It’s interesting that in seven generally excellent episodes of Wave, Listen to Me! my two least favorite sequences have been the big set pieces – the bear bit in the premiere and the mutton bit here.  These are arguably the series’ signature moments, but for me it works better when it’s a little more grounded in realism.  Last week I compared this show to Golden Kamuy (with good reason), and I think it’s fair to say I find Noda-sensei to be better at Python-style humor than Samura-sensei.  But it’s also apt to mention Immortal here, I think, because I likewise preferred that series’ more intimate, character-driven moments to the big action blockbusters.

I’ll say this much – Koda Minare is a very lucky woman, even if she doesn’t see it that way. While her intentions aren’t exactly malicious, her life is basically an ongoing disaster area.  And that has consequences for the people around her, which is an especial problem because her outlook is spectacularly self-centered.  She uses people (Nakahara most obviously) to her own advantage, but even more she seems to have little interest in what problems her actions might cause for others.  So far she’s mostly skated by without causing real damage to herself or others, but that almost changed here in a big way.

The payoff to the “body” gag was one I certainly saw coming – there was no way that mention of mutton last week was a coincidence, and Oki-san just never struck me as an evil person.  In truth, this guy has been going out of his way to help Minare out for years at considerable inconvenience to herself, but the extent to which her combination of selfishness and cluelessness has wrecked his life is pretty staggering.  And that was before she had him arrested for murder (and not even considering that she already got him arrested once on false charges).

Mind you, there’s a lot of unexplained weirdness in the Oki-Azohara Ritsuko (Kitou Akari) relationship.  I’ll buy Oki’s story of how they met, and their decision to consummate their relationship at a randomly-chosen konyoku (mixed-gender onsen) is just about believable in a nauseatingly romance manga way.  Their choice is Kamoshika Onsen, a very real place in Yamagata Prefecture, and it would be pretty nuts to try and go there in the winter.  But what really happened to her after Oki blacked out from the volcanic gas?  Knowing Samura there’s some extreme weirdness in the explanation for why she disappeared and has never contacted him – maybe one of them saw something they didn’t like.

None of that, however, excuses Minare-san calling the cops on him.  Or stashing six trash bags of mutton under her floor.  Or, most tellingly, using his misfortune as fodder for her radio show.  This is the ugly side of Mado-san’s grand plans for Minare – the sort of entertainment he’s looking to provide often comes at the expense of people’s misfortune (maybe even Minare’s at times).  In order to work this has to be raw and dangerous – and if nothing else muttongate was certainly that.  It seems as if Minare hadn’t told Oki of her plan to use the show to try and locate Azohara-san – it’s interesting to speculate on what his thoughts were in coming down to the station.  But as I said, she’s a very lucky woman for choosing such a forgiving victim.

This is all fascinating enough in its own way, though as I noted I don’t find these absurdist comic set pieces work as well as I would like (Python mentions aside).  The big question for me is whether Nami yo Kiite Kure is going to show Minare experiencing any real growth as a person.  Her current persona is entertaining to be sure, but it’s not a life that anyone should really want to be living.  That question is further complicated by the fact that the manga is ongoing and whatever conclusion Sunrise patches together is going to be of their own choosing – with a first-time director at the helm, experienced writer Yonemura Shoji is likely going to be the key figure in where the series chooses to go.