I find the experience of Hidarikiki no Eren pretty close to unique. It’s a show full of unlikeable characters in realistic (and often familiar for me) situations, but I can’t take my eyes off them. These are not bad characters – they’re bad people. Or in some cases, just very flawed. And there’s a big difference. Mangaka Kappy is depicting them as being as trying and sometimes awful as they’re supposed to be. He’s very good at it – and as I’ve noted before, I strongly sense the aura of personal experience in the air here, so kawaisou to him. And me for watching, I suppose, because I can’t honestly say that I find the experience pleasant.

This time around it’s Sayuri who re-emerges from long narrative exile into the spotlight. Her graduation project is tied into that art student magazine we saw last week. She wants to interview Eren for her “finding the super art student” article (the other candidates were her ex and the woman he cheated with). Eren, naturally, looks down her nose at this despite the fact that it would be a boost for her prospects as an artist. And I can’t say I blame her, given what we’ve seen of Sayuri. But that doesn’t make Eren herself any less of a pain in the ass.

If I were to find a word to tie in all these major characters it might be “insufferable”. They all fit it – clueless and weak Kouichi, arrogant and self-promoting Kamiya, navel-gazing and foul-natured Eren. I suppose there are degrees – Akari is doubtless the worst of the bunch for me – but Sayuri comfortably clears the bar. Calculating, cynical, judgmental. She sees herself as above everybody else and desperately tries to control their lives. Kouichi is the most obvious case (she keeps notebooks). And perhaps, charitably, we might squint and say she’s doing it for love. Because he’s obviously not the rising star to which an ambitious climber would want to hitch her wagon.

I won’t defend Kouichi for cheating on Sayuri with Akari, not least because Akari never gave the slightest clue that she respected him. That said, on some level he must have been aware of how condescending Sayuri’s attitude towards him was. What a hilariously dysfunctional relationship – Sayuri doing everything she did for Kouichi was as pathetic as Kouichi himself, and the way he broke the relationship was truly awful. Eren as ever is kind of a dark matter figure, impacting their lives from the outside. And if Sayuri wants to be a Svengali, Eren is a subject with a lot more upside potential.

So what are we to make of them moving to New York together? It certainly was good career advice to “reverse import” – and a shockingly blunt indictment of the arts culture in Japan. As ever Sayuri is far better and more focused on lecturing others than on living her own life. Are they friends (again) now? Lovers? Is Sayuri acting as Eren’s manager? Like any two random people I could pick out from the main cast, “they deserve each other” fits the bill here. This is a dark ride indeed, and it’s morbid curiosity about how it’s all going to wind up that keeps me invested as much as anything.