What I often found myself thinking as I read Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san, especially the early chapters, was “This really shouldn’t be working as well as it is.”  Of course that’s even more true with the anime, what with Kaji Yuuki playing Nishikata.  Yet work it does, at least for me – though it’s interesting that I very much saw the same split in the premiere audience that I was feeling myself.  This isn’t an easy series to embrace, that’s for certain – it tests you, pushes a lot of boundaries, and for some pushes past them.  But as I said last week, I think this is a series where patience might be handsomely rewarded (and I’m not just teasing you).

There’s a rather complex psychological dynamic going in with this show, make no mistake.  They say girls mature faster than boys, and I don’t think anyone would argue that Takagi isn’t more capable of playing the psychological game than Nishikata.  Setting aside her prescience (which even I as a fan will admit is a narrative convenience) Takagi-san is always thinking a couple of moves ahead, while poor Nishikata (for now at least) is hopelessly direct.  The calligraphy challenge (my favorite was actually the kid who wrote “winning lawsuit“) bears this out, where they write down what they want from the other and he’s wedded to words like “restraint” and “kindness”, while she’s playing out a long con the whole time.

What does Takagi really want – what’s in this for her?  That’s the question, Jimmy – and the answer seems to be evolving over time, though I think there’s a certain consistency to her antics if you look at them from the right (as in correct, not 90 degree) angle.  The irony here is that even when she appears to be helping Nishikata – as in the “sixteen” incident – he’s so battle-hardened that he can’t take her at face value.  And the genius of it is that as an audience, we can’t be quite sure either – was she just innocently helping him, or yanking his train?  Takagi-san is, after all, very good at teasing.

After a brief detour (the Ashita wa Doyoubi segment was effectively inserted in the middle of the main event this time), and a short reminder of how Takagi-san really does seem to know what Nishikata is thinking all the time (and her fist use of the “I bet you were thinking something naughty” attack – cruelly effective with a 7th-grade boy, as it’s about 50% likely to be correct at any given time) we get to what I consider very much the main event of the episode and indeed the series thus far, the pool scene.   This was really the first moment that kind of clued me in that Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san might just be more complicated than it seemed.

If I would choose a single word to describe what’s happening here, it would be “subtext” – and indeed, that wouldn’t be a bad word to sum up Karakai Jouzu Takagi-san as a whole.  And of course, subtext here is what separates the girls from the boys – Takagi has Nishikata-kun hopelessly outgunned.  It doesn’t help that the reason why he’s sitting out the swim session is obvious, whereas Takagi’s is (fittingly) mysterious.  My first thought was certainly the same as Nishikata’s, but saying it out loud would have no easier for me than it is for him.  And Takagi-san is well aware of the battle playing out in his head, of course.

What’s really going on here, though?  Takagi’s ultimate reveal is that she was skipping the pool just for teasing purposes.  But it seems more correct to me to say she was doing it in order to be with Nishikata.  Sympathy, perhaps?  Something else?  Decide for yourself, but it’s definitely complicated.  And of course Nishikata is fighting with one hand tied behind his back, because he’s too decent to really go after Takagi-san with both barrels – he’s a little gentleman, really.  Of course Takagi is manipulating Nishikata, relentlessly so – and if it bothers you, well, it bothered me too so I won’t take issue with that.  But somehow it all still works for me – much better than it should, in fact…