In a vacuum, this was a really nice episode of Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii.  It even had a touch of the benedictory to it, touching as it did on every couple, non-couple and perspective couple in the cast.  Perhaps most importantly, it was very much consistent with the tone and style of the series as a whole, which a final episode should certainly try to be.  There a lot of positives to take away, then, and that’s mostly the feeling I’m left with as Wotakoi comes to an end.

Still, in all, there’s an obvious sense of unfinished business here.  I wasn’t really expecting a “finale” in the truest sense of the word, since not only is the Wotakoi manga ongoing but the anime was obviously nowhere near anything conclusive with the main couple.  Even knowing that I’m still a bit unfulfilled though if I’m honest, mostly because Narumi and Hirotaka left so much on the table relationship-wise.  I honestly don’t feel any closer now to knowing whether they’re even viable as a couple than I did when the first episode ended.

If you can get past that, Wotakoi was an awful lot of fun to experience.  And the final episode certainly did justice to that, giving everyone a chance to show off their most winning side as a character.  We start out with Narumi going to visit Hirotaka on the last day of what I’m assuming is Golden Week, since both the adults and the students had it off.  She’s planning on hanging out and gaming, but the plans change when she finds Hiro passed out on the kitchen floor.  He’s been so absorbed in his new game that he hasn’t eaten for what I assume to be two days, and probably not slept either.

It’s interesting to see Naru in this mode, because while Hanako teasingly remarks on how she’s finally acting (the “finally” is implied) like a girlfriend, there’s a certain truth in Tarou’s rejoinder that she’s actually acting more like a mother.  Or at least a big sister, which may be even more damming.  It’s a thin line with these two – they certainly share intimacy (though perhaps Narumi was hoping not this much), but it’s a different sort of intimacy than Tarou and Hana share.  Or indeed, than most romantically-linked couples share.  It was nice to see this play out, but I’m not sure it makes me feel any more like the two of them are a couple.

That Hana and Tarou are a couple there can be no doubt.  It’s fascinating how different they are the “1-A” pairing is, given that like the main two they’re childhood friends (of a sort) with tangentially shared interests.  Their arguments about otaku matters are entertaining (and Hanako was quite on-point with the yuri comeback – hypocrisy is a bitch sometimes), but they (and all their interactions) and deeply imbued with a sexual tension thick enough to cut with a knife.  That simply isn’t there with Hiro and Narumi – and if it isn’t now, I’m not sure there’s a reason to think it ever will be.

As for Nao and Kou-“kun”, their entry into the derby was way too late to really catch, but they had their moment here too.  I actually don’t think Kou comes off all that much like a girl, but for the sake of manga readers I hope this misunderstanding doesn’t play out for too long.  Kou gives Nao a handwritten gaming strategy guide – which coming from her, is about as close to a confession as anyone would want.  Nao’s most interesting contribution to the episode, though, comes in the epilogue when it blurts out that Hirotaka actually did get to date his first love (Tarou wins that conversation, by the way, with Otonoashi Kyoko) – which leads to a death glare from his brother that would melt the whipped cream on a frappucino.

Of course we’re used to unsatisfyingly incomplete tellings on ongoing manga – they’re a staple of anime fandom.  And the dreaded “NoitaminA cour” means we get even 1-2 fewer episodes to tell the story, which is a matter of real frustration.  But on balance I think Wotakoi did a very nice job of navigating that minefield by not trying to force closure on a story where it simply didn’t exist.  What we ended up with was a show that felt pretty self-contained and relevant – there was a point to it, a story being told, and it was very entertaining along the way.

NoitaminA has emerged from its darkest night with a nice little run here.  It’s still nowhere close to the glory days when you knew you’d get two series, and almost knew they’d both be excellent – but we’re back to seeing interesting human shows again, well-produced and directed.  And most importantly, for most of the past year NoitaminA has returned to non-traditional themes – romance from the point of view of adults being one such example.  The whole point of NoitaminA was always to provide an outlet for stories that would otherwise be untold because they didn’t slot into any neat commercial anime niche.  That may be less true with Wotakoi than, say, Koi wa Ameagari no You ni or Fune wo Amu (otaku romance is definitely trending) but I think it still applies. Wotakoi was both a good series and a good series for NoitaminA, and the more of those we get the happier fans of good anime should be.