Demi-chan wa Kataritai – 12 [END]
Double Reaction Shot!
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For the most part, I really don’t like writing series finale posts, because it usually means that a show I like is now not going to be on any more. But the shows stop whether I write the post or not, so it’s the time to get the thoughts out. |
It’s pu-ru Time!
“You know, like a big cat.”
Hikari’s got two questions for Tetsuo. The first is whether he thinks the eyeshine that she exhibits in flash photos is a vampire thing, and the answer is probably yes. It’s not too far out of the realm of possibility that a human could exhibit eyeshine (due to the development of a tapetum layer) with a DNA change, especially because there are plenty of mammals that do. So that helps explain why Hikari can see more than others at night. Of course, that leads to Tetsuo mansplaining things to Hikari, which she playfully shuts him down with the simple question “How long do you think I’ve been a vampire?” I liked this pushback on her part, and Tetsuo actually welcomes it against his natural inclination to explain things. Silliness ensues and ends up with another contextless message to Himari, in which she confronts Tetsuo about having seen Hikari’s underpants, but that leads to the second question.
Himari chimes in
The other question is whether Hikari and the other girls can reserve the school pool on a weekend day. They need to have a teacher present, and they need permission, but it’s a situation where if a teacher or two is supporting it, and for special students, they’d likely get permission. But there’s another question for Tetsuo, in that knowing that Hikari is sensitive to sun and brightness, should she really be playing at an outdoor pool? This uncertainty is what he asks Himari, but her perspective is a good one as well. If she wants to do it, then let her do it. I think that this is a good point for all adults around a lot of growing kids. If they want to do it, let them do it. Most of the time, you don’t need to protect teenagers. Like Hikari said earlier to Tetsuo, she knows what the issues of being a vampire are, better than he does. So if she wants to push her limits a little bit, then why is that a bad thing?
Speaking of pushing yourself
A Chance Avoided
And she embarrassed herself again
Tetsuo also enlists Sakie’s help with the pool outing, but initially it seems like he’s basically fobbing the whole thing off on her, as he tries to beat feet as soon as she shows up. She’s been trying to appeal to him more, but keeps chickening out, so she was happy for the opportunity to spend time around him, but with him walking away she thinks quick and asks him to stick around. And as he explains in their conversation, he actually had thought it was a good chance for Sakie herself to enjoy swimming, since it would all be girls. OMG could this guy be any better? That’s certainly what Sakie’s thinking, and she’s not about to let him get out of this situation. So she shows off her bikini, and of course he can’t show a reaction, although I’d have liked the show to maybe throw Sakie a bone, some hint that maybe she does have more of an effect on him. I know that this show isn’t really going to show a trouser tent, but it could have done a “OHIthinkIwillgetinthewaterrightnow! Excuseme!” And even when she drops hints about a student confessing, and saying she’s not a student or a child, she doesn’t get the reaction she wants.
She has trouble keeping up
But really, Sakie’s misunderstanding the problem, I think. It’s not that she’s not appealing to Tetsuo, or that he’s not turned on by her, or that he’s not interested in her. I think this is actually a good thing, as far as depictions of people and behavior on TV. Sakie’s big problem is that she herself has very clearly set boundaries as to how she would like people to interact with her at the school. She did that right away, and she was right to do so: it’s troublesome if people approach her because they are attracted to her. The message was clear, and a guy like Tetsuo is going to abide by it, because he is a good person! He’s respecting her boundaries, and not doing some stupid “I can’t control myself anymore!” thing that we see far too often. Even if it is very hard to exert that control, he’s doing it. Because the message so far has been that it’s unwelcome. From my point of view, it’s now entirely on Sakie to clearly state to Tetsuo that she would like the boundaries for him to change. That’s what she hasn’t done yet. What she’s done is try to use the exact same characteristic that she wants people to not be affected by to affect him. She’s done that, but in effect she’s really just teasing Tetsuo with it, because he’s resolute in his efforts to not be a bother to her. If she wants the situation to change, then she needs to do it, and with words, not sex appeal.
Everyone gets an eyeful
Because daaaaaaamn
A couple of other vignettes happen at the pool. Machi thinking about the rarity of dullahans, and the legends of them being knights and harbingers of death, makes her wonder if one in history was a particularly great knight, leading to those legends being created, and the lack of other dullahans watering down the legend with counterexamples keeping it so specific. She also reveals that she’s never put her head underwater, which leads to the chance to do so. They make a big deal about Tetsuo calling her father to ask for permission, which seems to be in contrast to my point earlier about letting kids do things that they want to try, but it’s less that than Tetsuo and Sakie are not the ones with decision-making power in that stiuation. She’s still able to do it, but you have to make sure that it’s ok with the right person. The other thing is that Tetsuo and Hikari discuss her desire to fit in more, and have others not be so conscious of her differences as a vampire, and that’s why she wanted to have the Girls-day-out-at-the-pool at the outdoor school pool, to push a little and to let the others know that they don’t have to think about it as much. Yeah, she got a little sunburned, but who hasn’t? In exchange for a better relationship with the others, it was worth it.
The centerpiece of the show
Atsumi gets tossed
and speaking of progress, remember these two from episode 1?
And that’s a wrap for this show. This is one that I didn’t know what to expect from it before the season, but anything that I could have expected wouldn’t have been nearly as great as it turned out to be. Funny, thoughtful, earnest, the show was a nice display of modern tolerance, respect for others, and a push for de-othering. There were a lot of people who seemed to think that this would overdo it with some anime tropes like a harem (nope) or ecchi (nope, but that was kinda the point) or melodrama, but really all it did was tell good stories about good people trying to be good people, about kids trying to grow up and learn about themselves and the world. It really limited the cast to just a few people, but did it well in a way that made it applicable to much more than just those individuals. I really enjoyed the show, and I hope you did as well. And maybe when there’s more source material, there will be more anime of Interviews with Monster Girls.
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: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
The show was a nice display of modern tolerance, respect for others, and a push for de-othering.
You’ll probably enjoy the upcoming anime A Centaur’s Life/Centaur no Nayami this summer. It covers the same SOL explorations of tolerance and racial equality, but on a wider geopolitical scope than Demi-chan (world’s made up of different demihuman races, tons of historical prejudice, not everything is peacefully resolved). Some chapters even cover historical events and X-Files-style conspiracies.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I have read some of A Centaur’s Life. I hope that the show does better with making it flow than the manga did. It felt very disjointed, at least as far as I read.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
I’ve read some of the manga; the mangaka does tend to jump around between genres with nearly every chapter.
There’s some concern about the choice of studio and directors, considering Haoliners’ mediocre anime record and the relative unknownness of the directors.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I haven’t watched too much from Haoliners. One episode of Reikanzen (which was really odd, and hard to find), and a few episodes of Hitori no Shita (which was ok, just kind of a fail for me). I don’t know that their name is a kiss of death, certainly not in the way that you know ACTAS won’t actually finish a series in the same cour it started. But there are plenty of studios that people have ‘concerns’ about whenever they put out a show, and they pull through just fine (like Deen), while there are other studios that people don’t complain about that put out some pure drek (like Silver Link). And there are some like Project No. 9 that don’t have a great reputation for art or animation, but lately deliver a show that’s interesting and fun to watch (even as awful as it was, I watched all of MomoKyun Sword).
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Yesh, studios do have a tendency to fall under people’s capacity to have banner/brand loyalty over pesky things like, facts, or rational thought, or considering a real sense of objectivity over subjectivity.
..and for the record, I agree with what you say about all these stuido’s. In fact, I’m kinda looking forward to whatever Project No. 9 does next…and that looks like a delinquent reverse harem short?
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Hikari is the cutest vampire ever.
I like that even in the pool setting and wearing swimsuits the girls were never played for fan service. That was left for Sakie and as a well endowed adult woman and succubus she was a natural for that. But it was not overdone and did not turn her into an object. Much of that was because she had been developed as a person and not left as a big boobed fan service vehicle.
Having read the first two mangas before the show aired I had an idea of what to expect. It surpassed my expectations and only a couple episodes in made my to buy list when the home video is available.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Clearly one of the best shows of the season and of the year.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
On top of limiting fanservice to Sakie, it was actually a part of the story, since her point was to try to be sexy for Tetsuo.
I’ve read a little bit of the manga, but I found the anime to be much more engaging, smoothly constructed, and impactful.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Well, this depends on if Sakie is the frying pan or the fire cause getting into the pool, at that point, will default said pool to whichever one Sakie isn’t…
He’s gonna get attention he clearly doesn’t know what to do with no matter what choice he makes! But yeah, her turning to words rather than sex appeal is gonna get the job done; even if her substitute father loses sleep?
One thing to think about in terms of Machi…her putting her head underwater might be the first time a dullahan has ever done that and lived! Yeah, that’s a huge stretch, but on a thematic level all that history really underscores how much she is growing away from teenage tropey tropes and into her own. This show does thematic metaphor really well. Even if is makes Himari scold Tetsuo.
This was one of the best shows of the season, easily in my top five, joining forces with Gab, Kobayashi, KonoSuba, and Urara. We should have more or it, or more like it.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Even if Sakie was in the pool at the same time as Tetsuo, it’s still cooler than out on the deck with her. As far as Sakie’s using words to break through to Tetsuo, I don’t know if Ugaki is a useful source. He is still thinking that she needs to seduce him, or at least make herself attractive and noticed by him. That’s already done. Tetsuo is well aware of just about all of her public qualities, both sexy and intellectually. To me, the only thing that stands between them is those barriers that she had put up at their initial encounters.
That’s a good point about Machi that jumps off of what she was thinking about legend, rarity, and stereotyping. There are also probably many things that she is going to be the “first dullahan” at doing.
For me, this show is second best for the season, somewhat behind Meidoragon. But it’s way far out in front of the rest of the season. GabDrop is probably a distant third, with a pack of shows behind it like WarLoli, Urara, MinaKama, KonoSuba, and even Idol Dietwomen.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Maybe she’s thinking that she wants her seductions to be for only him, and that’s why she’s projecting it?
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
ty for the Tetsuo (and Sakie!) fanservice screeshots~
I was really surprised how well this one turned out. I was one of those people who was afraid it’d dive right into harem territory, but it never went that route. I’m so glad I gave this one a shot – it turned out to be something I looked forward to every week (sort of..I binged the last 5 episodes at once lol).
Not a big romance fan but I would love to see more of Sakie and Tetsuo interacting. They’d be such a cute couple, working out the ups and downs of a human and a succubus dating each other!
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I think that too many people just had no clue about it, so they assumed “anime with 1 guy and 4 girls in the poster = harem”, even though they’re obviously not the same age. I mean, from the second scene, when you learn unequivocally that Tetsuo is a teacher, that should have been the end of any harem thoughts for the show.
I thought it hit on a good range of reactions to Tetsuo from the different girls: Schoolgirl crush on older guy, cool teacher guy, legitimate love interest, and friendly teacher who sincerely helps out when needed. And it’s amusing the way they ordered those reactions, given that Machi is generally the level-headed one, but she’s the one that developed this crush. And the way she’s just enjoying it without letting the fact that it doesn’t go any further bring her down was a great thing, and super rare (to the point of being unrealistic). The last two other shows I watched with a schoolgirl teacher crush had them be moody and mercurial (Reina Kousaka in Hibike Euphonium!) and driving them to bad relationship judgments (Hanabi in Kuzu no Honkai).
I’m glad you watched it, because it really was a great show to watch.