When it became clear that Minare would meet Mitsuo again in Nami yo Kiitekure 9, well the episode pretty much played out like I expected, though I was worried that Minare would get sucked in by deadbeat Mitsuo’s charms. That did happen, after the expected prequel where she plans various ways to kill or injure him. He charmed her before, after all. So I spent much of their date non-verbally saying “Don’t do it, Minare!” though her own internal monologue, awareness vs seduction, was as entertaining as Minare could get. It took a free cookbook in his wastebasket to awaken her often formidable inductive skills–he hated to cook, so someone had cooked for him, to snap her out of it, stop her from cleaning his ears (what a jerk, and what a fool Minare is for going along) and give him a reverse piledriver. Ironic, actually, seizing an opportunity when he was at his most vulnerable and open, like he would do with women. Well, it’s not over yet. Next week Mato and the station are going to perhaps help her eliminate the emotional baggage she still carries, and while he paid half the money back he still owes her 250,000 yen.
For the current story nonsense of Tower of God I decided to ignore who’s on who’s team and just observe who is killing whom and why. It seems to be breaking down that no one cares about the two teams in this particular ugly test. Instead the contestants are fighting for themselves only, or fighting to help other people. The nasty Endorsi does a little of both. She talks about brutally killing her fellow princess trainees so that she would win when she was a child, yet she is also nice to Bam, and worried about him when he seemed hurt. Hoh had the same sort of child massacre happen to him, so now he’s misled into believing that if he kills Rachel, Bam will quit, and he will advance. He winds up killing himself–not sure if there’s a moral there, because he had at least one teammate who sympathized and would have helped him. Bam, meanwhile, pleads with everyone to just stop acting like shits to each other, not that anyone listens, though it should be mentioned that everyone generally likes Bam. It seems to break down into those who kill to get their way, and those that refuse to, and want to cooperate instead. But everyone has their own stories to live out, and things can’t be broken down that easily. Well, the test is finally over, and maybe the story will start making more sense again, or at least the tests.
Kakushigoto 9 riffs on time-traveling (manga-ka finish their christmas stories way before December), the concept of “sensei” and how it’s used and ill-used, and “running senseis,” which signify December, therefore, by kid logic, anyone running in December is a sensei. Frankly, I think Hime and her friends are old enough to not make that mistake. It’s all wrapped around a story about Kakushi’s company canceling their Christmas party, so Kakushi takes them to one from his old publisher, and we get more riffs, Hime being scouted, manga-ka not dressed well, their editors dressing well, and the reverse in this case leading to trouble for Kakushi and his idiot editor. Well, Hime had a good time, and saw a real chandelier, though she thinks it’s called a “cinderella.” So cute! Though Rasuna admits she made the same mistake as a kid. In the mysterious story of the flash-forward, Shiji sells a book about missing manga-ka, with Kakushi among them, and he says it’s not true … The current-day story is getting good, and I wish they’d get around to explaining it, though the rest of the episode usual tossing ideas into a blender and producing jokes out of them works pretty well too.
Hamefura 9 tosses us a little story as a cliffhanger (all of Catarina’s evil deeds exposed! Huh?) but most of the episode is side story starring Anne, Catarina’s ever-patient servant. As an outside observer she comes to the same conclusion that we all have–Catarina is mind-bogglingly dense … and that’s about it. Oh, we get her backstory, illegitimate daughter whose mother died in a fire, and Anne got a burn too, labeling her damaged goods in the marriage trade. And when we watched little Catarina argue with Anne’s father that she should NOT be married off and how devoted she is to her, we see Anne’s gratefulness and desire to follow Catarina forever. But to us that’s simply more of Catarina’s penchant for being kind to people and treating them all equally. Nothing new there. After that there’s a quick gag bit concerning a possible confession letter Catarina sends to Geordo, but I’m far more interested in what the jealous girls have set up for next week. All we’ve seen are them being mean to someone only to have Catarina scare them away, so it’s a good idea for the show to follow up on that. Next week. In the meantime:
Too Old for Anime 