Director Commentary for Episode 9 (1/2) (Mitsugo Biyori ~2-ransei~):

* The showcase of Chiba's Secret Technique was a homage to Jackie Chan's training scene and unintentionally like Star of the Giants' Dai League Ball.

* When I deliberately made Hitoha face the camera while saying "Can't you do it?", everyone caught on.*

* Yabecchi's Room - Mitsuba Edition:
Was added as a means of making time since the storyboard was just short. One idea was to have Mitsuba earnestly "Mushakora" as it solved Takagaki-san's (Mitsuba VA) complaint being "The only one without a special sound!" Yabecchi's ending "Make it end!~" was a cry from my heart

* The backing "Ruru rururu" was initially planned to be done by Shimono-san (Yabecchi VA) but Sound Supervisor Ebina-san took
advantage of the situation and made a full-scale version with the triplets *and* Yabecchi... On the spot, Takagaki-san helped Shimono-san improvise the chorus. As expected, she is quite used to it

*Hitoha Santa:
When Hitoha was fleeing from Futaba, her fainting from the striked shin was ad-libbed by the key animators. Tomatsu-san's (Hitoha VA) performance was also great, came out to be a good scene.

Mitsuba's Boar Panties:
The cut where Mitsuba says, "With this, the Zodiac set is complete!" is said to be a reference to first generation Saint Seiya OP (According to Arai, Storyboard Director)

* Metal Barrel Bath:
As a challenge, I chose to include this segment but it turned out to be the hardest to storyboard. The dialogue-less silence accordingly followed the manga with Mozart's Sonata 15 included as background music. Matching the storyboard to the rhythm was a pain in itself but, even if the melody was a little strange at times, I had to make it work. As for Mitsuba's scream being the only audible portion? Tom and Jerry (The Dubbed Version) served as an inspiration (really just Tom's standard scream) At times, I hope you found this sort of thing interesting