Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot.

You’ll have to forgive me if I feel predisposed to like this week’s episode of Takakoi – a show which, by your comment counts at least, seems to be pretty much anonymous at this point.  It took me down memory lane in a very personal way, as the fancy dress ball was held here – at the magnificent Chinzan-so Hotel & Garden.  Chinzan-so was maybe 10 minutes walk from my Kagurazaka apartment, and one of my favorite places in Tokyo.  I adore its traditional Japanese garden full of national treasures (including Teresa’s pagoda), I took my sisters to its famous tea room (where the party was held) when they visited me.  I could never afford to stay there, but – like so many things in Japan – it’s free to be enjoyed by anyone who cares to enjoy it.

I do get the resistance to this series, believe me.  And it hasn’t always worked for me.  But I believe I get what Tadakoi is trying to do, and I think it’s worth doing.  One can (and many have) criticize this show for its many cliches.  But to me, that misses the point.  Why?  Because Tadakoi is, simply, a celebration of romance cliche – that’s the whole point.  One may as well dismiss Roman Holiday or Summertime as being too cliched, because it’s exactly the same with them – they embrace the symbols of the love story and update them (in their day, they certainly did).  And Tadakoi is doing the same – taking the tropes of the Hollywood romance from the golden age and melding them with the anime romcom.  For me, that’s an intriguing concept.

Charles is a good example.  The guy is a walking cliche – the supercar (I assume a rental), the flowing blonde locks, the genteel manner and fairytale good looks.  He’s anime’s caricature of a European royal heartthrob – and nothing less would serve the story’s needs.  Hell, even Nyanko-big is entranced by Charles.  Ultimately this series has to come down to Tada-kun and Teresa being in love, and Charles needs to be everything he is in order to be a sufficient threat to their potential (and probably doomed) happiness.

Charles is also Teresa’s fiancee (naturally) and Alec’s crush (naturally).  And seemingly involved with the death of Tada’s parents as well, which is an interesting complication (I’d already assumed Teresa was involved – or at least her parents).  The truth about what happened is certainly one of the many obstacles in a potential Teresa-Tada romance, but practical reality is the biggest.  This trip amounts to a lark for her, an indulgence of her personal obsession – once it ends, she goes home and takes responsibility (and Charles).  It’s hard to see finding a way to overcome that one, even in a fairy-tale romance like Tadakoi.

I don’t sense that Charles is malicious – maybe a bit of a phony, but that’s how he was raised to be.  It’s enough of a problem that he is who he is.  The party at Chinzan-so is quite wonderfully portrayed, I thought – the beauty of the place comes through, the fish-out-of-water awkwardness for the photo club kids (apart from Kaoru – by the way, Miyano-san’s sneeze was one of the funniest readings of that anime trope I’ve yet heard) as contrasted with the oily grace of Charles (yes, it is that hot here in the summer).  I’d also note that Alec really needs to relax – her possessiveness towards Teresa is unhealthy, and it’s keeping Teresa far more a child than she needs to be.

Best of all, of course, the fated encounter between Tada-kun and Teresa in the garden.  The sudden storm, taking shelter under the 9th-century pagoda, the giving of the jacket, the soliloquy about their shared North Star.  It’s cliche, of course it is, but gloriously embraced.  It’s the first moment in Tadakoi where I’ve really felt the urgent impulse to root for these two as a couple – to think that the impossible prospect that they could be together is worth building a story around.  It feels like a watershed moment for this series – the moment when it truly became a romance.  And I don’t think there’s any going back from here.