Critical hit, indeed…

Unlike most of the other finales we’re seeing on the horizon, I suspect next week’s episode won’t be the last we see of Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san.  The series is predicted to do pretty well on disc for starters (around 6K, maybe), which remains the single biggest factor for most anime in terms of profitability.  But the manga has increasingly become a commercial powerhouse over the past couple of years, with booming volume sales and multiple successful spinoffs (effectively it’s now a franchise).  At the very least we’ll see a couple of OVAs I think, but though the manga will likely be given a chance to bank material, I think another series is a likely bet.

With that in mind, it’s interesting to see where Shin-Ei is going with the final few episodes.  That there’s been a real sense of progression to the main storyline should be apparent to most by now, I think, but Akagi and Yokote are indeed skipping around quite a bit, trying to bolster that sense of development in the narrative.  I would argue that it’s been quite effective, to the point where what took place in the final chapter (where most of the shippy stuff seems to happen) this week doesn’t seem at all out of the blue.  Anyone who didn’t see this coming up wasn’t looking hard enough.

We start out, as so often, with more of a straight-up teasing chapter.  I’m generally pretty sympathetic to Nishikata-kun even when he’s hoist by his own petard, because Takagi-san is ruthless about exploiting it.  But it is rather silly that he would be so embarrassed to admit he likes cats (not that 7th-grade boys aren’t rather silly about a lot of things).  I love the notion of a “nadehoudai” (all-you-can-pet) cat, though, especially Nishikata’s excitement at the idea.  I wonder if their little seaside town has a nekokissa….

We get a little interval with lovesick Yukari here (she’s my favorite of the doyoubi girls, and the subject of one of those spinoff manga), desperate to have a conversation about boys with her immature friends, only to realize they were talking about dogs.  That segues directly into the art room sketch (literally), which is a situation weighty with subtext if ever you’ll see one.  We still don’t get a look at Takagi-san’s funny face, but Nishikata’s portrait of her as he “envisions” her fails to get her goat.  Her drawing him as blushing certainly gets his.

Even here, we get a level up – Nishikata almost admits to himself that Takagi-san is pretty, before noticing and freaking out.  Likewise the Janken chapter – this is as transparent as Takagi-san ever gets.  Not only does she lose to Nishikata at Janken, but she pulls no shenanigans when she stays behind as the “loser” to help him with cleanup duties.  Nishikata-kun can walk away from this with no other conclusion except that she lost on purpose so she could hang out with him after school.  He may be dense, but he’s not dead.

The watershed moment certainly comes in the final chapter, though.  One could argue that this is Nishikata-kun’s first win – I mean, his critical hit got a genuine blush from Takagi-san even while she was still in his sight, and a total breakdown after he fled.  Nishikata deprived himself of a good bit of the pleasure his triumph might have provided him, but of course after blurting out “I wanted to walk with you anyway” he was too aghast to stick around and savor the flavor.  Even if Nishikata couldn’t see it though, we did – Takagi-san’s aura of invincibility has been permanently punctured.  She has a weakness – we knew it, but now we’ve seen it and as such, the dynamic in this story is never going to be quite the same.