Urusei Yatsura – 08 – A Ran for Her Money

After seven episodes of floating around class causing a commotion, Lum officially enrolls at the school, surprising Ataru so much he nearly chokes to death. He insists Lum attending school will “cramp his style” but I know not of what style he speaks.

Lum isn’t the only transfer student either: the other is the newest addition to this boisterous and chaotic bunch: Ran, Lum’s childhood friend. Ataru starts hitting on her immediately, which is when Lum recognizes her and asks for a talk behind the school.

Once there, Lum and Ran greet each other like the old friends they are, and Ran says she’s disguised herself as a human so she could see Lum. But when reminiscing about old times brings up the boy they both fell for—Rei. who looks like a complete bore—Ran’s personality suddenly curdles into that of an enraged ogre.

Ran hasn’t forgotten how Lum stole Rei from her, and has come to earth to take revenge on her. Specifically, she intends to use her succubus-like ability to suck the life out of people with her mouth on an unwitting, two-timing Ataru who will be all too eager to kiss.

Lum tries her best to stick close to Ataru, committed to protecting her darling despite the fact he’d still cheat on her in front of her face without batting an eye. This episode does not show Ataru at his best, but I suppose it shows him at his most libido-first Ataru-ness.

Ran manages to get Ataru alone under a tree, but is unable to apply a smooch due to Lum flattening Ataru at the last minute with a tatami mat. I guess the injuries he receives as she keeps him away from Ran’s mouth aren’t as bad as what would happen if she kissed him.

During the cavalry clash, Ataru gets the chance to witness what happens as Ran accidentally kisses another boy, who ends up transforming into a feeble old bansai-watering fogey. And yet, Ataru doesn’t care in the slightest. He’s always been about the hunt. If capturing the hot babe of his dreams will result in his death, it will have been worth it.

Yet the day passes with Lum successfully defending her baka-darling from Ran’s lips. Ran slips back into her more mild-mannered mode, only to get all worked up again when she remembers the wedge that split the two of them apart: her would-be darling Rei—whom I must point out chose Lum over her.

The second segment involves Ran saying, Poochie-style, that she’ll be returning to her home planet shortly, but wants to spend one more day of tea and cookies with her best friend and her darling. Why she chooses to relay this message via self-destructing Ran doll is a mystery I fear we’ll never solve.

Ditto Ran’s insistence on passing as human while her house is very clearly an alien spacecraft. Ran makes sure she looks her cutest and most innocent, as she tries to convince Lum that 1.) she’s really leaving and 2.) she’s given up on stealing Ataru from her. That fiction evaporates when Lum feeds her drugged cookies to a sentient vase that then falls fast asleep.

But Ran has more than one trick up her lavender sleeve, as she’s preparing a copy of Ataru in her oven, identical in every way except for an apostrophe near his head (looking like a kind of floating ahoge). That apostrophe is actually one of the first things the real Ataru notices, and he snatches it just as Ran grabs him and returns him to Lum, thinking he’s the copy.

Ataru doesn’t know it, but he accidentally saved his ass by grabbing that little thingy. As Lum forces him to leave with her, Ran storms out holding a wholly deflated Ataru clone, madder than ever. That night, Lum, ever the optimist, wishes she’d tried to get along better with Ran before she returned to her home planet.

Of course, Ran doesn’t return to her home planet, but back to Ataru and Lum’s school the next morning, still maniacally determined to steal Ataru from Lum and suck the vitality out of him. So for all intents and purposes, she’s here to stay … and I’m fine with that! The more intensely-haired shiny alien beauties, the better, I say. I’m simple like that!

Ran is, you’d probably guessed voiced by the incomparable Hanazawa Kana, and I’m glad Urusei Yatsura saved one of the biggest guns in its massive seiyuu arsenal for a character with a split personality; the better to utilize Hanazawa’s fantastic vocal range. She has the ability to jump from syrupy-sweet to pure venom on a dime.

She also makes Ran, for all her flaws, a lot more likable than if someone else voiced her. The episode also wisely kept Shinobu, Mendou, and all the other characters out to the periphery so it could focus on the Ran-Ataru-Lum triangle at hand. I’m sure it won’t be long before Rei arrives on Earth to try to reclaim Lum’s heart. His efforts are sure to be met with failure, since Lum only has eyes for Darling now.

Urusei Yatsura – 07 – Pochi’s Odyssey

This week’s UY further expands its world, though not with more foxy alien chicks. Combining a pool episode with a beach episode, it introduces a lonely little demon living underwater who suddenly has a visitor. He happens to live at the bottom of the pool where Ataru, Lum, Shinobu and Mendou pay a visit. Since Lum’s default outfit is a bikini, it makes sense she’d pick a one-piece, while Shinobu opts for a bolder two-piece.

Even so, Mendou ignores her in favor of Lum’s new look, while both he and Ataru are distracted by Sakura in an even sultrier one-piece. When Ataru lunges at her, she rightfully pops him, and he ends up sinking to the pool’s bottom where the little demon guy lives. While Shinobu asks about Sakura’s fancy parfait, Lum is legit concerned about Ataru, who tags out when she arrives so he can surface for air.

After eating roughly a hundred parfaits, Sakura joins Mendou and Cherry in following Ataru, who swears there’s a freaky demon thing underwater. But when they reach his “home”, he’s surfaced to procure (read: steal) more snacks for his guests. Lum tags everyone to surface.

Eventually, everyone is back above water, studying the weird little guy. After all the commotion he caused making customers flee (his dad owns the pool) Mendou demands that the guy vacate the premises immediately. The others, feeling this was a bit harsh, wish the guy well as he departs, only for Ataru to find him having relocated to his family’s bathtub.

The conundrum of What To Do About The Weird Little Blue Guy continues in the second segment, and that question is answered immediately by Ataru’s mom, who asks him and Lum to take the guy to the beach and leave him there, since he’s been in their tub for a month.

Like the pool, Shinobu’s in a bikini and Lum’s in a one piece, but they’re different prints from the previous swimsuits they wore, which is a nice touch. Sakura also shows off her ability to eat massive quantities of food, but this time she’s with her fiancé Tsubame.

When Ataru tries to take the pool demon somewhere secluded, that happens to be the same spot where Sakura and Tsubame end up to be alone together. This results in Ataru, the pool demon, Mendou, Shinobu, and Lum all watching intently as the couple draw closer into a kiss that’s sadly broken up by the pool demon walking up to point-blank range to stare at them.

He apologizes to Ataru, Lum, Shinobu, and Mendou by throwing a goodbye picnic, offering food he’d procured/stolen from around the beach. Everyone eats, but they can’t be merry with the guy constantly bringing up the fact that they’re leaving him there all alone.

Throughout the background of this segment, there’s a very sweet and wholesome little vignette of a gentle little boy taking his beloved pet Pochi to the beach because he can’t keep it anymore. When all his most treasured moments with Pochi (who is never shown) flash before the boy’s eyes, he suddenly can’t go through with it anymore.

The boy races back to the beach, sees Ataru with a cardboard box, and snatches it up, thinking it’s the cardboard box containing Pochi that he left of the beach when it’s actually a second box into which Ataru put the pool demon.

Shinobu discovers the boy’s box, and opens it to reveal that “Pochi” is just Cherry. The kid had been spending all this time with (and feeding) Sakura’s uncle like he was a pet. That’s a great-ass punchline right there. No sooner do Ataru and Lum return home than they receive a postcard from the pool demon—who now goes by Pochi—saying he’s found a great new home and life with the kind boy. All’s well that ends well!

Love Flops Dropped

The third and final episode of Love Flops I watched focused on Amelia Irving, who starts the episode under Asahi’s covers trying to put his toeprints on a wedding license. Why yes, she’s not wearing pants. Her obsessively hypercompetitive personality hits a snag when a kanji test looms. She starts to learn, but only the symbols she finds in pornographic literature. Asahi helps tutor her, and her test scores improve drastically.

While Amelia is the most interesting character by dint of having an episode centered around her, and I heart her seiyu Taketatsu Ayana always and forever (and appreciate that she needs to pay the bills), I’m content with just three episodes of this mostly dumb mess and calling it a day. If I need tutoring rom-com, I’ll wait for We Never Learn S3.

Love Flops – 02 – Menage a Cinq

Asahi is so distracted by Aoi’s, er, display, he completely misinterprets her confession to him as a confession to going commando. When she asks him what he thinks and he says he might give it a try and isn’t one to judge others for their preferences, Aoi gets embarrassed and runs off. Not five minutes later Ilya confesses to him, Mongfa runs off and gives him hickeys when two men in black come by, and both Karin and Amelia try to ambush him with a spontaneous wedding.

After a day of absolute madness, Asahi is glad to be home…only to find it full of the mad ones. There they are, all lined up to welcome him home as if they were his five wives. His annoying robot plays a message from his father, who arranged all of this and is hoping Asahi ends up picking one of the girls (or the guy) to marry for real.

The audacity of having his house doubled in size in the few hours he was away from it is weird enough, but now we learn that his dad is undoubtedly someone of considerable means. We also learn that all five of his would-be brides (and one groom) are way too enthusiastic about asserting themselves.

They’re all over him and won’t leave him alone, and while this is clearly a fantasy for some, the episode does a good job heightening the sheer anxiety of dealing with five caffeinated wannabe waifus in a relatively small space. When Asahi escapes to the quiet blue night, it’s as much a relief for me as him!

Aoi ends up finding him at a shrine, and tells him how all of them are simply excited to finally meet their potential future husband, and it resulted in them being a little too overeager to please. With her gentle touch she’s able to convince him to come home and give this thing a try, while she and the others will “do their utmost” to tone it down a bit. Somehow I doubt that!

With that, Asahi’s wacky new home life begins. I’m honestly still not sure what to make of this, and will take at least one more episode to determine if it’s something I’ll watch to the end. So far it’s like train wreck from which I can’t quite look away!

Love Flops – 01 (First Impressions) – Five Uneasy Pieces

Kashiwagi Asahi lives in a spacious apartment with an AI assistant Lovelin (Nanachi again), and while listening to the morning news, his birthday of October 8 (just four days ago!) happens to be the luckiest for today. The mysterious fortune teller then lists off a series of “lucky words” that don’t make any sense until he starts his commute to school.

The first word, corner, refers to a rushing girl with purple hair and glasses colliding with  him when they meet at a blind corner. They end up in a risqué position, but he promises he didn’t “see anything” as a result of that position, and they part ways relatively amicably.

Then comes train, when he boards a completely empty car only for a busty green-haired woman in a chinese dress sits right next to him, falls asleep, clings to him, then nearly kicks his head off when he starts her awake.

The next “lucky” word is staircase, when a third beautiful girl stumbles down a flight of steps and she’s launched crotch-first into Asahi’s face. She mistakes the plastic banana holder in his pocket for being happy to see her, and smacks it before running off. So far, Asahi can hardly be blamed for these situations.

Next up is robotic cleaner, when he encounters said robot cleaner in a park trying to dispose of a diminutive redhead’s bra, then the girl herself. This girl accuses Asahi of hacking the robot into stealing her unmentionables. It then chases her away.

Next up is dog, as a silver-haired fellow is being humped by a very big and assertive pooch. To this, Asahi turns about and pretends not to see what is going on, rather than attempt to save the waifish lad and incur the dog’s wrath. It isn’t until he arrives in his newly reorganized class that Asahi learns that everyone he encountered is in his class.

The purple-haired girl with glasses is Izumisawa Aoi (Itou Miku), a transfer student; he short-haired girl is Karin Istel (Kouno Marika), from Germany;  the redhead is Amelia Irving (Taketatsu Ayana) from the USA; the silver-haired boy is Ilya Ilyukhin (Takahashi Rie) from Bulgaria; and the green-haired well-endowed lady from the train is his new teacher, Bai Mongfa, from China (Kanemoto Hisako).

Asahi can’t believe his rotten luck, even as he learns what the last lucky word, letter, referred to a love letter in his locker inviting him to meet after school. His contractually assigned friend Ijuuin Yoshio assures him he’s hit the jackpot; he has the pick of these three beautiful girls, one beautiful woman, and one beautiful guy. I’ll give Yoshio this: he’s refreshingly progressive!

As the rest of the episode unfolds, Asahi has second encounters with each of these potential suitors, in which he attempts to correct the misunderstandings that occurred in their first meetings. He and Aoi almost collide around a corner again, but don’t. Alas, when he fishes through his pockets for what he believed to be her dropped handkerchief, he instead produces Amelia’s bra, scandalizing Aoi and earning him a slap.

This encounter makes him late to order lunch, and there’s nothing left for sale, but he’s not alone; Karin was also too late, and is clearly very hungry. Because Asahi’s a decent guy, he offers her the banana he brought for lunch (this guy really likes bananas, having toasted one for breakfast), while also pointing out that its holder was what she mistook for his manhood. She meekly thanks him for the food.

Asahi then gets another chance to rescue Ilya from becoming unmarriable all over again, albeit not necessarily by choice. Ilya hides behind him, and the randy dog  targets him, even managing to somehow get his pants off. Asahi blacks out, but when he comes to, it’s looking up at a very grateful Ilya.

The dog also managed to bite him, which would normally mean he should probably get tested and treated for rabies, but since this is a goofy anime some alcohol and spray-on bandage will suffice. He receives this treatment from Mongfa-sensei, who doubles as school nurse, and apologizes for their earlier awkward interaction.

No sooner does she leave than Amelia Irving arrives with a very specific ailment: chafing in the chestal area. Fortunately for her, Asahi saved her bra from the trash robot. He returns it to her, and she apologizes for jumping to the earlier conclusion that he hacked the robot, having later realized that was…unlikely.

Having repaired four of the five new relationships he’s built on this most auspicious day, all that’s left is checking out what the final lucky word letter portends. Responding to the love letter, he arrives at a giant blossoming cherry tree he doesn’t remember being there (he has several memory gaps in this episode, though it’s never explained).

There, waiting for him, is none other than the first girl he ran into, Aoi. She’s there to confess her love to him, but because it’s so breezy, her skirt flips up and reveals to him that she’s been going commando ever since their first encounter. The item she dropped was not a handkerchief, but side-tying underwear. For once, Asahi is lucky here, as Aoi doesn’t realize what the wind is doing and the moment isn’t spoiled.

Love Flops thus introduces its lead and his harem of potential girlfriends by resorting to all of the shameless, risqué, fanservice-y clichés but the Bluetooth-enabled kitchen sink. While at times it seems like a very over-the-top satire of harem rom-coms, the fact that it may actually be a genuine and un-ironic contribution to the form almost makes it more amazing. It’s pure tasteless trash … and yet I couldn’t look away.

Call of the Night – 10 – Arisa in Selfieland

Last week was a Seri episode, and from the first scene it looks like this one’s going to be a Kohakobe Midori one. Midori’s in a bind: one of her co-workers at the maid café called out, so she needs someone cute who won’t hit it off with guys and threaten her “Number One” position among the maids.

Naturally, just that person crosses her path in Nazuna. And while Nazuna looks predictably killer in her maid uniform, her way of speaking and the way she carries herself leave much to be desired. It’s nothing like the polished-yet-unembellished grace and cuteness of Midori, causing Ikari Gendo-like reactions in one of her regulars.

Why this isn’t strictly a Midori-centric episode, however, comes down to the maid serving Kou. It’s neither Midori nor Nazuna, but Arisa, who is bright, cheerful, but also quite down-to-earth and earnest, saying she was once the café’s Number One before Midori showed up, but she lauds Midori as amazing. She also notes how even when she’s off she loves to visit other maid cafés to visit her favorite maids.

After closing Midori prepares to take some selfies with her and Nazuna for the café’s social media, and discovers peeping tom photos of the maids have been posted. Midori asks Kou if he’ll investigate and he agrees, always eager to please (even if she’s still a firm “no” for him romantically speaking). While inspecting the photos, all of which are of Arisa, Kou is startled by the sudden appearance of Arisa behind him.

This episode shows that once Kou says he’ll do something for someone, he really hunkers down and gives it his all, meticulously inspecting the photos and determining most were taken in the break room, then lining up the angles where a tom could snap secret pics. I love how he has Nazuna “give him a hand” by flying him up to the otherwise inaccessable balcony.

When Nazuna remarks that only a vampire could come up here to snap pics, and thus Midori must be the culprit, Kou has her pose as a stand-in for Arisa in a test photo…and since it was taken quickly and Nazuna wasn’t quite ready, it’s an awful photo of her. That’s when the light bulb goes off for Kou.

While his confidence that he’s cracked the case plummets with every word out of his mouth, he tests his working hypothesis by staking out the break room from a locker, where he ends up stuffed in with Midori since only one locker is unlocked. There, he tells her all the photos were taken after hours, when Arisa was alone, with no other staff or customers around.

Then they watch through the little locker slot as Arisa sets up a selfie stand at the window, and Kou busts out of the locker. Arisa is caught red-handed. When asked how Kou knew, he says simply that the photos were too nice; too much care was put into their composition and lighting; nothing like the quick and often blurry shots an actual peeping tom might take.

He also notes the lack of truly scandalous shots showing underwear. Sure, he’s incriminating himself as a guy here, but all in the service of justice, so he swallows his pride. But while his male gaze and male perspective helped him pick Arisa, his blind spot is the “why”.

But Midori knows why: Arisa, supplanted as Number One, sought recognition; the means to show she was still popular. But while Midori initially sounds cruel, even calling it an “illness”, Midori says all humans have one such illness or another (like Kou skipping school and staying out late), but it’s okay to be ill.

For one thing, it’s okay because at the end of the day, Kou makes a new friend in Arisa, who stops by the café when she’s not working, both to see her favorite maid (Midori) and to chat with him. Arisa admits to being so obsessed with selfies she’s spent an entire day seeking the perfect shot.

In the back of her mind, she always thought there was something wrong with that, so it was nice for someone (Midori) to say it wasn’t. Call it a vampire’s perspective. She caps off the episode on a heartwarming note, with a group selfie of her, Kou, Nazuna and Midori.

Both Oozora Naomi and Oonishi Saori do yeoman’s work as the voices of Midori and Arisa, respectively, as Arisa shows Kou that there are all kinds of people who go against the grain as he does. I appreciated that things never got catty, but that Midori understood and accepted why Arisa was doing what she did without judgment.

The Rising of the Shield Hero S2 – 13 (Fin) – Cast Away Memories

Shield Hero comes to the end of this second season not quite sure what to do, so it dredges up a few little vignettes from the past, in the context of the characters having little “remember when” moments. It’s odd; it has the feel of a recap since there’s absolutely no forward movement to the plot, but since we never saw the scenes, it’s more of the kind of bonus episode you’d get with a Blu-Ray box set.

The Shield Hero completionist is then honor-bound to sit through a scene of the girls dressing Lil’ Raphtalia and themselves up in various costumes to get to the emotional scraps meat on the bone of this episode: actually watching Kizuna’s descent into ennui, suicidal thoughts, and then acceptance of her plight and making the most of it thanks to the Shield Hero version of Wilson the volleyball from to 2000 film Cast Away.

Kizuna regales that story to Yomogi, who then recalls her last fun moment with Kyou, when he trashed his lab looking for glasses that were on his face all along. This kinda clangs on the ground because as close as Yomogi once was to the guy, Kyou’s a villain and irredeemable jackass. Thankfully we didn’t flash back to that scene or have to see his punchable face.

Finally, Rishia and Raphtalia recall the time Ost taught them about sex, and while Raph had no idea what she was talking about, Filo understood the concept of mating right away. Back in the present, Naofumi, Raph, Filo, and Rishia stop on a promontory to release a bouquet of flowers in honor of Ost, and Ost’s force ghost shows up to wave farewell to Naofumi.

Anime News Network’s reviewer for this show often skewered it more than I, but they were right in one regard where they thought they were mistaken: the 12th episode was the last episode. This was just an epilogue, and while it had some cute moments, it didn’t justify the title of 13th episode.

Akebi’s Sailor Uniform – 10 – Cheers for Fears

Akebi arrives at class in her new summer sailor fuku and is once again a sensation, but the other girls also have their summer unis to show off. They only lament that they just made the switch, but most of the day they’ll be in their P.E. uniforms, practicing for the athletics festival.

After Nawashiro teaches Akebi, Tanigawa, and Kamimoku how to make pompoms, the cheer squad can start practicing their cheers in earnest. The only problem is, none of them, including Akebi, really know all that much about cheering. Tougeguchi, who is in the table tennis club, has to teach Akebi basic choreography.

While Akebi flits hither and thither, cheering on the various other clubs, Erika finds a tennis partner in Shijou, whose body has developed faster than most girls her age and has thus left her with something of a complex about that. While she has experience playing tennis, all of it came before these changes, so she can’t quite find a rhythm on the court.

Not to fret: Erika offers Shijou some calming black tea, while Akebi takes her by the hand and has her do some cheer practice to loosen up a bit. Shijou only ends up in this unplanned situation because she became fixated on Akebi’s slender midriff and absent-mindedly poked her navel while saying “must be nice”. Akebi, bless her heart, assumed cheering was “what must be nice.”.

With Tanigawa recording their practice, Akebi finds areas to improve, while Shijou sees how stiff and restricted her movements are. But rather than give up, she pulls up her sleeves, ties off her shirt, and gets back to it, feeding off of Akebi’s boundless stores of exuberance. She even assists Akebi with a more advanced lift. Despite her initial misgivings, seeing Akebi give it all makes her want to give her all.

The cheering also reminded Shijou why she loved tennis to begin with: because it gives one the chance to look really cool. And indeed, Akebi’s Sailor Uniform animates Shijou’s powerful serve with all the camera angles and slow-motion of a superhero pulling off a special move. In essence, Shijou got her groove back!

My Dress-Up Darling – 06 – True Wuv and Black Lily

First Marin was called beautiful by someone who doesn’t use that word lightly. Then it dawned on her when she looked into Wakana’s eyes while they were washing her wig in his laundry room, one of the most adorably domestic things to do imaginable. That “it” is the realization that she’s developed feelings for Wakana. That’s how it goes sometimes!

That closeness she feels towards him only gets closer when she meets his gramps (who is clearly relieved the stockings weren’t his grandson’s) and is welcomed to their table for dinner. There, Wakana and his gramps learn that Marin’s idea of “eating well” is…a bit of a stretch! But watching Wakana interact with his gramps about her outfit and also being an ace cook only endears him to her more.

We also learn that both Wakana and Marin’s moms are dead, and since Marin’s dad is always away for work, she basically lives by herself. Gramps invites her to come by for dinner from now on, and Wakana doesn’t object. Just like that, the two are so much closer than they were even when he was taking her measurments. On the train ride home, Wakana’s words “we weren’t doing anything inappropriate” linger in her thoughts. “What if we did, though?” she rebuts.

I like how this episode didn’t just jump into the next cosplay project for Marin, but instead explored how quickly they’re becoming the most important people in each others’ lives. It’s also the opportunity to introduce Inui Sajuna, whom Wakana meets in the worst possible way. Wakana, likely unaccustomed to knocking in his own house, is also worried his gramps let a con artist into the house. Instead, he let a soaked Sajuna use their bath so she wouldn’t catch cold…and Wakana barges right in and sees everything.

The two seem to get over that initial unpleasantness when Sajuna asks to see the “outfits” and Wakana, like gramps, assumes she means those of the dolls. Sajuna is charmed by the etheral beauty of said dolls, but suddenly changes gears and gets back on track for her true reason for visiting the shop: she wants Wakana to make her a cosplay outfit.

She starts by threatening to report him to the police for being a peeping tom, only to explain she found out where he lived by stalking him and Marin. So really, Wakana has the stronger case should the police get involved.

Fortunately they don’t, but Marin does when she shows up for her now regularly-scheduled din-din with the guy she’s decided she not only loves, but wuvs. Her shock at Wakana hosting a tiny girl wearing his shirt is soon dissipated when she realizes Sajuna is “Juju”, one of her favorite cosplay idols, who is actually a year older than both of them despite her size.

Sajuna wants Wakana to craft for her the outfit Black Lily, from her favorite magical girl anime. To Sajuna’s surprise, Marin is not only a big fan of Black Lily, but also knows everything there is to know about said anime. Marin further endears herself to Sajuna by assuring her she’d never cosplay as Black Lily, because she’s the kind of cosplayer, like Sajuna, who only chooses characters she resembles in both appearance and demeanor.

When Sajuna first saw the pics of Marine-as-Shizuku-tan, she assumed that Marin was just an “annoying bitch” who dressed up as characters she thought were cute. Now that she knows they share a deeper passion for the practice, Sajuna openly sobs in apology, though of course Marin has no idea what’s going on.

Marin also wants to be Black Lily’s sister and arch-nemesis Neon, and while Sajuna quickly shuts down the idea of cosplaying together in a heartbeat, I wouldn’t be surprised if they ultimately do collaborate not too far down the road.

Sajuna is also the indispensible “third character who can see what’s going on,” as she assures Marin she only wants Wakana’s contact info for the purposes of making her outfit. She assumes, this time not unfairly, that the two are dating. Upon hearing this, Wakana turns beet-red and loses it, telling Sajuna he’s never “gone steady” with anyone.

Hearing this is music to Marin’s ears, as she also assumed (for some reason) that Wakana was spoken for. She’s absolutely delighted that he isn’t. While things didn’t start smoothly (or G-rated) for Wakana and Sajuna, I’m looking forward to, well, all of this: Marin dealing with her powerful crush, Wakana hopefully coming to some kind of realization of his own vis-a-vis Marin, and Sajuna continuing to barely tolerate the pair’s blinding adorableness.

My Dress-Up Darling – 05 – I Seriously Can’t!

The longer Kitagawa is in her new Shizuku-tan cosplay, the more she notices how perfectly Gojou got all the details, and the more giddy she gets. She’s just overflowing with pure joy to the point she starts shouting “I can’t! I seriously can’t right now!” until Gojou helps her calm down. Dude did good!

Invoking Kitagawa’s unbridled elation means its hard at first for her to pose as Shizuku-tan for the first series of photos, since her natural inclination is to flash her trademark gleaming smile and a peace sign. While she deems these photos “sorta hilarious”, once she gets Shizuku’s more serious look down, she gets a bunch of great shots she immediately posts under the hastily chosen cosplay alias Marine.

She’s so happy and excited, she decides she wants to attend tomorrow’s cosplay event after all. And why not? Gojou got the job done on schedule! At first he’s extremely self-conscious and even on the verge of panic when suddenly being among so many people dressed as their favorite characters. Kitagawa gets it, and once they go to a more chill section of the event, he begins to enjoy himself, surrounded as he is by people doing what they love.

He did such a good job on his first try, Kitagawa soon gets a huge line of photographers, many with much nicer cameras than her phone. Kitagawa is so incredibly psyched that people want to take her photo. Gojou hangs back, suddenly realizing that with his promise fulfilled, this will be the end of hanging out with Kitagawa…the big dork! But then Kitagawa suddenly looks panicked, looks around, then flashes a huge smile and starts running towards Gojou when she spots him.

Not only was she worried he’d disappeared on her, but she kinda messed up, deciding to wear two “NuBras” to enhance her bust even more, resulting in her boob bag being close to bursting. Add to that the summer heat and the thickness of the higher-quality fabric, and Kitagawa almost gets heatstroke. Gojou gets her into some air conditioning, and there Kitagawa demonstrates the trust she has in Gojou by having him unzip her back and even wipe the profuse sweat from her back.

Gojou is understandably nervous about such close contact with Kitagawa, but notes that this is no time to panic; Kitagawa is so hot she can barely move, and is relying on him to help her. Once she’s feeling better, she shows just how nice a person she is when she returns to the plaza and tracks down the last woman in line so she can get some shots…including some unplanned upskirts that show the tally marks Kitagawa hand-drew on her inner thighs for extra Shizuku-tan authenticity (the lady deletes these shots).

Kitagawa and Gojou are blessed with a near-empty train car on their way home. Gojou, feeling bittersweet about their last day together coming to an end, formally thanks Kitagawa for everything. She thanks him back…then subverts his assumption by asking what they should do for her next cosplay. Obviously, this was never the end of anything; it’s only the beginning for these two.

As the sun gets lower, Gojou betrays his fatigue by starting to nod off. I was expecting him to fall into Kitagawa’s lap, but instead, he drowsily tells her she was “very beautiful” at the event, thinking not about her posing as Shizuku-tan, but when she spotted him and ran to him beaming. Kitagawa remembers Gojou saying he never uses the words “pretty” or “beautiful” unless he “absolutely feels it from the heart”, realizes it’s no casual compliment, and cannot mask her bashfulness.

Fortunately for her, Gojou has nodded off and doesn’t see this face. But if he did, he’d surely turn just as red.  So ends another tremendously sweet and uplifting episode of one of the most joyful and beautiful animes of the season. Honestly—and I mean this in the same way Kitagawa does—I can’t…I seriously can’t with this show!

RABUJOI WORLD HERITAGE LIST

 

My Dress-Up Darling – 03 – What “Beautiful” is For

While he’s no stranger to the beauty of Hina Dolls, having a real-life woman in a bikini in his room, followed by playing the eroge she loves so much, was bound to be a shock to Gojou’s system.

Sure enough, he dreams about Kitagawa, in the completed Shizuku-tan cosplay, starting to act like the eroge character, resulting in Gojou waking up with a surprise in his pants that makes him ask his Hina Doll head to look away.

It’s a frank but fairly accurate depiction of how things might likely go for someone so poorly socialized if confronted with stunning beauty and sexiness in such short order. But up to this point, he and Kitagawa have interacted one-on-one.

He’s nervous about how others would see them together, even when Kitagawa greets him warmly and her stylish friends are perfectly friendly with him. She doesn’t tell them“be nice to this guy”—if he’s alright with Marin-chan, he’s alright with them!

Even so, all of the muttering and rumors he overhears causes Gojou to avoid Kitagawa the rest of the day, for what he deems to be “her own good”. When she finally finds him hiding and confronts him, and he mentions people saying they might be going out, she can’t help but tease him by asking “then why don’t we?”

Before that though, it’s clear Kitagawa is genuinely hurt by Gojou avoiding her, saying it “sucks”. Sure, she could be a bit more patient with someone with such poor social skills, but it’s also a good idea not to let him adopt bad social habits. As far as she’s concerned, they’re already friends—something he hadn’t even considered, but has no reason not to believe.

With that, Kitagawa leads Gojou by the hand to Ikebukuro to shop for the materials needed to make the Shizuku cosplay. Kitagawa is extremely impressed by Gojou’s schematics and attention to detail. I also love how into the nitty-gritty this gets, and how the project stokes Gojou’s creative fire.

Among the nice details: Gojou suggests a richer cloth to accurately depict the high-class school Shizuku attends, and while Kitagawa picks a plain black wig, he tells her she’ll look more like a real-life Shizuku if the wig is more on the deep purple side.

Needless to say, Kitagawa is really glad she brought Gojou on the shopping trip. Had she gone alone (or not made the effort to track him down when he tried to avoid her), she’d have made the same mistakes she’s been making while going the cosplay path alone. In effect, he’s helping her make the right choices for the best possible final product.

In keeping with the equitability of their relationship, Gojou’s sage artistic advice is rewarded with things Kitagawa can offer, like a peak at her garterbelt, and buying him dinner. Watching Gojou stand so awkwardly in the lingerie shop is just such a relatable moment, even when Kitagawa says everyone there will assume they’re a couple and not care.

After ramen, a woman in line for the restaurant spots the two high school kids and thinks how nice it must be to be young…then she and other adults overhear the two discuss the eroge in enthusiastic detail and conclude that high school kids are terrifying. But that’s a loaded word. I’d say they’re just very specific in the things they’re passionate about.

Another cute detail is when Kitagawa shows Gojou a bunch of photos of cosplayers on social media, and he notes that she’s into characters with black hair…to which she says “look who’s talking” with his Hina doll love. It’s also clear the pint-sized model and the girl cosplaying male roles is one of the two yet-to-be introduced characters in the show’s promo art.

When Kitagawa’s calling all of the models in these photos “beautiful”, then notices he seems distracted, she asks him what’s up, and he relays to her his preference only to use the word beautiful for things that truly touch his heart, like the first time his gramps showed him Hina dolls.

Kitagawa doesn’t judge his ideals about beauty; she tells him if that’s what he’s decided, it’s totally fine, and it’s important to have things you don’t want to compromise on. The quality of the Shizuku costume is one of them, and I have no doubt that when it’s complete in two weeks(!) in time for an event Kitagawa wishes to attend, she’ll be able to move his heart to the extent he has no choice but to call her “beautiful.”

Before they part ways, Kitagawa offers him an indirect kiss in the form of a bite of meat-wrapped onigiri, and then has a moment of self-consciousness when she senses he thinks she’s pigging out. But before she catches her train, she makes sure to tell him how grateful she is for all his help and advice, for actually playing the game she loves so much, and for just being there for her in a way no one else can.

It wasn’t an official “date” but it might as well have been one, and a good one at that! Both parties came away having learned more about each other and liking each other even more as a result. That two-week deadline is going to be tough, but I have every confidence that Gojou will get the job done, and done well.

My Dress-Up Darling – 02 – Just Doin’ It

Despite Kitagawa’s multiple attempts to explain the eroge in which her beloved Shizuku-tan is featured, Gojou simply can’t wrap his head around what she’s talking about. That is, until she brings up the fact that it shouldn’t matter whether someone is a boy or a girl when it comes to something they love. Gojou remembers that girl rejecting that notion along with his existence, and suddenly everything snaps into place. He’ll help Kitagawa become the one she loves most…starting Monday!

However, Kitagawa is way to excited about someone who knows what they’re doing making her a Shizuku-tan cosplay, so she shows up at his family’s shop the next morning, stylish as all get-out with her distressed cutoffs and oversized epaulette bag. Gramps is out buying Gojou a new sewing machine, or he’d be there to witness his grandson not only bring his first friend home…and a beauty to boot!

Gojou is embarrassed that Kitagawa is suddenly in his home space, but she makes strides to overwhelm that anxiety by pressing on with the mission at hand: making her Shizuku-tan cosplay. First step: taking all of her measurements, something Gojou can only see as a deeply intimate task, especially considering the guide said the subject had to be in their underwear, and Kitagawa’s compromise of a bikini doesn’t make him any more comfortable.

But here’s the thing, and Kitagawa has made it plain to him from the start: she loves Shizuku-tan, and anything that needs to be done to make that happen, she will do without hesitation. It’s only Gojou’s own hangups and baggage that are making this more than it is. That said, he is a high school lad, and Kitagawa is extremely pretty, so I’m not saying it’s easy for him to put those weird feelings aside.

To his credit, at points, he does, simply doing the job he promised to do. But he can’t keep his composure when having to measure things like her feet. Kitagawa determines his futon is the perfect place to sit for him to measure, and places her feet on his legs in order to snap him out of his fugue state. Measuring her bust isn’t any easier, and as for bust point, well…even she admits she has to handle that herself.

By the time he’s preparing for the final measurement—the inseam—Gojou hates himself for being so flustered and panicky, and wishes he was more like Kitagawa, cool as a cucumber even in such a ridiculous situation. But when his finger accidentally brushes against…a spot he had no intention of brushing against, suddenly Kitagawa is the flustered one.

Even so, she doesn’t punch Gojou into the stratosphere and run off. Instead, she lends him the two eroge Shizuku-tan appears in, so he can get a better look at what he’s making.

This results in one of the funnier scenes I’ve seen in an anime in some time: Gramps coming home to find Gojou watching what amounts to porn, and Gojiu greeting him and saying “dinner’s ready” like nothing’s up. Gramps slowly slides the door closed, conceding that Gojou is “at that age”…but is still astounded how seriously Gojou was watching…and taking notes to boot! Just a fantastic misunderstanding gag.

Most of this episode was basically fanservice: Kitagawa showing off her Cindy Crawford body in a skimpy bikini while Gojou sweated and struggled to obtain every last measurement…and I loved every freaking minute of it.

Gojou’s stress set against Kitagawa’s serenity; the absurdly sexual nature of the measurement-taking intertwined with its innocuously practical underlying purpose; and all of the love and artistry that went into Kitagawa’s character design and expressions (and Suguta Hina’s excellent voice work)—it all adds up to two straight home runs for Dress Up Darling.

Akebi’s Sailor Uniform – 01 (First Impressions) – Clothes Maketh Girl

From the opening moments that linger on rice paddies shimmering in the sunlight, Akebi-chan no Sailor-fuku makes it clear it is not fuckin’ around in the animation department. It also establishes right from the get-go that our heroine, Akebi Komichi, has got the moves, running across the countryside and pulling off near-perfect gymnastic moves that reminded me of the famously spry Kinomoto Sakura.

That’s not the only thing that reminded me of the Cardcaptor. Like Sakura’s show, Akebi places family, and familial love, at the forefront. Amazingly, both of Komichi’s parents are living and while her father is away for work, he makes sure to congratulate his daughter’s acceptance to the private middle school of choice, the illustrious Roubai Academy.

Komichi’s dream was to attend school in a lovely sailor fuku, and so her mom, who also attended Roubai, takes it upon herself to maker her one, from scratch. I appreciated the episode taking its time and sweating the details when it came to the making of the uniform, from choosing the cloth to preparing the tacking.

The episode also takes care to show that while Komichi’s little sister Kaois proud of her for getting into such a fancy school, she’s also sad that they won’t get to attend the same little country school anymore.

In a touching bath scene that’s brimming with sisterly love, Komichi tells Kao that she’s nervous too, especially about getting alone with the rich Tokyo girls at the school. Kao then turns around and assures her big sis she won’t have any trouble making friends, because she’s really cool.

The day the sailor fuku is completed, it feels like a combination of  Christmas morning, a wedding day, and the dawn before a battle. Komichi carefully puts on the brand new uni like she’s donning armor, and when she shows the completed look off to her mom and sister, they’re struck by the sheer beauty of it.

Alas…it’s the wrong uniform!

Komichi doesn’t learn until she arrives at Roubai for the opening ceremony and find all the other girls in charcoal blazers. Turns out that while her mom and her classmates wore sailor fukus in her day, the academy has since revamped their uniforms.

That said, the headmistress remembers Komichi telling them at her interview that it was her dream to wear the fuku, and since it is still technically Roubai issue, and Komichi’s mom put so much love into it, she decides to allow Komichi to wear it…if she so chooses.

Choosing to do so means standing out far more than she thought, and combined with her “simple country girl” background, could potentially make things that more difficult for her socially. Komichi is crestfallen upon coming home, but Kao has zero tolerance for her pity party, and gives her big sis a big ol’ spank on her bum, as if to say Snap out of your funk this instant…you’re cooler than this!

The next morning, Komichi leaves for her first day super-early, but not too early that Kao isn’t awake to see her big sis chose to keep wearing the uniform their mom made for her. She’s going to rely on “confidence and a smile” to make friends, whether her clothes match theirs or not.

When she arrives at school (after running through several gorgeous painterly scenes of her idyllic, almost Kincaid-ian setting), she finds she’s almost the first person there. The first person there is Kizaku Erika, who is introduced very carefully clipping her toenails at her desk…and then smelling the clippers. What does Komichi do to break the ice? Why, smell her own feet, of course!

That gesture, earnest and not at all mocking, helps save what could have been a disastrous first meeting. Komichi learns that Erika was so nervous about her first day she couldn’t sleep and arrived way too early, and is comforted to know she wasn’t alone in her nervousness.

The two take their assigned seats right next to each other, having calmed each other down. And at seat number one, Komichi is positioned to greet everyone else who enters. I suspect she’ll have no trouble making more friends.

As I said in the first ‘graph, CloverWorks really outdid themselves; this is a surpassingly beautiful episode of anime, so much so that my main concern is whether they can keep up this level of quality for an entire cour. Murakami Manatsu is another great new voice as Komichi, while vets Kuno Misaki and Hana-Kana anchor the fam as her sister and mom. In all, a very impressive opening salvo to a gentle, heartwarming slice-of-life.