Mushoku Tensei II – 15 – Message in a Plastic Bottle

In a way, Rudy’s story is over. He’s struggled and wallowed in pain and anguish and failure, but now he’s happier than he’s ever been. He has a wife and a beautiful home. He has friends and allies beyond count. The only thing missing from an otherwise ideal life is for him to be reunited with his family.

To that end, Paul sends him a letter reporting they have a solid lead on Zenith, so he’s sending Norn and Aisha to live with him. Both Rudy and Sylphy are excited for the chance to not only have a more lively home, but “practice” having kids before having their own. In turn, Paul can rest assured his daughters will be safe as he seeks his wife.

All the way on the other end of the Isekai Life Enjoyment Spectrum is Nonohashi Shizuka. She is seeking a way back to her and Rudy’s world. She is seeking it, all her thought and time is dedicated to it. After two years of research and a month of careful drawing, she believes she has created a magic circle capable of summoning.

But shortly after Rudy adds his mana to the circle, it suddenly shorts out, creating a tear through her years’ work. Shizuka quietly retreats to her desk, puts her head in her hand, and sighs with resignation. Rudy leaves her be, assuming she wants to be alone, but confident she’s strong enough to power through this failure and keep trying.

He doesn’t get halfway down the stairs when he hears her scream bloody murder, and returns to find her going all Charles Foster Kane on her room. He restrains her before she can hurt herself thrashing against the stone wall, but she then passes out, succumbing to the exhaustion borne from her labors, as well as utterly broken by the futility of said labors.

With Zanoba’s help, Rudy takes Shizuka to his house where Sylphy examines and heals her. Even after a good long rest, Shizuka stares out the window as she explains to Rudy how she’s concluded that she can never go home, because she wasn’t able to ever find a way to close the circuit on her magic circle. She is utterly lost and devoid of hope.

When Zanoba tells Rudy he looks just as pale as Shizuka, Rudy explains it’s because he just relived some bad memories: i.e. the time he too lost heart and closed himself off. The difference is, Rudy had embraced this world; Shizuka has always kept herself at a distance from this world, not wanting to get so attached she’d give up on going home.

It’s here where we see the true growth that Rudy has experienced since reuniting with and marrying Sylphy. Forget restoring his sexual vigor; those events also made him a more empathetic person. Shizuka is in deep, deep pain and despair. Rudy has experienced similar pain and despair in his past.

Rudy doesn’t want Shizuka to suffer, so he does everything in his power to help her. Fortunately, he has plenty of power, like the power of friends. He shows Cliff and Zanoba the failed magical circle, and despite neither of them having any experience with summoning, Cliff’s fresh magical perspective and Zanoba’s time with the magical doll pave a potential new road for Shizuka to travel.

They’re helping out their friend and master, yes, but they’re also mages, and there’s nothing mages love more than a puzzle to solve. It all boils down to the doll using multilayered magical circles in its operation. Cliff, Zanoba, and Rudy work to adapt this concept to a summoning circle.

When they present to her three magical circles lined up in three-dimensional space intended to work in concert, the virtually catatonic Shizuka suddenly perks up. The sparkle returns to her eyes, and the sides of her mouth turn up in a smile. This could work! she exclaims, jumping out of her chair and dancing about excitedly.

She works with Cliff, Zanoba, and Rudy to rework her summoning circle from scratch, this time exploiting the third dimension. The montage depicts Shizuka operating as one of the gang, as they work, laugh, and yell at each other. And when the 3D circle is finally complete and ready to try out, Rudy pours his mana into it, and it does not short circuit.

Instead, it summons a PET bottle from earth, a soft glass of which neither Cliff nor Zanoba know what to make, but both Rudy and Shizuka immediately identify as a resounding success. The bottle is solid and stable, and a triumphant Shizuka is ready to advance to the next phase: summoning more and more complex objects.

Nanahoshi Shizuka skidded off the road and into the ditch, but Rudy’s been in that ditch before, and wasn’t about to let her remain in there long. With his friends’ help he picked her up, dusted her off, and showed her a new road. When Shizuka tells Rudy he caused her a lot of trouble, he simply tells her to help him out someday when he needs it.

With the 3D circle a success, all that’s left is to celebrate. In his world, Rudy hated social get-togethers like the one that unfolds, with Rinia, Pursena, and Badigadi joining him, Sylphy, Elinalise, Cliff, Zanoba, and Julie in celebrating Shizuka’s big win. Shizuka even does some celebratory karaoke with a wooden spoon.

No longer content to live his perfect life, Rudy is determined to help those around him achieve happiness and fulfillment as well. He’s paying forward the kindness shown to him when he hit rock bottom. In other words, while he’s had his issues in the past, and still has a few, it’s hard to deny that Rudeus Greyrat has become a good and decent man.

As he walks home carrying Sylphy (who celebrated too much and passed out in his lap), he hears the familiar voices of two girls knocking on their door: Norn and Aisha have arrived, along with their escort whom Paul told Rudy he’d be happy to see: our boy Ruijerd Superdia. Aisha loves her big brother, but Norn is still hesitant. We’ll see if that changes once she sees how Rudy has matured since they last saw each other.

But that’s just a teaser for the next episode. I cannot overstate how powerful this episode was. Thanks in no small part due to Wakayama Shion’s powerhouse vocal performance (she also sings the ED song unique to this episode), I deeply felt Shizuka’s pain, and wanted someone to take her hand and lead her out of the darkness. Rudy did that, but he didn’t do it alone.

Kimizero – 02 – Enjoying the Ride

Runa is characteristically full speed ahead in establishing her new relationship with Ryuuto by hanging around and talking to him at every opportunity. But old habits die hard, and both the discouraging comments from his friends and dirty looks from other classmates have him feeling anxious.

He’s simply not used to this level of attention, and still isn’t 100% sure his friends aren’t right about Runa simply dating him as a joke. In order to minimize the stares, he asks if they can keep their relationship a secret at school. Runa takes this to mean he wants to see her outside of school, so a date it is!

The prospect of even taking a girl out on a date, let alone someone like Runa, adds to his anxiety as he frantically googles what to do. But when Runa video chats with him, it puts him more at ease. He decides to let her take the lead and do whatever it is she finds fun. Runa’s never been on that kind of date.

That Saturday, Runa takes him up on that, as her idea of a good time is shopping for cute outfits, accessories, cosmetics, and consumables. That said, as the date progresses she asks him if this is even that fun for him, or if he’s bored. But Ryuuto isn’t bored. Watching Runa look so happy makes him happy.

The next day, the day Runa said she’d have plans, his morning text to her goes unread most of the day, and Ryuuto’s anxiety blends with suspicion, paranoia, and possessiveness. He becomes convinced that this is it, and when he gets a text from her asking him to meet her in the park, he believes it’s so she can dump him.

Of course, that doesn’t happen. This is only the second episode! No, she’s just too excited to delay giving him a gift: a limited edition phone case that matches hers. Ryuuto is so touched and relieved that he actually tears up. Runa is surprised it means so much to him, but is also touched.

While they walk, Ryuuto chalks up his awkwardness with girls to the fact he once asked out his desk neighbor Kurose in his first year of middle school. He thought she felt the same way about him, but turns out she only thought of him as a good friend. Tale as old as time!

Runa doesn’t mock Ryuuto’s story; on the contrary, she’s glad he was turned down because it meant they could go out. When Ryuuto says middle school romances don’t last, Runa says her parents met and fell in love in middle school, then married after high school.

When a blue limited edition Toyota Supra zooms by and Runa notes how cool it is, Ryuuto goes off on an extremely rapid-fire and detailed explanation of how sports cars differ from normal cars. But while it’s a lot of information at once, it gets Runa thinking, and also gets her to open up more.

She wonders if she’s like a sports car, rushing forward as fast as she can to catch up to her parents and become an adult. But despite all her experiences, a lasting relationship has eluded her. We also learn her parents eventually divorced, so perhaps she hopes to succeed where they failed?

While Runa compares herself to a sports car as simply a means to an end, Ryuuto tells her that sports cars aren’t just about getting somewhere fast. They’re built to make the drive, the journey itself fun. From what he’s seen, Runa has been making the most of her life and sees no reason why she should change as long as she’s having fun.

With that, she challenges him to a race to the station. He can’t quite keep up with her pace, either then or in general, but he’s slowly getting there, and more importantly, learning more about the person he fell for. I’m also glad we got a scene of Runa talking to Nicole on the phone about how Ryuuto just “feels right”. We’ll see if the sudden transfer of his first crush Kurose Maria to his class throws a wrench in the works!

Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me – 01 (First Impressions) – New Horizons

You wouldn’t know it from the ludicrously long title or candy-coated palette, but Kimizero, which is how I’ll refer to it from now on, turned out to be a lot denser and meatier than I expected. It follows Kashima Ryuuto, a pretty typical second-year high schooler, who considers himself a geek, loser, outcast…pick your term.

Ryuuto idolizes the most popular girl in class, Shirakawa Runa, from afar, knowing with certainty he’d never have a chance in hell with her. His only two friends are also nerds, and spend much of their time gaming. It’s because of their excessive gaming that he loses a bet between them: whoever gets the highest exam scores has to cheer the other two up by doing whatever they ask.

Well, because Ryuuto is an open book, they immediately catch on to the fact that there’s someone he likes, so they order him to confess to her, fully expecting him to be shot down at light speed. Ryuuto also believes he’ll be instantly rejected, but also believes something that endeared him to me.

Ryuuto knows it’s not healthy to continually pine for someone in your class and do nothing about it. If nothing else, confessing to Runa and being rejected might break the “spell” he’s under, and he’ll move on to something or someone else. How I wish I was this mature in high school!

But both Ryuuto and his friends are operating under a false assumption: that there’s no way Runa would say yes to going out with him. In fact, when she meets him after school, she’s perfectly fine with being his girlfriend. His friends may find another Bottom below Rock, but he feels like he suddenly strayed into a dream.

Let’s talk Runa: It’s true she’s cute, and also gets along easily with everyone. But other than some rumors that she goes through a lot of boyfriends, Ryuuto doesn’t know anything about her. That changes instantly when they walk home together.

Runa agreed to date Ryuuto because she was single, and…that’s about it? Hey presto, they’re BF and GF. But she also tells him some of her red flags, like long fingernails (so not a fan classical guitarists). She has Ryuuto walk her home from the station, invites him into her house, where the rest of her family is currently out.

After bringing him into her room and serving barley tea, Runa starts to unbutton her shirt. When Ryuuto freezes up, she assumes he wants to shower first. As in, before they have sex, which she assumes he wants immediately.

Ryuuto, already overwhelmed by a girl saying yes, walking a girl home, and being in a girl’s room, puts up a hand, asking why things are moving so fast. Runa’s answer is as simple as it is a little heartbreaking: this is the way things have always been for her. She considers it her duty to have sex, because all the guys she’s been with gave her that impression.

Moreover, Ryuuto realizes that the reason she has so many boyfriends isn’t that she goes through them with speed, but that they grow bored of her and move on to other girls. It’s a vicious cycle, in which the men in her life haven’t been valuing her as a person, just someone to fuck. She’s never considered whether she wanted to do it, just that it’s how things are done.

For all of Ryuuto’s inner monologue about him and Runa being so different as to be from different worlds, they’re really in the same ZIP code in one crucial way: Just as Ryuuto has been conditioned to believe he’d never be able to date someone like Runa, Runa has been conditioned to believe a boyfriend like Ryuuto didn’t exist.

When Ryuuto turns down sex, it’s a first for Runa. Ryuuto later superficially regrets not availing himself of the opportunity to lose his virginity, but he also knows he made the right choice, both for him and for Runa. She’s had enough boys only interested in her body. He wants to actually take the time to get to know her, so if and when they do have their first time together, it’s because they both want it there and then.

Kimizero is about two people suddenly learning one day not that they can cross worlds, but that the world they both inhabit isn’t quite how they thought it was. Runa is both surprised by and appreciates Ryuuto’s sincerity, and is excited at the prospect of getting to know and like her boyfriend, something she’s never been able to do.

Let me be clear: this show doesn’t paint Ryuuto as some kind of shining knight plucking a damsel from her life of promiscuity. Nor does it shame or judge her in the slightest for her approach to romance thus far. It simply is the way she is, and how she came to believe that approach was the only one is something I hope the show explores.

As for Ryuuto, he only ever comes off as empathetic rather than sanctimonious or prudish, and he’s good at checking his baser thoughts. It’s a balanced, realistic portrayal. There’s much Ryuuto and Runa can learn from each another, so dating should be mutually beneficial.

Structurally speaking, my one major complaint was the cold open with Ryuuto discovering Runa is fine with having sex right away; I think it would have had more impact if we didn’t get that scene until we watched everything that led up to it. But now that the worlds of Runa and Ryuuto have suddenly collided, I’m looking forward to seeing how they fare as a couple.

 

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 26 – One More Mug

Ruka’s arrival at Kazuya’s door after dark instantly makes things 100% messier, especialy from his other neighbor Yaemori Mini’s perspective. And considering she is still officially kinda Kazuya’s girlfriend, she demands an explanation for why Chizuru is with him, and why his apartment looked like they were having a grand old time.

This is where Chizuru and Kazuya are of one mind: they need to tell Ruka the truth about their project and even let her in on it. Once she calms down from her initial tears, Ruka proposes that she help out with the production. They’ll get help they’re in dire need of, and she’ll get more time with Kazuya. Her last dig at Chizuru is to get Kazuya to say her curry was better.

When Chizuru wordlessly agrees that’s what’s best and quietly leaves, he admires how mature she’s being. But outside, it’s clear she didn’t like hearing Kazuya say Ruka’s curry was better than her omurice.

The next day, now armed with actual photos of his star (what a concept!), Kazuya gets approval from the crowdfunding site, and they’re off to the races. Meanwhile, Chizuru visits her Granny Sayuri, whose initial reaction to hearing her granddaughter is making a movie about her is laughter…but not to mock.

Rather, Sayuri is happy Chizuru cares so much that she’s willing to make sure her gran gets to see her in a movie. And when Chizuru asks what she initially thought about Kazuya, Sayuri says she was initially worried whether he was a decent guy. But now she’s convinced: no one’s a better match for Chizuru than Kazuya.

This is a serious endorsement from someone Chizuru loves and cares for more than anyone, and she tries to keep her cards close to her vest when she and Kazuya bump into each other and he gives a report on the funding so far. She’s quite right that they can’t be too optimistic too fast, especially with no script yet. But she still flashes him a smile and tells him he really is a good guy before going inside.

1

And for all his foibles and maddening choices, Kazuya really is the decent guy Granny Sayuri assesses him to be. Like Chizuru, I trust her judgment implicitly. He just needs to get his fuckin’ shit together. Ruka, as good a kid as she is, and as legit helpful she is with finding a source for scripts, shouldn’t be his girlfriend right now. And yet, she remains so, and now that she’s in on the movie project, she’ll remain so for the time being.

That’s when Kazuya is pulled into Mini’s apartment, in what he initially thinks is some kind of passionate liaison. Instead, Mini shows him video she took of him arguing with Ruka and Chizuru the other night. He tells her everything, and because of the way Mini’s Zoomer Otaku brain is wired, she is absolutely fascinated by his situation, to the point she declares him her shisho.

While her screen time prevents us from seeing Mami or Sumi this week (and let’s be honest, they’re side characters and have been for some time) I’m still loving her frank meta energy as an audience stand-in. While Kazuya is always going on in his head about how much trouble he’s in, the fact is, he’s living a life straight out of an anime that Mini deeply admires and even aspires to.

At the same time, while she has way too many stuffed animals and is way too online, Mini is also an impartial voice of reason in one arena: telling Kazuya that yes, Chizuru most definitely has some feelings for him. Why else would she keep interacting with him, a “problem customer”, for a whole year (or, in our case, two-plus seasons)?

Kazuya is so dense that he never considered for a nanosecond that Chizuru felt anything like this, but Mini gets him to imagine it, and that’s important progress, because the scene she sets of her alone in her apartment thinking about him turns out to be fairly accurate.

She’s clearly enjoying this new opportunity to achieve her dream and spend more time with the boy her grandmother says is the perfect match for her. So much so that she ignores her bedtime alarm for one more cup of tea on the balcony, thinking about how this whole movie thing is going to go.