Well, this episode sure sucked. It was basically a steady parade of the laziest jokes available to anime, punctuated by occasional silly faces. But hey, at least that makes one show I’m watching easy to write about…

My extremely dry review is available here. Notes below!

The new year has begun

Uh, there seems to be a problem with the subs. The subs on the top are just stuck on screen

Haruhi’s already gotten official permission to visit the school

She got Yuki to sign off when she was distracted by videogames

“What’s the deal how you made her sign?” And now sub errors too

And Mikuru flies boobs-first into Kyon. Cue silly reactions

These sure are some boob-happy camera angles

Kyon-Mikuru flashback time

Tsuruya adding dramatic narration. I think this is supposed to be funny

Oh no, they touched hands. Cue “eyaaaaaaaaaa,” pan up

Wow, they’re dragging a momentary misunderstanding gag out into an entire scene/flashback

Kyon’s insecure about being bad at school

Apparently Nagato’s pretty bad herself, and Asakura’s covering for her

Nagato briefly thinks they’re about to kiss, but then correctly realizes this is a dumb misunderstanding gag

And now Asakura’s in a sexy teacher outfit

Haruhi and Koizumi interrupting his studying

Kyon revving up Asakura to battle Haruhi for the school’s sake

Asakura crying face is pretty great. This episode leaning pretty heavily on silly faces

I like that some of the Christmas decorations are still up

Nagato’s smart here too, but she’s basically some kind of savant. She can’t really explain her processes

Random Mikuru fanservice shot

Kyon bullies Nagato, leading into a shoujo moment

They just keep baiting the same development steps. And then Asakura walks in again. What is this, the third misunderstanding gag of the episode? Fourth?

Uh oh, they’re sharing lunch. He’s gonna feed her a bite! Whoa-o-o-o

And there’s number five