Since we’re still on a downward spiral of a decade, with COVID-19 and all, I decided to watch some HalloHallo Café. Heck, I decided that I will continue where I left off with the last review and watch episodes 15 and 16.
Take note that this might be just a one-off thing so don’t expect any continuations moving forward. Besides, I still have Rebuild of Evangelion and FMW on my plate and with my ever stressful day job, I might not even get there.
Episode 15
The show opens with Venus reporting about a singing frog. I just want to get it out there.
Now the show really opens with, shock of all shocks, Yachang not giving out any challenges. It’s coach and friend of all MNLoves, Angel Pancho testing the Kawaii5 girls with an Amachan quiz. This isn’t just your ordinary quiz, no no no.
The Kawaii5 girls will have to go inside a swimming pool and find the answers there. This isn’t a variety show for nothing although this challenge is quite a step down from the previous 14 episodes and it shows because how the challenge was setup is quite half-assed. There’s no point system, there’s no timer, and there’s no challenge whatsoever with this game.
HalloHallo Panalo gives us…a Hallo Hallo Café tumbler. Not a downgrade but I can guarantee you can just create your own customized tumbler with Kawaii5 on it. I wonder if anybody ever got 10 million points within the show’s 156 episode run.
The show ends with Yachang getting the tap water bucket challenge. Eh.
Rating: 1/5
Positives: Nothing.
Negatives: This whole episode has no redeeming quality whatsoever. It’s not bad, it’s just…forgettable. The challenge is forgettable, Venus’ joke is forgettable, and the ending is forgettable, and don’t even get me started with HalloHallo Panalo.
Episode 16
Regular introductions are back and a shouting Angel isn’t what you want to hear at the beginning of the show. Her voice is so shrill that it kinda breaks your eardrums if you’re watching this with full volume.
Today’s challenge is..jankenpoink. Jankenpoink? That sounds dirty.
No, jankenpoink isn’t something mommies and daddies do when they love each other and are married. It’s a game of paper rock scissors with the loser getting boinked on the head with a mallet. Yes, of course, the mallet is going to be made of soft plastic. This is a variety show, not Saw.
In typical HalloHallo Café fashion, there will be pies. You know what’s going to happen next.
There’s more to jankenpoinking than just playing janken while delivering super mild concussions. You see, you have to wear a helmet fast enough to prevent being eliminated because once you got eliminated, you know what comes next. Pies! Pies! More pies!
I had to rewind this segment multiple times at first though because I am quite confused with the sequence of events, as our friend (and now nursing student) Alice got hit with the mallet first but she wasn’t eliminated, but Mae got hit with the mallet and she’s pied in the face.
Minutes later, I found out that Alice won the janken section and Mae wasn’t able to defend her head.
This episode’s HalloHallo Mall prize is quite interesting because I used to have this. It’s a Pilot Frixion Gel Pen, the one pen that has an eraser at the other end.
The pen itself writes a regular pen, I don’t remember it being a gel pen though. The eraser works fine unlike those separate “ink erasers” that came with a pencil eraser. It can create a tear in your paper though if you erase too hard.
This episode isn’t over yet because we get an announcement from AKB48 Team 8 and it’s about them performing at Cool Japan Festival at Trinoma. I wonder how did that go?
Show ends with the studio being a warzone but with pies instead of bullets. Typical HalloHallo Café episode ending for me but at least it’s leagues better than the previous episode’s.
Rating: 4/5
Positives: Jankenpoink, AKB48 Team 8, Everybody is at their A-game from Yachang, to Angel, to Kawaii5. Something to talk about for HalloHallo Mall.
Negatives: Not much but I think not having a clear winner is somewhat of a downer because the challenge was set up to be an elimination style tournament and nobody mentions who’s the winner? That might be something HHE forgot to produce during the filming of this episode.
Rayas-WEB 