Masamune-kun no Revenge – 11

A Tale of Two Apples?

I love how the opening of the show (no cold open this week, and they really could have skipped the OP this late in the season) basically spells out how much a pretense these two plays really are – ashtray tossing and all – yes, I had to look that up, and it’s goofy. It’s art imitating life…

Snow White, Double Trouble

Oh, so.much.frustration… 

May the farce be with you! See, the problem that these kids are having is that they are bragging, and not just putting on a school festival play. They’ve conflated some stuff, which by one viewpoint can be seen as completely stupid, but by their own viewpoint is so much more important as they just happen to have something to compete on to decide all these dippy points for them – the culmination being about who Aki get’s to dance with, and therefore win, and therefor love, and therefor our support of that love and therefor our ideals win. But then, that’s elections, ain’it? Wow. No wonder everyone is in a tizzy. On one hand you have Kojuurou, whose masculinity has been asleep the whole show, and then around Aki, whose decision making has been asleep somewhat. The play within the show is a devolution. I mean, really, the only purpose of the prince in the story is to wake her up and make her a “real person”. I’m glad to see that Aki don’t want none of that – and that Kojuuro will be focusing on something else.

Girl just wants to indulge

So in that respect, the two boys are like two ends of a polar choice for her. One is austere and almost spartan, only interested, despite his bookish nature about it, in her for his own petty reasoning (but has some family one’s looking in the background – and lolimama is protecting that investment), the other is indulgent and congenial, but only interested in Aki to suit his family’s purpose- and yes, that is money-grubbing awfulness in a horrible box, but he isn’t exactly into her beyond the friendship he seems to enjoy with everyone. But then again, no one is  broadcasting how they really feel in this whole story, they’re always talking about or seeing or otherwise latching onto an ideal, and how much they and others fail to meet that ideal in whatever small ways. In all that, Aki desires, more than anything, freedom to call things as she sees them, to call people out for failing to live up to the smallest of potentials, and to indulge her life without worrying about pretense, even as she shy’s away from the consequences, but learning to live with that is part of the process.

Don’t worry Aki, we’ll suit you to the purpose…

The rest of the episode, from the complications of minor kidnapping, to the reasons why – Kikuon feelings for, and Mari’s mechanizations for, and then Yoshino’s matching subterfuge, to Kojuurou falling for Neko, which are all behind Makabe and Gasou’s reason, all of them are deliberate distractions from the one story point we should all know more about, and that is Aki. She isn’t just Best Girl, ya know – the show isn’t about that. Instead, she’s literally the Only Girl. The show may be called Masamune-kun’s Revenge, but against whom? Without that center point, the wheel won’t turn. So, for the most part, this one showed us why the wheel was turning in the first place, at least on a thematic level. That everyone is looking to her as an ideal of some sort, a means to an end. I hope the next episode will tell us why that was so important and that the plays really aren’t that important, only a silly means that masks the end. I mean, even Neko hangs a lampshade on that this episode. Once all this is over, perhaps we can dance…And by that she means get to know each other without the pretense…

Cause’ it really…

…isn’t about this at all..

Extra Indulgence…

Ore, Ore, Ore!

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Ah hey, back to my old layout. There have been quite a few complaints about how much of the Snow White manga arc the show is skipping over. My two cents on that is always going to be the same, no matter the show, and that is – TV meets, and so therefor approaches, different needs. It’s not a book, and we know this so let’s carry on. What the TV show is doing well is clarity, which the Snow White arc needed. The show has focused on Aki for the most part in subtle ways, and that’s what we get here in the most opposite way possible. Which doesn’t mean that a play cannot thrive with it’s brief asides, something this episode handled with brevity and just enough charm; Kojuurou’s little twitterpat over Neko, and Kiba’s Aki infatuation. But the real proof is in the main story, and with the cliffhanger this week, that’s something they have well in hand. Will Makabe do the “right thing”? See you next time. The show must go on, despite the frustration…

About skylion

All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion