Eromanga-sensei – 05

You gotta roll with it…

So much pre-work you have to perform before the actual work is started. But the ground upon which the seed is planted is just as important, if not more so, as the seed itself. But all this to grow a lewd tree? Well, yes…(spoiler cuts may be NSFW!!!)

An Embarrassment of Riches

Some things are going to take a few more steps than you might think, Sagiri

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The kettle is on the boil, it’s starting to bubble and roil, and there is just the hint of steam at toil. There were lots of pink faces this time around; and after seeing all that develop I don’t think there is a sign of it stopping anytime soon? I think it probably will come to rest for a bit, as I think this one served just to let us know what these characters are going to get up to in future. But what a way to start, eh? It’s pretty clear that the relationship between Masamune and Sagiri is going to be complex and rather complicated. It’s clear they both love and care about each other, and both have admitted to it – one to a lesser degree than the other. But, Sagiri has a pretty hard crush on him; for all the people she’s gotten to know, that is…He’s committed to being her Big Brother no matter what her confession is Regardless of his density, that counter-confession (of sorts) of his doesn’t exactly come without a whole string of questions both salient and suggestive. If that were all this episode did, that would be quite the punch. But as it is, they let that one simmer for a bit longer.  We need a lot more to make this filling, so let’s stack the cooker!

Elf is inspirational material!

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I like how there’s a great degree of professional admiration between these two. The converted that quite well the last two episodes, but it’s time to move these two forward – Sagiri in the middle is just for funsies! They’re obviously competitors just by the nature of their business, and it’s refreshing to see that the story has decided not to make them shounen style adversaries. They’ve established that both of them respect each other’s style to certain degrees, and both of them want to learn from each other both as writers and as people – and learning, really learning something special, from each other is a situation neither of them seem aware of yet, but give it time. I think that Elf could learn to settle down and develop a more restrained, less distracted working environment from the boy, and he in turn could learn a less restrained, free flowing structure from her. Plus we cannot deny how much Elf needs respect from her workplace. She’s got the ratings, but her fellow pros? Not so much? Or else why send out the goon squad? Both of them are going to have to find a way to keep the muse fed with it comes to Sagiri’s work structure as Masamune is more dependent on it, and Elf wants to understand it, as much as she wants to draw out her new found friend.

There’s a rather brutal side to Tomoe in the look…

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But then we get Megumi. We hadn’t seen much of her lately, and now seems like a good time to bring her back in the recipe. She loves teasing Masamune – and who wouldn’t? – and is still interested in become fast friends with Sagiri. It was quite easy for her to figure out that Masamune was the “famous” writer – it was never that hard – and with that in mind, she’s interested in getting into the hobby end of reading LNs. I don’t really know what her true motivation is, as becoming friends seems a bit too easy a way to look at it, she might be after something deeper. But what I’m hoping is that she doesn’t come in overly-judgmental. We’ve seen before in OreImo, and they actually developed that fairly well. It’s time to move on. Megumi started off calling it a creepy otaku hobby, but I honestly think she was being a touch dense. No, I think she’s going to come in with a ton of innocent questions, and that will in turn shake up a bunch of preconceived notions everyone has about their work and what it means to write what they write. That just leaves Tomoe, and so far we’ve seen that she might be willing…or not…gonna have to put an asterisk on her exposing herself over Skype!

More and More Riches

YOU MUST FEED THE MUSE OF LEWD!!!!

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So before I go, I will mention Sagiri’s need to stretch out her art and her work. She’s way to sheltered, that much is true. They’ve been using that as a fairly interesting inexperienced youth metaphor, and I hope they don’t drag it out too much. I’m not sure if they’re just teasing that Tomoe will become a new model for her, or if Megumi will in a more roundabout way, but they can’t just keep delivering to her as that metaphor has to develop and change as much as her art does. While we may get some surface service out of modeling visits and all, Sagiri needs to venture out more and more often for the narrative to work well beyond just the one detail  At least that’s how I see it. This was a really fun episode, lots of really great animation and hijinks, and I’m looking forward to the next one.