Aishiteru Game wo Owarasetai – 02

So far, I Want to End This Love Game is a thoroughly pleasant and inoffensive romcom. It has some cute moments and the main pair are overall pretty likable. It would be no exaggeration to say it pumps up the formula pretty hard, and there isn’t all that much that makes it stand out. Also, Kyou kara Hajimeru Osananajimi does the childhood friend romcom thing with a few twists and a good bit more charm. But there’s not a lot here to not like.

All that adds up to a show I’d watch and not cover if I’m honest. But we’re early days here and there’s the matter of the Patron Pick vote to consider, so we’ll see. I do like that we got a little more insight into Yukiya and Miku as individuals here. He’s kind of a tsundere even above and beyond the love game, and generally a loner. She’s a social gadfly with a lot of insecurities. There does seem to have been a role reversal from when they first met, where Yukiya was the one who initiated socializing with the lonely Miku. But he’s pretty comfortable being on his own gaming or reading manga, and her efforts to broaden his social circle are a bit patronizing.

I liked the scene where Miku’s two new friends glommed onto Yukiya and they wound up talking about Frieren (“way too many statues” indeed). That played as pretty real – they weren’t being mean, but there’s no question this started out as fun at his expense. And her introducing him as a gloomer loner didn’t help. When he managed to pivot and hold his own conversationally (though it was exhausting) she was hoist with her own petard, as it were. She thought she could have a little fun at his expense while maybe doing him a favor, and wound up getting jealous. Just desserts.

The scene with the webcams was fun too. That’s a lot of pressure, for sure. Again, all very pleasant and eminently watchable. Where we go in terms of actual progression will probably determine Aishiteru Game’s staying power, or lack thereof.

Hidarikiki no Eren – 03

I gotta say, I really like this show. It’s not a mass-produced model by any stretch of the imagination. It’s smart and interesting in the way it looks at the creative process. And it has a very skillful sense in blending realism with theatricality. This is not a flashy production (especially for a Production I.G. series) but it’s easy to tell it has a very experienced staff and director.

The timeline is all over the place with Hidarikiki no Eren, but this time it’s almost entirely split between 2004 and (mostly) 2007. These are the early years of Kouichi’s career, and they’re presented in really fascinating and gritty fashion. In 2004 Kouichi does the usual Japanese routine of entering a company in the spring, as if it were a school. He’s already established relations with a veteran there named Kamiya-san, but when Kouichi asks if he’s not part of “Team Kamiya” he’s told that Kamiya is only in his 30’s, so of course he has no team yet. Instead he’s assigned to an old-timer named Sawamura-san, who eases the newbie into the company (and that’s an understatement).

Sawamura is the most interesting element of this episode. He’s got it figured out now – though apparently he was once one of the worst black company offenders (and lost his wife and child over it). I kept wanting to shout at Kouichi to shut up and be careful what he was wishing for – but then, he’s young and stupid. Sawamura describes this as the end of the era when designers (and other salarymen) did all-nighters and worked themselves into the hospital (or worse). He urges Kouichi not to rely on the wild card of youth, as that will one day no longer be in his hand. Figure out what his hand is, and play those cards.

This all goes south in predictable fashion when Kouichi finally does get assigned to Team Kamiya, three years later. He gets picked to do a presentation for a huge contract (with a thinly-disguised Suntory). He works himself into the hospital. Sawamura chews out Kamiya for grinding Kouichi into the ground and gets an earful himself in response. The bid is successful, but the big boss pulls Kouichi off the project anyway. Kamiya isn’t a bad guy – he’s trying to conform to the expectations of the system. But the system is garbage, as Sawamura has figured out. And with current leadership that openly aspires to take Japan back to the days Sawamura laments, one despairs at how little the country’s work culture has truly evolved.

In a sense, Eren the Southpaw is a pretty depressing story. It’s really the chronicle of what it’s like to be unexceptional – “guts is all I have” – in a creative field where the exceptional is the expected. Kouichi is chasing the ghost of a girl who barely acknowledges him, and whose talent he could never hope to equal. But he does have guts, and guts isn’t nothing. Did he make a mistake in making art his life’s calling? As much as anything, that may be the question this series is trying to answer.