. After the wipers on the glasses work so hard that they short out and break, they have to figure out how they’re going to get home.

I have to give this particular story credit that it at least includes something about the overarching story of the X-ray Glasses. The inclusion of the X-ray Glasses has been a rather hit-and-miss thing in the stories in this series so far. During the first story of this episode, Hayato makes a comment about needing to work on developing the X-ray Glasses, and I thought to myself, “Good of you to notice, Hayato. I’ve been noticing this for a while.”

Between the two stories, I would say that the second one is the stronger one. It was more interesting to watch, I wasn’t bored while watching it, and it feels like it has some relevance to the overall series.

So far, this has probably been the most disappointing episode of Meganebu!, thanks to the first story in this episode. I really hope that this is just an anomaly and that Episode Six will return to the storytelling that I enjoyed in the previous four episodes of the series.

Additional posts about Meganebu!:

Advertisement