Minami-ke Okawari

Even more of same stuff with INCREASED fanservice, more CHARACTERS and extra neko scenes!! With a fleshed out story in place, you're basically getting more bang for your buck the second time around!


Story (Very Good)
As the description says, its a continuation of the daily lives of the three Minami Sisters. Thats a plot to the uninformed. Also called a sitcom (google it). Now this time around they actually have a rather large cast of characters supporting the three girls. The girls get put into more silly antics than before and all at the same time showing a lot of skin in the process. If ... there was any fan service suggestions you thought of that was missed in the first season, its most likely in the second season. Common situations like bath house antics, winter time hijinks, and even valentines day blues they're all there and accounted for. Its all very cliche' but for such a great show as this one can't help but watch the girls in their form and laugh out loud. If you cant realize the story/plot in a sitcom is all about the comedy than one doesn't know what a comedy anime is all about.

Characters (Great)
You get to see all three sisters in every episode but now they're almost always surrounded by their friends in one situation or another. They follow the 'more the merrier' approach and put all of them in such hilarious situations. Their facial expressions are still as classic as ever complete with the arms in the air. If you had a favorite character you'll just like them even more (Haruka for me) as they're all are even cuter than before. Well aside from their thigh high and miniskirt school uniforms, they wear a lot of different fashions every episode. On top of that theres more antics and silliness in every episode as well. My only gripe is that their friends are a little too friendly. Meaning they like to do things for the minami sisters more often than a normal friend would do. But then again, thats a large reason why this show so funny.

Sound (Very Good)
The background sound effects are all there, the same as before. A lot of bare feet running on hardwood, the sound of the computer fan running, etc etc. All the same as before. The music is exactly the same as before which is fine for such a light hearted, brightly colored, cute anime such as this. Mainly piano solos and light percussions and wind instruments. The opening theme isn't as great as the first seasons but the ending theme is pretty good but really flashy and loud. At least the singers were the same.

Art (Great)
As hard as it may seem the art actually seems to be kicked up an extra notch. The background art is the same style as Season 1 but this time theres even more settings in every episode. Theres a lot of random still shots of their apartment, school, etc. But on top of that you will even get to see more things throughout their apartment than just their living room and kitchen. Also, they do a lot more things outside. But the obvious difference isn't just from the background art. The static objects are everywhere from random underwear hanging to dry to uncooked meat getting tossed in a fryer. It all looks like they're done up an extra notch. But the main difference of the artwork, are with the characters. Sure theres more main and supporting cast on screen but how they manage to give them ALL different outfits for almost every show (apart form the school uniform) is pretty impressive in my opinion. You almost wonder if they have a fashion stylist on their payroll.


Overall, its like what the first season should have been. So in essence its a perfect sequel. More of the same stuff, with A LOT of extra additions in every episode. Slight word of caution a lot more skin is included with what I previously stated. But with the addition of all the extra characters theres bound to be a chuckle or two somewhere. It's obvious the different production company tried to emulate Domu's classic hilarity. For the most part it stays pretty well in tact although fans of Domu can spot slight differences. Its so well done, even a normal anime viewer (like me) could hardly tell that it was made by a different company.

Following on from the hilarious slice of life anime series Minami-ke, Okawari continues the story of the daily lives of the Minami family and their friends. For its second season, Minami-ke switches to an entirely new production staff (though the voice actors remain the same), and the difference shows. Okawari changes quite a few things about its predecessor... mostly for the worse.

The main problem with Okawari is the fact that it often seems to forget that it's supposed to be a comedy. Opportunities for jokes frequently go wasted, and the jokes that do appear are usually rather lame. There's the occasional moment of humour, but ... for the most part with Okawari, it's like just watching the daily lives of the three sisters, waiting patiently in the hope that something funny might happen. Most of the cast from the previous season make a welcome return (although Hosaka isn't as funny as he used to be, as he now just does random things for no apparent reason), but newcomer Fuyuki is a somewhat annoying and tedious character. We never even get to see Touma's brothers ("the other Minami family") in this season, which is a shame because they were pretty good characters in Minami-ke.

Another problem with the series is the gratuitous amount of "fanservice", to the point where this could essentially be called an ecchi anime. The series never misses a chance to follow the characters into the bath or show them with little or no clothing for whatever reason, and of course there's the obligatory public baths episode, which seems to be mandatory with all slice of life anime these days (though to be fair, that particular episode is one of the funnier ones).

One thing that has improved over the first season is the art. For the most part it's pretty competent and there's no significant problems, however there is one issue: for some reason, background characters are all fully animated, with hairstyles and everything, except they're blacked out so you can't see their faces. It looks kind of creepy when you see it in motion, and takes quite some getting used to. Especially when they talk...

The sound and music are fairly good. Both the opening and ending themes for the series are a little strange and don't quite fit the tone and genre of the series, but at the same time they're not bad.

For all its faults, Okawari could be a lot worse. The series can be funny when it tries, and it never gets bad enough as to be unwatchable. Okawari fails to live up to the standard set by its predecessor, but it's not a bad series either. If the writers had concentrated less on unnecessary ecchi and more on humour, it could have been a winner.

The first thing I have to say is that I'm not an English speaker, so please excuse my English mistakes.

It's the first time I write something about an anime on MAL, but for "Minami-ke Okawari" it has to be said:

*** Stay away from this anime! ***

I really enjoyed the first season which I completed in two days, it was so fun. The next day I was really excited about beginning the season 2, but a bit worried about the change of studio. I couldn't imagine how right I was to be worried...

First things first, the art. Many reviews here are saying the art is more ... or less okay, and even better than in season 1. I couldn't disagree more. The character design of the first season has its flaws (weird triangular mouthes and sometimes some weird foreshortenings) but at least it was original (and nice). In the second season, the character design is generic as hell, seen about 10.000 times. All the characters looks the same. Asread even changed the color of the eyes, you can hardly recognise Haruka. In addition to that I think the use of colors is very bad (it was very nice in season 1).

Then we've got the animation. Better than season 1? Are you kidding? From the very beginning of the opening you can see seemingly CG drawn characters, walking with loops of about 3 frames per sec, and the animation is so bad (jumpy and unnatural) it hurts the eye. Wow, bad start. And in the actual show? It's the same, not good at all.

As for the "fun" stuff, do you remember the small strand of hair Chiaki has on her head? Well, now it's animated... Sigh...

And on top of this, you've got a Onsen episode at episode 1. Yes ladies and gentlemen, a fan service oriented episode right on the first episode of the season.

Usually I watch 3 episodes to make up my mind before deciding to drop an anime but this time I've had enough with one. Stay away from this show, especially if you enjoyed the first season.