Week 6 Synopsis
Note: This week your President is on vacation, and thus is limited by lacks of time and of the resources generally at his disposal. Thus this synopsis will be written in great haste with no fact-checking, and while it will convey the general idea of last week’s events it makes no claim whatsoever to accuracy. Your normal neurotically complete service will resume next week…
Episode 6 Synopsis (“Alien and Rival Hot Spring Bath”):
Big news! Big news, indeed! Without any warning whatsoever, a rival bath-house has opened in the Enohana area! Kotomi is flabbergasted when Yoshinen delivers the news, and immediately calls an Emergency Management Meeting. They all know, she proudly declares, that there’s only room for one bath-house in the Enohana area, particularly in a depression as bad as the present one. They must find out everything they can about this new bath-house, discover its weakness, and DESTROY IT UTTERLY! (Kotomi missed her calling in the military.) All they know so far is that the bath-house is actually in the crater and promises an utterly unique experience, “like being blasted to outer space.” But how can they infiltrate it? Their own faces are too well-known for them to be the spies… but at this moment NieA once again walks in with the solution: Chiaki, who is absolutely thrilled that there’s an alien-themed bath-house she can try. Kotomi immediately drafts her and orders Mayuko to call Genzo—their faces won’t be known, and they can serve as the spies!
Genzo comes over without any complaints at all, just because he was bored, no, really, nothing to do with the fact that it was Mayuki asking him to do it… nothing at all… Mayu and NieA are sent with the spies to scout around the outside of the bath-house and find any secret advantages it might have. When they reach it, Chiaki runs in screaming like a little girl while Genzo, Mayuki, and NieA survey it: it’s weird. Really weird. It’s architecture is… um… weird. Anyway, Genzo also goes inside and the two poor girls go around to the back. Although NieA’s not much good at the whole “sneaking” thing they do find a number of leaves drying on a sheet. Their aroma isn’t particularly fantastic; they don’t look like they’re meant for fuel; what could they be for? As Mayuki prepares to put one in a plastic bag the door slams open and out steps the proprietor of this strange new bath-house: none other than Chada! “You have nice breasts,” he greets Mayuki, who immediately yells that he already tried that line and got warned that it’s offensive. At any rate, it turns out that he’s opened the bath-house in order to diversify: with just the convenience store he couldn’t turn a decent profit. (When asked who’s running the store, he says that it’s been closed down—naturally, he can’t run two things at once.) Chada gloats for a little while about the “secret ingredient” that makes his bath absolutely irresistible, and then tries to show that he has no hostile intentions towards the Enohana bath-house by attempting to make “butt buddies” with Mayuki. The site of his naked bum quite naturally makes her go completely berserk, and she and NieA run screaming back to the Enohana bath-house.
But they have their leaf, and while they wait for Chiaki and Genzo to return Kotomi and Yoshinen examine it. They sure as heck can’t figure out what it’s for: it doesn’t burn very well, it smells kind of nasty, it’s not much prettier than poison ivy. Just as Kotomi gets out her plant dictionary Chiaki and Genzo return. They seem… well… different. Indescribably different, in fact. They manage to gasp out something about the hot water being kind of funny before dissolving into paroxysms of helpless laughter, mixed with a little bit of crying and meaningless gibberish. Although the difference isn’t that noticeable for Chiaki (except that she doesn’t usually fall down at random intervals), something is obviously really wrong with Genzo. Kotomi finally finds the plant in the dictionary, and gasps.
After the police have taken Chada away (“I really didn’t know!” he protests), things return to a state of near-normalcy at the Enohana bath-house. The episode ends as Mayuki talks to Kotomi, who reveals that she had a promising career but decided to devote her life to the profitless bath-house instead. Kotomi reminds Mayu that, while her work and her studies are important, if she doesn’t get out of the house every once in a while something bad is bound to happen. Are Kotomi’s words prophetic? We shall have to wait and see…