And in an isekai, to boot. That was more like it, really – certainly the most engaging episode of Paripi Koumei in a month. The series has really felt like it was running in place for a while, but this ep picked up the pace considerably. It also featured Zhuge Liang being relevant for the first time in way too long. The music is still what it is, and the logistics of the event itself were pretty silly. But all that was already priced in with this series, and I was liking it plenty well enough before this recent dip in form.
Heck, even Karasawa was sort of interesting this week. That bit smacking the roadie on the shin with his cane was the first attempt the writing has made to humanize him in any way, even if the gesture was a little hollow in real terms. He’s not unaware of what his plan is doing to his golden geese’s psyche, especially Nanami – in some way I suppose that conversation in the van was a token of respect by his standards. The plan itself is about as cynical as it gets – give away a million bucks (roughly) spread out over a hundred people, by getting folks to scan the QR code and “like”.
This was all tied in rather elegantly with one of Koumei’s legendary stratagems. “The Three Kingdoms” tells the possibly apocryphal story of how he was tasked with obtaining 100,00 arrows in 10 days by the commander from Shu’s new ally Wu, jealous of Koumei’s reputation. But rather than fail and have to kill himself, Zhuge Liang devises the straw boat strategy sailing a fleet of boats with straw soldiers towards the massive army of the enemy Wei forces and using them to soak up all their arrows.
Well, it’s pretty obvious where this is headed. As a (very convenient) fog settles on Shibuya Koumei rents his own truck-kun and gets Eiko and Kabe to Shibuya 109 before Azalea show up, and has Eiko cover one of their songs. They manage to poach 70K likes with a fake QR code before Azalea shows up, but this is just phase one of the plan, and the main purpose was to prevent Azalea from getting to 100,000 likes themselves. At this point Kabe’s true purpose is finally revealed – to sow doubt about the legit Azalea’s authenticity and set the stage for Eiko to try and hijack the crowd with her original cut “Dreamer”.
Is this Koumi playing dirty? Sure, but we’ve already seen that he has no qualms about that. The dude was a brilliant military strategist, and he didn’t get that legendary reputation by being a saint – he got it by winning. This is all coming down to a pitched throwdown between Eiko and Nanami, but of course it’s been obvious for a while that this was the inevitable landing spot for Paripi Koumei (at least the arc that PAW is adapting). I don’t think there’s a whole lot of suspense by how things will turn out there, either, but we’ll know for sure soon enough.
Porn
June 11, 2022 at 1:19 am[i]That bit smacking the roadie on the shin with his cane was the first attempt the writing has made to humanize him in any way [/i]
Well, personally… the fact that he gave chance to some clueless newbie with fair payment contract (seeing the girl can do some generous spending and all, living in plenty at least from what we can at least presume), some attention to care for their safety and reputation (acting like real manager), willingness to point out their strong and weak point and use them efficiently, market them seriously even using his own songs to assist them and do all the marketing and distributing tactic even his willingness to micro manage everything and shoulder most the cost and not to burden his artist under his care with technical problem made me think that this guy is very decent, noble and utterly generous and kind individual.
Heck, he is even willing to give second chance to nanami and her azalea who rudely rejected his offer (whilst delivering immature and emotional outburst) and his willingness to acknowledge his prior words as quite rude (a humble gesture as it is within his right as his superior or boss to act as he please). He could’ve outright reject them or dismiss them while laughing out lot; mocking them as ignorant kids who is clueless to world of working adult and tell them to do dogeza or humiliate them even more. Or just use them to curry favor some upper high influental people or doing enjou kosai (honey trap/sexual gratification as transaction) that is common in entertainment industry. Hell, he could just casually say to them to do career pivot as jav actress if he want.
When i think about it more (whether its the author fault in writing them like this or my own perception), it strikes me as nanami and her azaleas are nothing but overprivillige ingrates. What kind a management willing to burn a hundred mills yen just for marketing cost of some untested newbie actress whose fame and accomplishment are comparable to some indies? That’s quite a gamble.
[i]the possibly apocryphal story of how he was tasked with obtaining 100,00 arrows in 10 days by the commander from Shu’s new ally Wu, jealous of Koumei’s reputation[/i]
The funny thing is, Zhou Yu is acknowledged as the humble, open minded, patient and respectful in sanguozhi. Cheng Pu (the most senior general in Eastern Wu amongst Sun Quan’s officers) often get at odds with him but he himself even praise Gongjin, going as far to say;
“Befriending Zhou Yu is like drinking a good wine. You get drink before you notice it.”
During Red Cliff, Kongming (age 27) was newly recruited. He had not much of reputation to talk about (supposedly) aside from appraisal as filial and hard working. His biggest contribution during Chi Bi is persuading Sun Quan to not submit to Cao Cao and instead make alliance with Liu Bei to overcome Cao Cao’s invasion (meaning diplomacy). If somehow Zhou Yu do intend of assasinating or killing him, perhaps he senses him as a seed of trouble in the future, instead of petty idea, narrow mindedness or mere jealousy. I mean he employ Zhuge Jin within his ranks.
Also the 100,000 arrows were not Kongmimg exclusive. Sun Jian used them during his campaign at Jiangxia against Huang Zu and Liu Biao’s naval fleet.
Joshua
June 12, 2022 at 10:24 amSeconding the comment above, it’s pretty obvious how much this idol producer was depicted as a strawman antagonist in this series in order to show that Nanami was in the right to keep opposing him and as a criticism of the idol industry. We’re supposed to believe from how he looks and what Nanami describes of him that he’s a one-dimensional asshole who’s making her life miserable as an idol, when scenes that are designed to humanize him in fact show him to be a tough but reasonable producer who took a big risk on this no-name band and wants to make them huge, which only makes Nanami come off more and more like an entitled brat for constantly lashing back at his reasonable, even-handed demands.
That in turn made the melodrama that I had to endure over the second half of this series feel a little pointless, and the criticism of the idol industry very shallow and surface level. There’s a lot to criticize about the industry, but this ain’t it. Yet we’re still supposed to see the producer as in the wrong and even outright antagonistic for opposing Nanami’s whining and relying on his plan to secure those likes. Sorry, I can’t see that when considering the above characterizations about him.
LAsuka
June 13, 2022 at 11:53 pmI think that’s missing the point. Its true that Karasawa was set up as a strawman antagonist, but the central conflict was always doing music for yourself vs doing it for the money. The fact that Karasawa has very reasonable demands, is generally fair and is quite generous in providing a no-name band the opportunity to succeed is besides the point. True, Nanami could be seen ‘entitled’ and ‘ungrateful’, but I think she did give up on the music she truly wants to do in order to succeed financially. And of course, now that she has made it financially, she wonders if she made the right choice. Looking it the whole thing objectively kinda misses the key central conflict that this narrative arc seeks to explore. Just my two cents.