As promised, Karaoke Iko! returns to close out the “Wayama Yama season” with an anime-original (though Wayama-penned) episode. I enjoyed the adaptation to a decent degree, and certainly far more than Muchuu sa, Kimi ni. That said I certainly didn’t come away really grasping why Wayama has become one of the most awarded mangaka out there, a true critical darling of the literati set. It was an entertaining diversion with a fair bit of wit, as long as you didn’t think too much about the creepy undertone at the heart of the story.
Episode 4 – and the original manga, presumably – ended with a timeskip. There’s a sequel manga, Fami-res Iko!, which takes place post-timsekip and is currently ongoing. Rather than jump immediately into that timeline, this ep mostly covers what went on in-between. To wit, Kyouji doing three years of hard time for beating the crap out of the dirtbag who threatened Satomi. On release he immediately returns to his mob outfit, unluckily for him just in time for the karaoke contest. He’s told it was delayed because the boss had a cold, but it’s intimated the real reason was because the boss was waiting for him to get out of prison.
Most of this is played for comedy, and it works fairly well in that respect. Unfortunately for him Kyouji ignores Satomi’s advice and chooses “Kurenai” for the contest, which promptly earns him a free tattoo. The boss, as it turns out, has gotten a little better at the whole tattoo thing. After an extended back-and-forth about what the boss is going to draw (for a while it was “unko”), it’s settled on “Satomi” – Kyouji begs that it be the kanji rather than the face. This occurs not long between the scene at the of the fourth episode, where Kyouji encounters Satomi at Haneda Airport.
I’m guessing the sequel manga probably lets the cat out of the bag where the undercurrent is concerned, and the tattoo certainly implies that. It’s certainly less skeevy if Satomi is 18 but honestly, it still comes off as pretty gross. Kyouji isn’t exactly what you’d call a likeable character, even if he does have a roguish charm about him. That said there is a certain something to the two of them as a pair, if not a couple. If Fami-res Iko! gets its own adaptation, I’m curious enough to see how their relationship evolves to check it out, though not so much as to pick up the manga.
