ClassicaLoid

Episode 11

It's not often that ClassicaLoid gives me so little to talk about on the music front. Today's installment was pretty much entirely a gag filler episode, with no Musik battles at all! (Not for Beethoven's lack of trying, however.) It's unusual, but by no means bad. In fact, this might be one of the most purely enjoyable ClassicaLoid episodes yet.

Kanae enlists everyone to clean the house while she leaves for a while. She says she's off to visit relatives, but Sousuke catches her mooning over travel brochures and lets out her secret: Kanae's friend is seeing relatives, but for Kanae it's just a vacation. I think this is one of the first times in the series that Kanae has done something purely for her own enjoyment. I'm so proud of her. The girl really needs to loosen up and find a life of her own outside of maintaining the house. She has a tough job and could really use a break. Of course, getting that break is going to be harder than she expects. The Classicaloids and Sousuke all steadfastly resist the idea of cleaning, and Kanae has her work cut out for her forcing them into it.

ClassicaLoid generally focuses on one character an episode, bringing out specific aspects of their personality. That works great for teaching the kids watching about these composers' music and lives, but it's a less successful formula for developing the Classicaloids as an ensemble and letting them bounce off each other. For those purposes, an episode like "At Least Do the Chores!" is perfect. It's an "everybody" episode, giving each character a few minutes to be goofy as they all struggle to keep up the house.

Beethoven wants to perform his Musik on everything and has to be stopped by Sousuke. Mozart actually proves surprisingly effective at cleaning—at first. Schubert wrings a ton of humor out of sucking up to "Beethoven-senpai" and clashing with Mozart. This works best in the scene where Mozart zooms around the house vacuuming, acting like a kid on a scooter. Schubert expects him to get in trouble when Kanae comes back, but Mozart actually did a great job and she's pleased, which leaves Schubert fuming. Poor dude. This episode has a lot of fun at his expense, making it clear just how much Mozart and Beethoven don't see him the same way that he sees them.

Chopin is less of a presence—which makes sense after he was the focus last week. He's a pretty shy guy after all, not someone who will want to come out for an ensemble episode. Liszt, on the other hand, uses the week to ham it up. She demands to spend the cleaning day posing around the house in ever more ridiculous and dramatic positions. This is, of course, extremely unhelpful, and would anger her "kitten" Kanae if she found out how little Liszt is helping, but Liszt does not let this stop her. That's good for us; they're blink-and-you-miss-them jokes, but Liszt's poses are very funny.

The episode culminates in Mozart painting pink music symbols all over the house. All the Classicaloids are frantic to clean this up before Kanae returns, but they don't quite succeed, resulting in a weird scene where Kanae thinks Beethoven is asking her out, declining, forcing Beethoven to pretend he's puking up "pink soup" in despair. You certainly can't fault the show for creativity. In the group's scramble to clean up all the paint, they end up trashing the house even further. Kanae returns, sighs, and realizes there's only one thing to do. She can't leave the house alone, so they're all coming along for vacation!

It's too bad that Kanae's low expectations were proven so right this week. "At Least Do the Chores!" exceeded my own expectations though, turning a goofy "filler" episode into one of the best in the series so far. ClassicaLoid proved that it doesn't need music trivia to fill an episode. Just watching the goofy personalities it's developed can be enough to succeed as a comedy. I love when the show educates audiences about music and shows how much fun classical music can be. Still, it wouldn't work if its characters weren't fun and interesting on their own. Episode 11 puts this cast and their relationships front and center and lets them run amok, making it a pure hilarious joy to watch.

Rating: A

ClassicaLoid is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rose despises cleaning too, but finds that listening to Mozart or Chopin makes it far more enjoyable. Follow her on her media blog Rose's Turn, and on Twitter.