An Akari-saturated ep... actually an overdose of her. While there's substantially less fanservice, there's also little plot progression in this ep. Is the fabled Gainax ingenuity only a function of their creativity in fanservice? (ie no n.u.d.e scenes = lacklustre episode?) To be fair to Gainax, I kind of like their brand of fanservice. It's not too overt, usually accompanied with comic relief and is always served as an appetitiser. This is in line with Hontou ni Taihen desu's (official?) stand on fanservice which is found in clause 7a and 7b of its Anime Blog Standing Orders.

7a) Fanservice, like chilli padi, is to be served in small, controlled dosages to accentuate the existing taste of a dish, never to overwhelm it.

7b) Just as not all dishes go well with chilli (a blasphemous statement to many self-proclaimed Singaporean gourmets out there ), any inapporiate or indiscriminate use of fanservice will result in the series losing its unique flavour.

Ok, enough lame rantings, back to the series . I like Akari and her wet look. She comes across as having a lot more personality than Minawa (Mahoromatic 2. Couldn't help but make the comparison) I'm just a little concerned about her fascination with bettles. Could it be Hikari and Akari's true forms are really insectoid?? I also wonder about Ryou's keen interest in Akari. Is he playing "alien senpai" like Jennifer Portman was to Hikari in ep 2? Yappari... he might be alien after all....

Ep 4 looks like another ep dedicated to settling Akari into the konomini world... sigh they are REALLY going to use 4 eps for character intro.