There are two things about this series that annoy me, and have from the very first chapter of the manga. First, sorry, but people are not this dense. The vast majority of them, anyway. The whole things feels like an obvious pretense. And second, smoking cigarettes is about the worst thing for your health there is, apart from maybe crab fishing. And at least you get paid a decent wage for that. Are there people who can get away with smoking and seemingly suffer few ill effects? Sure – but not the vast majority of them. And that doesn’t mean we should be encouraging it.

The problem is this episode had the chance to clear the decks on both fronts – kill two birds with one stone. Instead in one fell swoop it punted on both and made everything worse. When the whole health check thing started in the manga, my initial reaction was wow, maybe they’re finally going to get real here and acknowledge the elephant. I can verify health checks do start getting scary at that age, even when you aren’t a smoker. So while I sympathize with Sasaki’s angst, not so much with the reason for it.

Let me also add, if Sasaki-san quit smoking he’d almost certainly gain weight. I get he’s depressed at the idea of losing his smoking buddy, but hey – if you really want to be Tayama’s friend, invite her out for ramen or something. Talk somewhere else. When the health report came back, my hopes were raised even higher. And then we have Yamada venting to Gotou-san about her side of things, and Gotou – as she should – tells her to just come clean. Trust him to see the actual person already. Yamada resolved to do just that, and the twin evils of Super no Ura seemed about to be exorcised.

But then that phone call. And poof – Shaka, when the walls fell. Boy, that pissed me off. Even if Sasaki-san’s body isn’t in comprehensive shutdown now, he’d still be healthier and live longer if he quit smoking. So we’re supposed to be happy the lab screwed up and told him to smoke like a chimney because now he can be with the liar girl? Pffft. What a cop-out. And natch, as soon as that shoe isn’t about to drop “Tayama” chickens out of telling him the truth. And just to be clear, there’s no way Sasaki wouldn’t have figured it out by now.

Then the flashback. I liked it in a sense – seeing Yamada-san as a 16 year-old, getting a better feel for why she is the way she is. And that asshole customer – woof. I’ve had to deal with plenty of those types and it truly is awful – though a lot worse if your boss doesn’t stand up for you (and that happens in CS all the time). I was cheering as hard as that boya when Sasaki stood up and defended her. All good – until we get the big reveal that Yamada is actually as cartoonishly dense as Sasaki-san. Seriously, there’s just no way.

This stuff never stopped being a problem for me with the manga, but I was able to get past it if I gritted my teeth. And I suppose I will with the anime too. I don’t think it’s worse here, per se, it’s just cumulative as it’s the second time. In a sense I get it, because this series was never intended to be as involved or “serious” as it ended up being. But this is a direction I would have preferred it not chosen – what works in a gag manga doesn’t often work anywhere else.