It’s beginning to dawn on me now that, in a month or so, I won’t have to think hard about what seasonal shows to watch next. In fact, I think getting back into the groove of not worrying so much about what the latest season will bring will be tougher than I thought. Next to nothing in the Summer season even interests me, but I already know that Jujutsu Kaisen, Rent-a-Girlfriend and The Devil is a Part-Timer! are all getting new seasons. On top of this, new episodes of the Bleach reboot will arrive, as will the reboot of Rurouni Kenshin (which I do not recommend you watch by the way, for many reasons). Well, there is always the Love Live! Sunshine!! spin-off with Yohane as a magical girl, or the isekai with the MC being reincarnated as a vending machine.
Due to me covering two episodes of Oshi no Ko, this week’s post will be a little longer, but now I’m caught up with the show, rest assured I have to lot to talk about on that. But first, what about my other two shows?
Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You Season 2 Episode 8
Well there’s no denying that Tonikawa has been fun to watch, but at the same time this second season feels different from the first. This is both a good and a bad thing. Good because we see the story (if you can call it that) progress some more, and bad because we worry about seeing the same thing over and over again. Which is especially worrying in this week’s episode.
It’s been some time since their onsen break where they had a lot of quality time alone, but now that’s passed, how is Nasa meant to tell Tsukasa he loves her? A good point is made in how it feels a lot different between married couples than with two people who are just dating. Being the highly inexperienced guy that he is, Nasa has to turn to his love doctor Kaname for help with this. It hasn’t helped that his kohai has become one incredibly horny girl since she came back in season two. She has gotten along so well with the both of them, and is very happy her senpai is with someone she admires and respects, and even calls ‘big sister’. But at the same time, Kaname is thinking “Why don’t these two get on with it already?”
I like how we aren’t seeing everything from Nasa’s point-of-view all the time now. We get a lot more moments where we dive into what Tsukasa is thinking too. She likes to hear Nasa tell her that he loves her, but at the same time doesn’t want to come across as being annoying about it. She’s a woman who remains shrouded in mystery, with the story comparing her to Princess Kaguya many times, but I think we’ve reached the point where something like that really doesn’t matter to be honest. She has become someone Nasa really loves with the bottom of his heart, and so it’s just a matter of when the best time is for him to tell her he does, and for that moment to carry the most weight.
Skip and Loafer Episode 8
Thinking back to last week’s Skip and Loafer, and how Mitsumi really pictures herself standing alongside one of the most popular guy in school. Summer break was about to start, and girls were rushing to get his contact details with the intent of asking him out. He brushes them all off, saying that he knows none of them actually want to be a friend to him. A nice gesture, but this doesn’t stop Mitsumi’s impostor syndrome here, especially when a new girl, a fashion model, from Shima’s past arrives out of nowhere.
“Why would one of the most popular guys in school want to hang around a country bumpkin like me?”
I think my trepidation towards Shima stems from this, considering I love Mitsumi’s character so much more. I have never been a fan of the mystery aura he has around him, and even though he claims to want to be an open book towards her, he isn’t really doing that much of a good job at it. We’re approaching the final arc of the show, and we still know so little about him…until now.
The summer break is in full swing, and even though Mitsumi and Shima go on their date-not-date at the zoo, and the girls have a pajama party, a lot of focus is shifted elsewhere. Firstly, there is Egashira, who makes a return to the spotlight this week. Viewers have poked at her a lot, but in this episode we get to see her in another light. In past episodes, she’s been painted as someone desperate to put on a façade so she can catch up with the others in high school. And while this is still true, we see that it isn’t all so others can notice her; it’s also an attempt to boost her own self-confidence. While she and Nao follow Mitsumi and Shima around the zoo, it dawns on her how hypocritical she is becoming. She berates others for being ‘clout chasers’, when the real one is her. She wants recognition in the class, and has turned to desperate measures to do so. She becomes a part of the girls’ social circle, and yet doesn’t really understand why. It’s a good character design that a studio like P.A Works can pull off perfectly.
As for the second focus this week, it’s on Shima himself. Yes, that’s right, we actually find out some significant things about him, and all of them are related to new girl Ririka. She appeared only briefly last week, but here we find out how big of a person she is to Shima. When they became friends in their childhood, they went off to both become child actors. We find out that Ririka’s life has seen its share of controversy, with rumors of underage drinking and fraternizing with men older than her. And by the looks of it, she puts a lot of the gossip about her on Shima. She berates him for wanting to wipe a clean slate and try to live a normal high-school life, and ignoring what happened in the past…whatever it was. Given that there’s still so much more to find out about him, if Mitsumi even discovered a fraction of this about her saintly new friend, how would that affect their relationship?
Spotlights on other characters have been refreshing to see, especially here in Skip and Loafer. If I’m the only one who will sympathize with Egashira now, then so be it. And while Ririka may give off the early impression of being a bitter and trashy person in Shima’s old life, there’s still much we haven’t found out about the kind of wild child he used to be. What kind of controversy would make him want to start again with a clean slate?
Oshi no Ko Episodes 6 & 7
Last week HIDIVE was being a pain for me, meaning I couldn’t cover episode 6 right away. I swear I was cursed that week, because now that the site’s video player is working, I missed out on what was an absolutely incredible episode. In fact, both episodes 6 and 7 link together to form an arc of sorts. Aqua’s reality dating show, My Love with a Star Begins Now, is making good progress, and the six characters have all developed their own persona and fanbase. That is all except one – Akane. And she was the focus of last week’s episode, as opposed to the main characters.
This show has long made the point that only the people who stand out in the entertainment industry make it big. In the show’s viewer’s eyes, Aqua himself has little going, but we should remember that being famous on the show isn’t his priority; he is only after information about Ai that the producer has. Akane, on the other hand, has been working and training for years to become someone noticeable, and she saw this reality dating show as a big stepping stone. But her biggest issue is that she is very plain, compared to the others.
This makes me think of Mahiru from Revue Starlight; a talented baton twirler at the renowned music academy who doesn’t have the sparkle or glimmer that the more talented at the academy have. In that show, she retreats into her own bubble and clings on to main character Karen as a cushion of sorts because she can’t think of any other place to be. This also makes me think of the drama revolving around the more well-known Vtubers recently. It’s a scene I follow, and when I hear some Vtubers get destroyed online for doing even the tiniest of things on their streams, it really can get heartbreaking. Some of them have had to disappear off the internet for good.
Anyway, in an attempt to make her someone the viewers will remember, Akane accidentally scratches fellow show member Yuki’s face on camera. With Yuki being a famous model and Akane being…well…nobody, the viewers will definitely remember something like that. Only in the wrong way. The online backlash she gets is extremely uncomfortable to watch, as a moment like this has effectively destroyed her career.
A good point was made last week where publicly apologizing on social media adds fuel to the fire, as it means you admit you did something wrong and any attempts to make the backlash die down does the opposite. It’s proof that the internet can be judge, jury and executioner all at once. It all becomes so much that she attempts to take her own life, only to be found and rescued by Aqua, as the other cast members hadn’t heard from her in weeks since the incident. An ‘arc’ like this is interesting to watch as it covers something that the anime/manga/idol industry are reluctant and sometimes very unwilling to talk about. Voice actors, idols and the like are put on such high pedestals for the public to see, regardless of how big and small they are, and it’s evident to see how much research Aka Akasaka put into this very cruel and unforgiving industry. Akane is portrayed as a plain character, yes, but we still get to sympathize with her greatly.
And so what Aqua thought was just some side work to get information on Ai turns out to be something far more fulfilling, and that’s saving a life. He may give off this cynical and ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude, but he certainly didn’t want a dead girl on his conscience. And so he puts an idea to the other cast members: to paste together a video painting Akane in a better light using existing footage from the show, and posting it on the show’s official social media channels. To his surprise, it actually works, and Akane comes back to shoots.
I liked the direction that this ‘arc’ went into. The main plot device of Aqua getting as much information as he can on Ai so can he can get some kind of vengeance on her murder is put on the back seat, and instead we get the rise, fall and rebirth of Akane. Why do I say rebirth? Well I think future episodes will get deeper into that, but when Aqua suggests that Akane return to the show putting on an act/persona, her attention turns to someone Aqua knows very well. Like a girl obsessed, she finds as much info as she can on Ai Hoshino; who she was, what she was famous for, and more importantly, the way she presented herself on camera. Will copying this act for the show work for her though? And what is Aqua meant to think now that he can see the same eyes in Akane as his one and only oshi? Will it even make him see reason and make him abandon this foolish cause of his?
The revenge story has felt a little forced at times in the show, and so this sudden shift looks very interesting. We’ve had plenty of fantasy in Oshi no Ko as it is; I mean both Aqua and Ruby were reincarnated individuals anyway. Like a lot of people watching the show, I have not read the manga, and so don’t know how far Akane is willing to go to try and emulate Ai. But considering all the touchy and controversial topics the story has raised so far, anything is on the table for me right now.
Lycoris Recoil Episode 8
Episode 8 of Lycoris Recoil goes on a different pace than the more frenetic ones of previous. Don’t really want to use the word ‘filler’ here, but we definitely get the impression that episode 8 acts more of a buffer of what is to come.
When Takina finds out how much the café is spending, she orders them to go on a budget, but in the midst of all of this, Chisato gets a little visit at her apartment/DA safehouse, from none other than Majima himself. I was surprised at first on why he’d want to see her alone, given that he knows he is unable to shoot her even at point-blank range. But as the scene progressed, we actually learn a little more about him. When he first appeared, he acted more like some lone-wolf Joker-like character who wanted to watch the world burn. But I’m theorizing that things could be a lot more complicated than that, especially given how unphilanthropic the Alan Institute is showing itself to be.
While Chisato has been given the ‘gift’ of high reflexes, we find out that Majima has a ‘gift’ of his own, courtesy of the Alan Institute: super-sensitive hearing. He also remembers Chisato as the little demon girl who mowed down his team when they went after the radio tower oh so long ago. Now I’ve seen on Reddit one wild but very plausible theory: that Chisato and Majima were ‘unleashed’ into the city to act as some kind of social experiment, with one being the lawmaker, and the other being the lawbreaker.
Crazy I know, but we see in this scene how well these two gel together despite coming from different backgrounds. While Chisato maintains that the Alan Institute saved her life and are doing good for the world, Majima tries hard to make her see sense. But I fear that she will only find out until it’s too late.
Even with the cliffhanger we get at the end, it still feels like watching two shows at the same time. Given the shock ending we get, I was expecting a serious change of mood, and yet we are shown the same cutesy ED theme, which felt incredibly out-of-place given the potential danger Chisato might be in now.
There will be no coverage of Oshi no Ko next week, as episode 8 is apparently delayed. In its place, a ‘special program’ will air, which will likely recap the events that have taken place, from Ai’s murder, to Kana reuniting with Aqua, to Ruby being signed by her adopted mother’s agency, to now. With the show having 11 episodes anyway, this means it’ll end alongside the other shows I’m covering this season, which is good.