Shirokuma Café - 22

The moral of today’s episode: Penguins are hard to tell apart.

There were some pretty solid gags in these two chapters, but I’d say my favorite moment of the episode was in the Penguin Cards skit when Sasako-san said “Penguin-san!  Penguin-san!”  I don’t know why that struck me so funny, maybe because it was so out of character.  It was in that same sketch that we were re-introduced to the much of the cast from episode 19, with Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie Penguin making their second appearance, along with Penguin-san’s nephew and King Penguin-san’s son.  Even in a country as obsessed with collector cards as Japan, ones featuring penguin species are apparently a tough sell – especially since the species look so much alike that kids (like Panda-kun) tire of trying to tell them apart pretty quickly.  In fact, four real-live penguins at one time was too much for Panda – he parked Penguin-san behind the counter to mitigate confusion.  Those of us hoping we might find out what Penguin-san does for a living (or how he gets in and out of a chair) were alas disappointed.

Second chapter is the funnier of the two, bringing the seven penguin lovelies back into the picture.  Sadly, even a penguin himself apparently has a hard time telling penguin girls apart if they’re all the same species, even his own – and the seven Miss Penkos are growing tired of his seven-timing.  Invited on a picnic after he refuses to choose, Penguin-san is desperate for a trick to tell them apart – but predictably the ideas are dumb (Panda) or trolls (Shirokuma) until Sasako-san comes up with the idea of giving them different colored hair ribbons to flag their identities.  I saw the flaw with that scheme barreling down Chuo-Dori for about a mile before it arrived, but it still caught Penguin-san by surprise.  Of course the gag here is the elephant in the room that’s finally acknowledged in then final line of the episode – just remember which one is which and there’s no problem…

Lastly – there was a sort of irony, I thought, to Penguin-san slipping on a banana peel with with seven identical-looking girls by his side…