Round two!

If you have scrolled quickly through the first list, then this blog should already be familiar to you. Yes, the story is the same. Most of these featured kigurumi have, in one way or another, appeared randomly in an episode. They are presented in a complete manner. But the context would sometimes be too unrelated even for one segment of the episode. Worse, the time of appearance more than often would just be just too short to create a coherent commentary or analysis out of them.

Like, we probably couldn't even give a simple conclusion on whatever pattern or design it is for the kigurumi that was shown.

I've been considering to separate the not-adapted-but-franchise-related materials, since I believe the references (or at least the duration) should be classified differently. But in any case, we have four new entries for our very brief cameos list.

1. Mahoro's Reindeer Raid

Presented as one of the seasonal episodes during the first cour of Mahoromatic season two, the premise revolves around a simple Christmas party with several strings of references to each character who may have a specific interest for the Yuletide occasion at that time. Mahoro, ever the prep genius, didn't just whip up an entire party's worth of dinner. But she also unleashed one of her best seasonal arsenal: a stocky reindeer kigurumi for everyone to hug and love.

Sure enough, as soon as Chizuko laid her eyes on the fluffy figure, she instinctively jumped onto Mahoro and never let go.

Unfortunately, even though this could have been a nice material for us to digest, the reindeer kigurumi only lasted a minute or two during the initial greeting part with the gang. As soon as the party started, she was already wearing her alternative Santa-themed red maid suit...

... for the entire episode.

2. Anastasia's Analytical Kigurumi Morning

This wasn't even supposed to be a consideration, because this entire segment of one episode in OniAi only lasted a few seconds. But hey, a cameo is a cameo, regardless of whether it just appeared a split second or lasted one whole scene. Anyway, while delivering a monologue on her supposed rival Akiko, a short scene popped up, showing a moment of her waking up to the narrated realization after all those six long years.

It was meant to a sort of melancholic or dramatic scene of epiphany and acceptance. The tone is indeed still the same even as the monologue continued. The following bear kigurumi cameo just happened to be at the "crossroads" of the depiction of her growth (like, literal progression of age).

Nevertheless, yeah. The instance was really too short, and there is absolutely no context at all connecting the bear kigurumi to anything that was being discussed, or even the basic premise of the show itself.

3. Saki's Shopping Frenzy with Kaori

Establishing social relationships that forcibly reset themselves from your own perspective after a very short time is absolute hell. That much is proven by One Week Friends (which is an absolute recommendation, by the way). But on a particular good day, Kaori's good (new) friend Saki decided to forget all problems (pun intended) and instead have a good time after class.

It really does sounds like a nice context for narration. Unfortunately, this is where the kigurumi-related stuff is curtailed short. I mean, the scene is there, and the context is there. Both the fluffy bear and rabbit kigurumi look really nice on both of them. But it immediately switches to something completely different afterwards. We didn't have the proper buildup like in other cameos that we eventually decided to focus on.

Though as a bonus, we can at least feel secure that fellow BFFs Yuuki and Shougo are properly assessing the situation at a safe distance.

4. Naoko's Monster-clad Support Hotline

I was really, really hoping that this would turn out yet another kigurumi meister like the previous two that we have witnessed. The start of a rather obscure, but very, very clear kigurumi reference in the pottery and ceramics-focused Yakunara Mugcup mo. In fact, I initially thought it was Mika Kukuri who's going to be eccentric enough to wear one prepared an entire dedicated section to dinosaur and monster-related kigurumi in case the references reach critical mass.

Alas, it was not meant to be. Naoko Naruse simply did not show any other kigurumi eccentricities prior to the penultimate episode, and even after the final one. It was such a really nice cameo though, something that we could easily expand upon if there is at least one more incidence of it appearing aside from this one.

Oh well, at least we got some nice, historical explanations of the traditional pottery and ceramics industry in Japan.

Coming soon with even more brief references after the next set of franchise presentations!