The first segment of Episode 8 is very disconnected from the rest but I’m willing to give that a pass as I had fun watching it. In the segment, Nana declines hanging out with her friends in order to take her pet Pochi to the vet. Mako assumes Pochi is a dog but it’s soon revealed that the animal is actually a chameleon. In Mako’s defense, I would have never guessed that Nana would prefer to have a pet lizard and I hear the name “Pochi” and think of a dog over any other animal.
On the morning of the appointment, Nana discovers that she neglected to lock Pochi’s cage and her chameleon has escaped. There’s a couple of missed opportunities here. I would’ve loved it if Pochi actually left the house and Nana is forced to search around the block, eventually dragging her friends into the mess. Even better is if it leads to Mako discovering what type of animal Pochi actually is (the episode instead keeps her in the dark). That said, I like what ultimately happens in the segment, where Pochi is hiding right behind Nana’s sister and mistakes her jewelry as a bug. Nana’s futile attempts to save her sister from an embarrassing catastrophe is pretty amusing.
For the rest of the episode, the girls try to hang out at the usual club room, only to discover that the air conditioning does not work. Everyone assumes the darn thing is broken but we learn at the end of the episode that it’s actually under maintenance. Shinon actually was informed of this ahead of time but in typical Shinon fashion, she completely forgot about it. I would’ve loved it if the episode ends with the girls performing a mutiny against Shinon.
As the girls struggled to cool off, they get greeted by Sakura Kodama (Megumi Nakajima), a third-year student who leads the Agriculture Club. Since Sakura loaned her club’s refrigerator over to Shinon, she asks the club to repay the favor by helping her with harvesting the club’s crops. The timing of this scenario could not get any better. All the girls want to do is literally chill at the club room and not only can they not do that, they instead have to work under the scorching sun. I can’t decide if it’s ironic or impeccable but it is most certainly perfect. There’s of course some gags that acknowledge this issue. Tsutsuji and Shinon using a hose to cool themselves off is really darn funny but what I especially adore is how absurdly loud that cicadas get in the background. That greatly conveys how hot it is.
Seeing as Sakura is a new character, I figured Nana’s fear of strangers would creep up again. Naturally then, the show pays extra attention to how these two get along. Nana of course tries to avoid Sakura at first but she warms up to the upperclassman rather quickly when the latter starts praising her for her hard work. Watching Nana get high off of praise like she’s Bocchi is really funny. I kind of wonder if Atto has seen BOCCHI or not but it’s entirely possible that this joke is coincidence.
As thanks for helping her with the harvest, Sakura gives some of the crops over to the Food Club. Mako later uses these ingredients to prepare some tempura for the club’s dinner. To better cool off, the girls decide to don some yukatas. What kind of bums me about this is that this potentially rules out an obligatory summer festival episode in the show. That could’ve been a lot of fun, especially with all the festival food Mako could try out. That said, the girls do consider wearing yukatas earlier in the episode so it’s a nice bit of continuity for the show to follow up on it.
Watch Food for the Soul on Crunchyroll
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