Seiren – 05
If it’s good enough for Donald Duck, it’s good enough for her!
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Out with the old girl and in with the new girl! So after a bit of a disappointing end to the Hikari Tsuneki arc, how does the new one start? |
There Are No Gamer Girls
Gettin’ a little close there, senpai
Nope, none. Actually, while it’s maybe more true that most of the people who say they are girls in an MMO really aren’t, there are plenty of women playing games. They may not play the same games in the same proportions as men, but they’re there. So when Tooru Miyamae happens upon Shouichi, Ikuo, and Araki playing Love Deer (which is a totally wholesome game! Honest! Never mind the ecchi sounds it makes when you pet it!), she reveals herself to be a fellow traveler. Actually, she’s way far ahead of these guys, who don’t want to admit that they’ve been playing as long as she has but aren’t nearly as advanced. But that’s the “in” for this route, that Tooru is a gamer girl, and now has some new friends to play with, even as they try a new game, MiliUsa.
Yeah, adjust your ‘camera’, Araki
The show does pretty well bringing Tooru into the group. Someone who’s not particularly aware of the differences between boys and girls in interest, she’s more interested in the group because of their shared interest in playing games. At first I found it a little odd that Tooru wouldn’t recognize the little brother of one of her best friends, since Shouichi’s older sister Tomoe is in Tooru’s group of friends (with Shiori, who is trying to get Tooru to cosplay and model for her), but having throught about it a little, it’s plausible enough, given the separation between class years and interest groups. Plus, we didn’t see Shouichi and Tomoe interact at all at school in the first arc, and they don’t in this episode either, only when the ice is broken by Tooru already talking to the boys.
“Hey, so this is where the guys without dates are…”
Getting Their, uh, Hopes… Up
Comin’ thru
Something wrong, Shouichi?
I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing that Tooru is a bit on the “clueless girl” side of the gamer girl. Even though she’s an honor student, and really pretty, she’s not acting like a girl around these boys. Sleeping in their gaming space, getting a bit close at karaoke, at the moment none of this is played as being coquettish, just not very aware of what the boys think of it. But she also does a lot of letting them off the hook for not being cool. Faced with a dilemma of what to sing at karaoke, since they only know anisongs, she makes it easy for them by singing a tokusatsu theme song, plus hogging the mic. But she really doesn’t realize what effect she has on them, fanning herself with an open shirt, or asking for a bite of Shouichi’s pudding. It really doesn’t appear that she’s doing it on purpose. She just doesn’t have any guard for that kind of thing.
Somebody got scolded
But it seems like the main thing that will bring Shouichi and Tooru together is their teaming up on GusGal. It’s there that the conflict from her past appears to raise its head, with her over-competitive nature getting the best of her, but also bringing back some bad memories. What I infer is that she’s gone overboard in the past, ticking off her previous playing partners and her other friends, and since then she really hasn’t played much competitive / multiplayer stuff. But it seems like she wants to change a little bit, because she gets Shouichi to agree to team up with her by promising not to kick any more players when they’re already dead. We’ll see how this partnership works out, but I think that there will end up being at least some friction there, as she fights that ‘wanting to win’ nature with Shouichi’s “let’s have fun”.
Taking a bath with her robot friend
Another not bad start to an arc. Tooru is more of an enigma than Hikari was, for sure, and yet is someone that feels more familiar to me, and probably a lot of other gamers. And yes, there are quite a few women gamers, for instance my WoW raid is about 40% women. Tooru seems to be happy to have found people to play with, and people who have reignited her interest in multiplayer games, but I think she feels worry that she will overdo it like before, and end up driving them away. For Shouichi’s part, I think that he’s mostly on the “OMG there’s a pretty girl hanging out with us!” thing. If they keep Araki the same, he’s more likely to be interested in Tooru’s MiliUsa avatar than her real-world self, and Ikuo’s just the hapless friend, so it’s Shouichi or nothing.
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: 600-699 and LN Enthusiast with 623 comments
>Tsuneki in glasses
>Tsuneki in a choker in the preview
>Tsuneki playing games(I assume it’s her that’s their opponent next episode)
We’re seeing a lot of different sides of her in this arc. She was really constrained because of the setting of the arc which is in a summer course I guess.
Speaking of which, she’s pretty different from the previous arc in that she was ecstatic in seeing the Miss Santa, Moe-nee in the shop. Which is weird when she was always ticked off when it was mentioned last arc, to the point where she cooked for Shouichi because Moe-nee was doing it as well. To that point, Shouichi and Ikuo are pretty different as well in that they’re hardcore gamers now and not even getting bothered by tests and such. Checking the timeline in the official website, it seems this arc happens during Golden Week, so it’s around May. Tsuneki arc is around end of July since it’s the finals for the semester plus the summer course. Even if things happened early, there’s still a big difference between the characters since it would be weird if Tsuneki is admiring Moe-nee in May then irritated at her in July when the reason for that is the Miss Santa contest.
Getting on to the start of the new arc, I like Tooru already. I’m weak to girls that blushes a lot. She does seem to be unaware of her actions that would fluster a healthy boy like Shouichi. She lacks that awareness which is probably gonna be her trait that will be changed as their relationship progresses. It’s easy to guess her insecurities seeing her playstyle in the GusGal game and teaming up with Shouichi will make her get over whatever is bothering her, which is probably her aggressive playstyle that didn’t sit well with people from her middle school. It depends on how they would advance their relationship from this partnership in games and if there will be more to it than that. Shouichi seems more active in this arc as the playing field is games that they both share and that he’ll work hard to match up to the great gamer girl Tooru. It gives him a more concrete goal to work on. And he can be in the lead given the cluelessness of Tooru in men.
Though that last part confused me. Was that suppose to throw me off with Tooru having a man that orders her around from the bath? It’s a weird way to end the episode. Though checking the credits, I saw a Miyamae Souta(宮前宗太) and from episode 3, that name also appears. And the significant male character in that episode is that sunglasses teacher in the summer course. Along with the surname and it’s definitely her brother. Still, the way that part went was just not right for some reason, assuming you don’t check the credits for the name. They could have just gone with Tooru just getting excited in the bath about teaming up with Shouichi and end it there. Why include a random man who is definitely her brother to make her get out of the bath. Unless he’ll play a role at some point in the story later on. Given the way Tsuneki’s arc ended, I’m questioning Takayama’s writing choices right now.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I thought the point of having that guy there was to try to make people think “Oh no, Tooru is already living with a guy! She must be in a relationship with him!” Which gives the viewer like zero credit. Like we don’t know what the whole point of the series is. And Souta Miyamae appears in episodes 1 and 2 as well, but not 4, so I think he’s definitely the teacher guy. It just seemed like a not that great attempt to set up some misunderstanding as a cliffhanger.
I think it’s good to change the personalities of the characters some, although I think that maybe changing Hikari from someone who’s a bit jealous of Tomoe to someone who is idolizing her may be a little much. One thing that may come into it is that Hikari was maybe getting more interested in Shouichi throughout the first few months of the school year, and by June is a little bit more annoyed at Tomoe being more around him? I dunno.
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 46 comments
Agreed. That last bit was a pretty poor attempt at baiting us. I like to think most of us saw through it, but you never know…