Seven of Seven: Episode 6 Commentary

Examiner No. 623! Late-Night Radio Commotion?

This episode is partly a Nanasama episode, giving her a much larger role than the other Nanas (save for Nana herself). Nanasama is the honest one of the group, pointing out Nana’s failures in class come from not studying. She introduces the radio to listen to as a break from studying, and she is the one to scold Nana for spending too much time listening. It’s Nanasama whom Nana begs permission to listen to the radio show again. It’s Nanasama who suggests Nana isn’t serious about getting into Yasaka Oogi High. And Nanasama is the one to make things right for Nana in the end, as she is partly responsible for the troubles caused by the radio.

Thanks to Nanasama’s pushing, Nana is able to solve the math problem on her own. She decides she’s finally ready to study. Now to see if Nana can keep it up from here on out.

Kamichika wins points for being the only student in the fast-track class to not laugh when Mr. Handa scolds Nana for accidentally reciting her very low test score out loud. At the same time, if he’s Y.K., then he loses points for denying it. (Nana admitted that she sent a fax to the show, but only the one.) If he’s Y.K., why would he deny it? To keep it a secret, or to not get in trouble? Can Mr. Handa really punish Kamichika for activities he does from home at night?

Poor Nanarin looks worried when Nana says she doesn’t want to study anymore, and looks like she’s about to toss the fish pillow. Nanarin sure loves that thing. And this after she gave the sighful Nana a comforting rub on the head (as learned about in a prior episode.)

Introduced is the character Mutsumi. His name is aligned with his radio station, station 623: 六つ (muttsu) is one form of the Japanese “six”, ツー (tsuu) is the Japanese pronunciation for the English “two”, and 三つ (mittsu) is one form of the Japanese “three”. Mutsumi is really enthusiastic about his job, and giving studying students the opportunity to get their messages out. His English voice perfectly suits his character. He’s given good lines in he English for his character, as well, such as when Nana crashes through the window: “Aw, dude. Did I get hit by a desk?”

Naturally, the only Nana to understand the meaning of Mutsumi’s advice poems is Nanasama.

It’s one thing for the trio to bully Nana when they see her, but they appear to take joy in putting a lot of time and energy into it, such as when wrote and faxed all those letters into the show.

I know Grandpa is an ex-scientist, able to catch the colors of a rainbow. But how does his radio pull video from the radio station? Does it hack into a webcam video stream? Still, that doesn’t explain Mr. Handa and Mr. Maruoka appearing when they call in to the radio show.

Nana’s class has a lot of students with the initials Y.K. What a coincidence!

This episode’s English dub has a horrible flaw. During the classroom scene almost halfway into the episode, it sounds as if the voice actors stood across the room, with their voices distant and slightly echoing. I find this to be most unacceptable; if it’s on all copies of the DVD, it should have been fixed before releasing the complete series DVD pack (which is what I purchased).

Final thoughts: Mutsumi is totally awesome!