Overview (Spoilers Below):
Let’s make friends
To uncover the truth behind their mother’s death, Migi and Dali finally begin to take serious action. Their clue is the memory of the room they lived in with their mother when they were young. They remember the dimly lit space under the bed and the wallpaper patterned with daphnia. In order to locate the room, the twins come up with a plan to be invited over as friends to different houses. They promptly join the Boy Scouts to make friends, but the Scouts offer their friendship on one condition.
Be a good student
The housemaid Micchan tells Migi and Dali that the Ichijo family has a room with water flea wallpaper. They begin attending school to befriend Eiji, the son of the Ichijo family. However, to get close to Eiji, they need to score well on tests and join a top class. The two start studying diligently to boost their grades, but unexpectedly, Migi falls head over heels for a certain female student in the library.
Our Take:
Magi and Dali’s true intentions were finally revealed in the previous episode. Along with getting themselves adopted by the Sonoyamas, they also attempt to find their mother’s murderer in Origon Village, where they and their mother resided. Of course, there’s still more work to get done if they want to succeed in their secret mission. The first two episodes gave me Orphan vibes regarding the mischievous protagonists pretending to be a single, kind-hearted orphan. However, the second episode’s reveal gave me some hope that the series would turn itself around for the better regarding its creepy-as-hell protagonists.
This week’s set of episodes has Migi and Dali performing the next step of their secret investigation, as they remember hiding in a room with paisley wallpaper (or water fleas as they describe) before residing in a tent. However, to find the house with the paisley wallpaper they doodled, the twins will have to “make some friends” to gain access to their homes. This resulted in them being enrolled in Boy Scouts, where they befriended one of the members, Shunpei Akiyama. Even though they didn’t find the exact wallpaper in Akiyama’s house, they should be grateful that he was a better friend than Maruta Tsutsumi. One reason is that Maruta treats Migi like shit while Dali searches the house, which is enough to make me despise that brat. Fortunately, Dali was able to teach Maruta a lesson he won’t forget during a game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”.
The second episode then sees the twins attending school following their encounter with the housemaid, Micchan. There, they attempt to befriend Eiji Ichijo, one of the top students in the school’s class 1-1. Unfortunately, the twins wound up in class 1-5, the lower-ranked class of the school system, and have to get good grades on their tests. This is easier said than done, as they both struggle with specific subjects, and Migi falls in love with a female student named Sali. However, what Migi doesn’t realize is that Sali is actually Dali in disguise to help him study hard, leading to an amusingly awkward misunderstanding that doesn’t result in the brothers’ trust falling apart.
The episodes show that Migi and Dali have different personalities to make themselves stand out even though they look the same. Migi is the gentler and more emotional of the two, which often gets in the way of their mission. This makes Dali the brains of the operation, who’s more rational and tough than his brother, with the “tough” part being from Dali knocking the stuffing out of Maruta repeatedly. Fortunately, they also showcase that despite their differences and Dali fooling Migi with his disguise, they support each other as brothers, which is enough to boost my interest in the series, but not by much. The show still has some issues with the uneven sound mixing and the lip-syncing not matching the characters’ dialogue. But besides that, they’re enough to maintain my attention for a bit longer.