Behind The Nihon Review

More of the same.  Unlike the previous post, this post starts to be a little more heavy on the spoilers, since we’re starting to get into the crux of the anime.  I think, if you haven’t seen the series, the spoilers are specific enough that you’ll forget them if you haven’t started the series, and obviously they don’t matter if you’ve finished it.  This spoiler warning is probably more for people who are, for whatever reason, only part way through but still intend to finish it.  I recommend you still go through and finish it.  But my warning still stands: if you’ve seen enough other shoujo rom-coms, you’ll probably be disappointed by what this one has to offer.

LKK
The series doesn’t have to end after Kei & Hikari got together. We could see their relationship develop as a couple. I think seeing that would be interesting. One of my frequent complaints about shoujo romances is that too often the series stops once the couple is established. (Not all shoujo romances end there, I know, but most do.) The trials and tribulations of coupledom can be as interesting as reaching coupledom.

Truth. Hell, I’d even say it’s even more interesting, but this is something only very few romance anime recognize, and seem to have a “they’ll live happily ever after” attitude to romances becoming “official”.

Ep 9

Another episode with no real progress. *Yawn*

One of the reasons that I really like Itazura na Kiss, even despite its fairly long list of obvious flaws, is because the crux of the series happened after the two leads got together as a couple.  It’s refreshing, and it’s no coincidence, IMO, that the series only really took off in the second half once the characters got together.

Ep 10

The good: Takishima being open with his feelings, hell, almost aggressive (in a good way). An interesting analysis of a side character in Ryuu. Finally some questions about the class divide and dealing with celebrity that comes along with S.A.’s existence.

The bad: Hikari is still somewhat denying Takishima’s feelings (thankfully not anywhere near as strongly as before, though). Another contest.

Good episode. This show is finally starting to go places interesting.

This is about the point where Kei started openly expressing his feelings for Hikari.  A good thing.  One of anime’s most frustrating yet common tropes are characters that are overly clumsy with their emotions and thus struggle to get past the most basic of relationship hurdles.  It could be a reflection of how introverted the typical Japanese teenager is, I’m not sure (or maybe it’s just anime watchers).  But it makes for asinine watching, if only because we’ve seen these overly shy, introverted characters too often.  It’s just, well, refreshing to see a character being open and aggressive towards their romantic target (without, obviously, stepping over certain boundaries.)  In other words, more characters with brains and balls, please.  Just to restore the balance.

Yeah, pretty much. But, for all the cliches, and complete lack of progress, I found this oddly amusing. I guess it was just so cartoon-y.

Ep 11

I’m surprised Kei didn’t try to murder Tadashi or something afterwards. It was a real brain failure on Tadashi’s part to pick Hikari knowing how Kei feels for her, and how potentially dangerous Kei can be. But, I guess he was that desperate on not asking Akira.

The whole thing was a random plot-staller anyway, so I guess we can call this filler with some (mild) character development. I’m finding Kei and Hikari’s relationship right now really awkward. They’re in this precarious equilibrium where Kei is suddenly being very aggressive, yet Hikari still refuses to acknowledge him (the plot isn’t really forcing her to do so either). The longer this goes on, the less believable it will be. Something has to give. We need to see some sort of progress soon, if only because Kei’s actions demand it.

Not to blow my own horn or anything (ok, maybe I am), but this was probably the most astute comment I made over the course of the show.  It really sums up just what went wrong with the series.  Having a long term equilibrium is frustrating enough in a romance show, where the viewers want to see progress (damnit) and long bouts of no progress are frustrating and teasing on the producers’ part, but Special A‘s equilibrium throughout the middle-to-late episodes wasn’t credible.  Somehow where supposed to believe that Kei can be so open and straightforward with his emotions time and time again, and yet Hikari doesn’t get it.  Either the writing sucks or she’s an idiot.  Either way, it simply doesn’t have to be like this.

Ep 12

Yes! That was a great episode. When this series finally puts the “contests” into the rack, it really could be quite special. But I really sympathized with Kei in this episode. He’s becoming more and more a strong and likable character. And I loved the insight we got into just why Kei loves Hikari. Too many romance series don’t bother explaining the romantic relationships, which makes them difficult to believe. But this one… the idea that Hikari surprises Kei, it’s so simple, but it’s so meaningful as well. I loved that car motif as well (where do you want to go, etc, etc), it was really well done.

My only beef with this episode… all of a sudden Kei is Sui’s “lovely brother”. A bit much, but oh well, the rest of the episode was so good. More please. More of the good stuff, ie, the romance.

Well, it wasn’t really “all of a sudden” since I’d momentarily forgotten that it had been that way since ep 4.  This is me getting just a little too excited at a hint of progress.  This is why romance shows like this are frustrating.  They starve you so much for romance that when they deliver, you jump over the moon.  I did like the way things developed in this episode.  But it turned out to be an oasis in a desert of plot stallers and missed opportunities.

Ep 13

Anh_Minh
Anyway, I can’t say I approve of what Akira did in there. She had a problem fitting in? So she just threw money at the problem. She impressed her classmates with how wealthy and powerful she was. And they just lapped it up. It was disgusting. It makes the Ouran Host Club look good. Sure, their efforts were often misguided and clumsy, but at least they made efforts. They didn’t just go “Oh, I’m so wealthy, love me.”

Yeah, I couldn’t swallow that either. There were rather a few things in this ep that were jarring, but this was by far the worst. First Yui apologizes, which was hard enough to understand. Only Kaga Ai is that quick to apologize for something that obviously isn’t her fault, and she exists as a parody. And the, rather than address the apology, the first thing Akira does is make a phone call. Isn’t this, well, extremely rude!

As far as Akira’s background is concerned, I was a little disappointed with how things turned out, but not greatly so. It was all Yahiro’s fault, which kinda takes the edge off the drama around her background, but it does put their relationship into a somwhat more sinister light. So I guess the latter outweighs the former. And, I didn’t pick that it was Yahiro that gave Akira so much grief in her childhood… although I’m not so sure I’m willing to believe that it traumatized her so much, to the point that she acted out so disturbingly in this episode. 

Anh_Minh was the first to bring up what I thought was a really good criticism of this show: its portrayal of the rich.  It was something that was really jarring, since there was this effort on the one hand to show how money had kinda messed up these people (particularly Akira) but they kept resorting to their massive wallets to solve all their problems.  Maybe if things were executed better, it could have made its point more clearly, but I get feeling that money was intended to be little more than a plot device, but was unfortunately presented in such a way that distanced its characters and their use of money from the audience.  The next episode’s post sorta comes back to this idea and the most interesting opinion in this post certain wasn’t mine. I wasn’t in complete agreement, but I did think it was a very interesting way to look at how Special A was presenting people with money, and that it wasn’t being very “careful”, so to say, about how things could potentially be interpreted.

Ahn_Minh
OK, I think I hate this series message:
“Rich people are kind and beautiful. Even when they’re being jerks, they do it to be nice. Poor people, OTOH, are thieving, lying bastards who only want to take advantage of the rich.” 

If you ignore the ending of ep 14, I actually thought that they portrayed both Akira and Yahiro fairly negatively, as though growing up with money had eventually twisted their morals and social abilities. Although, the conclusion of the episode was the standard “well, we all had good reasons” claptrap.

I think you’re criticism is a really good one, but it doesn’t quite cripple the series as much for me as it clearly does for you. It has its moments. 

Ep 15

Hikari’s obliviousness is really starting to wear my patience. I guess it is interesting to see an anime character with a genuine case of cognitive dissonance, but, c’mon, this should be obvious by now.

I’m not seeing what purpose Sakura serves. I knew she’d fall for one of the SA guys, I saw that coming a mile away. But I thought it’d be Ryuu, not Jun. Not sure why Megumi’s getting jealous. Brother complex? This is new.

Sakura was moe.  See above image for details.

Yes, I agree with that. I can dig the problem as a gag, but they spent all this time building it up as this scarring, traumatic, psychological problem and it turned out to be that he’s a schizophrenic pimp. Roll eyes, move on, what’s next.

Two other things bugged me in this episode: the fight scene with the million body guards was ridiculously over-the-top and contrived (just like all the other fight scenes and contests and stuff this show has had) and Hikari is still as oblivious as… damnit, writer’s block. I can’t think of a simile that properly describes Hikari’s obliviousness.

Yes, I realize these two things have been with us since the beginning of the show, but that’s what annoys me. It’s episode 16. We should be past this type of crap by now. It’s been five or six episodes since Kei started virtually spelling out his emotions for her. How long does it take for her to get it? What does he have to do, paint her a picture?

Maybe he should have, that might have worked… nah.

This was probably the toughest part of the series to get through.  It was obvious that they were laying the groundwork for the final episodes, where the plot started really moving (at least as fast as it ever did in this series), but there was so much in these episodes that were either distracting or pointless or frustrating or executed really poorly.  Things do get better, but I’m not of the opinion that the pay off justifies some really frustrating moments through this middle part.