While I am a little bit disappointed that we didn’t get a Christmas episode to coincide with the holidays, what we have here is probably one of the funniest ways I can think of wrapping up the year in-universe. Not only do we get introduced to Mendo’s younger sister, but her antics also make up the humorous driving force of the entire episode. Mendo tries hard to be proper and gentlemanlike, but it turns out he’s the outlier in his family, as the rest of them are just massive trolls. He seems to have very little patience for his sister, which may explain his dislike of Ataru outside of simple jealousy; he’s probably had to deal with pranks for most of his life. It’s not a groundbreaking example of characterization or anything, but it is funny.
That said, it is a little disappointing that Mendo’s tendency to regress into a child when locked in the dark was just sort of glossed…
