This week we are beginning to see a bit of a change of pace in episodes. Shows are starting to reach their halfway point, and it really doesn’t feel like it, I tell you (I’ve been enjoying these shows so much, they seem to just fly by). But now stories are beginning to change, and sub-plots are shifting gears. Tones are moodier or are changed drastically. And that’s a good thing to have of course; it just matters on how they’ve been able to do it. So what has Tonikawa, Skip and Loafer and Oshi no Ko been able to do?
Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You Season 2 Episode 6
It’s good that last week’s ‘honeymoon’ to a fancy onsen resort wasn’t just a one-off, and we get a continuation of that in this week’s episode. I was disappointed with what we saw and how they unnecessarily added some Aya/Chitose fan service halfway in the episode. And while it was good to see Chitose’s interfering grandmother properly introduced in the show, something still felt off.
But we get none of that this week. This week is just the two dorks making the best of the remaining days they have at the resort…while panicking on whether they should use the open bath their room has or not.
I think any other kind of show would have trouble pulling off an episode like this, and possibly end up putting too much emphasis on one character’s worries, but it’s well-balanced here. Even though our narration comes from Nasa (like it always does throughout the show), we easily get to see that Tsukasa is troubled by the fact that she shares a bath too. They both know it’s socially acceptable what being married and all, but that doesn’t stop their awkwardness. What I also like is how they did not rush to any quick and sharp jokes like some other rom-com shows would perhaps do. Just as the intimate kissing scenes we have seen many times in Tonikawa, nothing is rushed, with their body language looking far more natural.
I’ve seen some criticize how they shouldn’t be embarrassed due to being married, but we should stop and remember how Nasa and Tsukasa actually met. Two and a half years previous, she saved his life and has only recently returned to live up to the promise of marrying him. They both love each other, yes, but the story is about how they are meant to express that love and the difficulties around it. Nasa is a smart guy who is clueless when it comes to relationships, but is not the stereotypical horny male MC. Meanwhile Tsukasa has never been comfortable with sharing details of her life to anyone, let alone her new husband. Tonikawa is the story of the long journey, not them immediately jumping into each others’ arms.
Curious how this felt more like a final episode than an episode halfway through the season though. Makes me think on how this season will actually end, or what the second half will even have. I know nothing of the source manga, and so the new characters we are teased with at the end could be anyone for all I know.
Skip and Loafer Episode 6
This week’s episode of Skip and Loafer was a solid one, and made a significant step in Mitsumi’s and Shima’s story, but at the same time it felt strange to watch. The reason being this is that we’ve never really seen these two behave like this before…as in have a quarrel/misunderstanding. Mitsumi and Shima are already polar opposites of sorts, and yet they’ve still been able to become close friends. But it’s here where we see how different the two of them are.
We already know that Shima is laidback as hell, but he begins to skip classes now. Despite calling in sick, his classmates later find out that he only overslept and just decided not to show up. And while this doesn’t really bother her classmates so much, it irritates Mitsumi a lot. With her career goals already set, she can’t comprehend the idea of someone she has gotten to know well just not give a damn about school anymore. Even later when asked about how his absences will affect his grades, he shrugs it off as if it were nothing. I know this is meant to be a balanced review column, but it’s here where I side with Mitsumi. As a teacher’s pet myself, I’d make sure my grades were good, and I’d get easily irritated at kids I knew who just could not care less.
This makes me think once again of 1998’s His and Her Circumstances, when the two main characters have a quarrel/misunderstanding. Both of them are honor students, but we later find out that the male lead was abused by his parents as a child and had to be adopted by his grandparents, and when he worries that his biological father’s traits will rub off on him, he chooses to wall himself off from the female lead. We’ve already been given little hints of what Shima’s household is like, and yet it comes as a surprise when he suddenly decides to open up a little more to her. His parents are rarely home now (for reasons unknown), and he often ends up staying overnight at friends’ houses. He doesn’t care about the wild rumors about him (truant, gang member, etc.), but he cares that Mitsumi is starting to believe them.
I will side with the teacher’s pet being one myself, but this was a well-written episode, for a show that hasn’t even had a weak episode so far. Hearing these things about Shima makes me hungry for more though. The way I am looking at this is that if Shima really wants a close friend like Mitsumi, then he should feel comfortable in trusting her with some more of his home life secrets, just as she is beginning to with him. But then again, there is the ‘L’ word that is beginning to appear here.
Mitsumi’s moral compass Fumi has a crush on a boy at school now, and tells her on the phone about how she feels when she is around him. And so now after their little quarrel/misunderstanding, Mitsumi is starting to think some unusual things of her own. And the ‘L’ word is appearing slowly…
Oshi no Ko Episode 5
The tone in Oshi no Ko was toned down considerably this week to make room for some character development. Ruby gets more of the spotlight this time around though, as her poor naïve mind is trying to comprehend what a ‘self-proclaimed idol’ is meant to do just as they’ve signed for an agency and are dry on work. As idol culture has moved more online now, both she and new signing Kana reluctantly agree to do a collab with another one of the agencies’ bigger names. As we see, they are put up with some very ridiculous work, but Ruby sees that this is the price she has to pay if she wants her name known.
But while we saw a lot more of Ruby and Kana this week, the segment we get with Aqua was something I found a lot more interesting to watch. He was given a promise last week that he’d find out some more about Ai if he agreed to work with the producer of Kana’s web series on his latest project, and like a man possessed, he instantly agrees. And it’s for something no-one he knows was expecting either. ‘My Love with a Star Begins Now’ is a high-school dating reality show, and while he is only signing up for this so he can get information on who Ai knew and dated secretly, this project might end up becoming something that breaks him. Or at the very least, make him think twice about himself.
Throughout the whole show, Aqua has been extremely manipulative to people around him. He’s been able to twist arms of adults around him, and even in this week’s episode he’s able to coax Kana into joining Strawberry Productions by putting on crocodile tears and faux charm. But he’s only been able to do all this because he could read these people like a book. He knows none of the cast in the reality show, and as they are all more experienced in the scene than he is, the tables can very easily be turned on him. Plus there’s also the matter that, should he actually pair up with someone on the show, he has to publicly commit to that relationship regardless of whether they grow to hate each other or not. And I have to say that as someone who actually sees him as a horrible person, I would really love to see him eat it. Aqua has believed things have been so easy to read in the entertainment industry so far, and to see him land on his butt hard would be priceless to watch.
This week’s episode did a good job of relieving recent tension in the show yet still acknowledging various grotesqueries in the idol and entertainment industry. Scenes are presented as light-hearted and humorous, and at the same time we get to see what wannabe idols like Ruby have to commit to in order to become well-known. ANN’s recent interview with Oshi no Ko‘s mangaka Aka Akasaka is an interesting read and shows that they did a lot of research into the industry so they could get it as accurate as possible.
Lycoris Recoil Episode 6
While many of us have been quicker to watch the budding relationship Chisato and Takina have been building, there has also been the equally bigger plotline of how Lycoris agents are being singled out and assassinated. In the last couple of episodes, I’ve worried a lot that that part of the story is being ignored, and so I’m glad it’s finally come around in episode 6.
When a pattern begins to emerge from the Lycoris attacks, Takina decides to stick with Chisato as a guard until things calm down. But it’s also in this episode where we get a much bigger look at our main antagonist Majima. He began in the show coming across as the kind of terrorist who is happy to throw oil onto a fire and watching it burn, but here we see that he is very keenly interested in targeting DA more than anything else. And by picking out Lycoris agents, he believes that that will prompt DA to act, but as LycoReco have noticed, the commander at DA are treating those fallen agents more as an ‘unfortunate turn of events’ than an actual problem. This leads us to think what her own motives are, but that’s for another time.
This episode, Majima finds out that one of the Lycoris agents that his fellow hacker counterpart (who is just simply called Hacker) has been watching is Chisato, and then later discovers she is an Alan child on top of that. This fact alone motivates him to stop his random plan of chaos and destruction, and focus more on finding Chisato and eliminating her for good. Surely with their best Lycoris agent gone, Majima would force DA’s hand and make them launch a counterattack? Or would the commander see her death as an ‘unfortunate turn of events’ too?
I have pointed out the two equally balanced reasons people tune into Lycoris Recoil, but does it feel like I’m watching two shows at the same time? As much as the LycoReco stans will hate me for saying it, yes it does feel like that. While both parts are well-written and animated, the fact that they have rarely come into contact with each other is a little concerning. In fact this has only really been the first time the two have properly merged. I am hoping that from now on, the two parts will get closer together, especially now that Majima has an actual goal.
I’ve written about so many shows, and it’s like every season there has always been one that I think considerably less about than the others. But these have all been shows I’ve enjoyed immensely, and look forward to each week. And it really does feel like the time is flying past. This is definitely a great season to end this column on for me, I think…when the time comes.