So is Roshidere just systematically copying every ED cover Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san did first?
Yeah, that was pretty bad. If this had been the first or second episode I wouldn’t have made it past the A-part – that’s how much I hated it. At this point the series had (just) enough goodwill banked for me to soldier through that and hope things improved. Which they did somewhat, although at that point there was really only one direction to go. But another stumble like that and it’s going to be hard to convince myself to stick around.
In point of fact we’ve now had two of these half-whiff eps in a row, though last week’s A-part was not bad on this level. I knew Yuki was trouble from the first time we met her – I said so at the time. And that really came home to roost here. Tropes were already a weakness with Roshidere, so combining a huge dose of them with Yuki at her most obnoxious was a disaster. That whole sequence was awful – painfully unfunny, crude, and generally distasteful. I’d say “forgettable” but that would be an upgrade – I’d love to forget it.
The rest was better if for no other reason that it had almost no Yuki and some (though not enough) Masha. Indeed I was worried Alya was going to slap Masachika for daring to have slept the night before (he basically invited it) but we were spared that at least. Sarashina-san (the kendo genius VP teased last week) was introduced, and certainly didn’t make a great first impression. I don’t get the sense that she’s hugely important though, so probably not that big a deal.
I could go either way at this point, but next week will tell us a lot. We’re going to see the student council with all the main cast present, and whether they dynamic is in any way successful may tell the tale of whether I feel like sticking around. Things could get very interesting if Masha decides to get more assertive vis a vis Masachika, or if the whole truth of their childhood friendship comes out. That’s probably not going to happen though (at least not soon) so I’ll have to find something else to hold my interest.
Joshua
August 1, 2024 at 10:22 pmAnd this is why I made that comment about Makeine’s self-aware comedy last week, because it certainly wasn’t as bad as the self-satisfied Deadpool-ish meta comedy that plagued Yuki’s segment here. Making such incendiary comments that suggest incest but passing it off as irony didn’t feel funny at all, but very smug, which if it was the point to Yuki teasing and trolling her brother, it’s doing such a poor job doing so like Deadpool’s constant ironic detachment destroying any semblance of sincerity under the guise of insisting that you shouldn’t be so serious.
“I came out of the shower naked because people know that my brother would walk in like that! *wink*”
“Why doesn’t Masachika go for fan favorite me and not that Russian girl just because she’s a D-cup?”
“The audience loves that melodramatic crap when I get all sad!”
The last time I felt this way with a show’s ironic detachment was again, last season’s Yoru no Kurage wa Oyogenai (coincidentally from Doga Kobo too) where there was this one episode of an older woman groping the teenagers’ breasts and exposing herself to them, but it’s okay apparently, because she’s very self-aware that this is so wrong and this is just a joke so that Yuki Yaku can criticize himself for including such an uncomfortable scene before other people can do so.