I’m really liking this new Working!!, because it feels like it takes place in an alternate universe, where everything is the same, only different. The new show and cast is replete with echos of the old show and cast, but with enough differentiation to be worth the watch.
Still, this new Working!! might be trying to actually improve on the formula it refined with its first cast. Take Miyakoshi Hana. She’s violent and unreasonable like Inami, but not because she hates men. In fact, she gets along with Higashida just fine, and even insists he invite her to his house so he can help her study for exams. It turns out she’s a lot more normal than Inami was, and that’s actually refreshing.
Or take weirder co-workers like Muranoshi Sayuri. She’s very neutral and deadpan in her voice and expressions, but is still canny enough to use her ability to see customers no one else can see to put some rude bros in their place. She also shows she’s got a winning smile…as long as you complement her.
Like Hana and Daisuke, the other couple-in-the-making here doesn’t follow the same path as Satou and Todoroki in the other show. Instead, it’s a weird, long-standing situation where Shindou Yuuta actually got the lonely Kamamura Shiho’s rich dad to pay more attention to her, often talking about things so complicaed they fly over Shiho’s head.
Yet when it comes time to respond to her offer of marriage (thus wiping out his father’s debt to her father), he reverts to a little kid who thinks girls are gross. Shiho clearly hasn’t taken that well, and has since treated ever encounter with Yuuta as transactionary.
Just as I’d like to see Daisuke and Hana becoming better friends, which they’re well on their way to doing, I’d like to see Yuuta mend fences with Shiho. Even if neither of these things happens, the point is I’m invested with these new characters, so I’m going to keep watching.
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