12.19
The Nibutani Show starts NOW!
You know how in typical Shojo series the main guy and girl are likable enough, but all the crap that builds up to them getting together can get painfully slow and just boring to watch at times? Well Nibutani says “fuq dat shi” and decides to take matters into her own hands… which is a lot more fun to watch, though more likely than not to be obnoxious if done in real life… you know, as advice for the one or two girls that happen to be reading this.
I’ve always liked scenes involving swings. Not necessarily entire playgrounds, but just swings. Oddly enough, I don’t initially think of the swing scene in early Naruto, but rather one of the later scenes in Yu Yu Hakusho where Yusuke speaks some reals with Koenma about what he wants to do with the rest of his life. Nobody ever really acknowledges the presence of the swings, and it’s just there as a more active piece of the background in that the characters are technically interacting with it, but other than that it just helps set the tone for what’s going on. I’m sure once I watch through a bunch of Criterion Collection movies I’ll be bored of it, but for the time being: swings are awesome.
Isshiki and Deko being the more actively annoyed, while Nibutani simply sports a look of “why?” and Kumin just kinda… is. Yep, it’s scenes like this that tell me the group as a whole is finally compelte, each with their own quirks, but work best when forming the Mega Zord… which in the case of this show I wouldn’t be surprised ends up being more literal than figurative.
Tooka’s gymnastics ack-shun when popping out of Yuuta’s bed is just another one of those things that KyoAni doesn’t have to do but does anyway because they’re good at inserting unnecessary things into their shows for the sake of humor.
Seeing Deko in her natural environment of being the smart girl that others turn to for homework help made this scene. Though I feel like it gets kinda negated by her actions in later episodes, but I guess I’ll just cherish the moment until I have to bring it up for the next post. Hnrgh.
Rikka dealing with all her doki-doki feelings is just too adorable for words. To have someone be so caught up in her delusions that it warps their perception of love is probably not as adorable when I say it that way, but I feel like most things that would be disturbing in a real-life scenario are fun to watch on TV. That said, I have really mixed feelings whenever I watch Hoarders… or anything on that channel, really.
I know I must have mentioned it a couple times in past posts, but I just love how the cast starts off as being unlikely friends with each other and even by these later episodes it’s still jarring to see certain characters interact with each other, but that just makes things more fun. It’s like taking the whole “odd couple” concept and multiplying by a couple digits. Kumin is especially a treat to see hanging out with whoever since she has absolutely no hidden motives whatsoever, so you know she’s being sincere 100% of the time.
Screencapped for the sake of seeing Isshiki and Yuuta dance with each other in the background. You could already hear something silly going on off screen, so to have it shown in the background for a second or two just made things that much funnier.
…same goes for this little exchange while butterflies formed a heart. Totally missed that when watching before and thought it was just funny that so many butterflies were filling the screen. KyoAni definitely has the whole subtle comedy thing down to a science.
Rikka literally shielding herself from Nibutani’s bluntness is just another notch to the “KyoAni really knows their characters” metaphorical table. Every little twitch and action characters do is just so specific to that character alone, and at this point in the series I tend to laugh not just because the situation is silly, but because I could see that character doing whatever they’re doing.
The whole Wile E Coyote style attempts with Nibutani trying to get Rikka and Yuuta together were old hat, but enjoyable old hat. It’s the kind of old hat that’s been polished just enough to still entertain.
(On an unrelated note, lemme just say I hate how The Loony Tunes Show pitted everyone in a suburban area with suburban problems. Isn’t the point of The Looney Tunes to be Looney? For that reason, the sole character I like on random watchings of the show has to be Lola. She’s gona a long way since Space Jam and that’s probably for the better.)
It’s episode endings like this that make me wonder if the writers are relying on the fact that they’ve hit every note right as an excuse for a mediocre final delivery. Rikka slipping and hanging from the school roof while everyone watched was a bit too public and overdramatic for my liking. Though honestly, end results are what matter here and I’m glad something finally got Rikka to get over her chuunibyou mentality and hug Yuuta with her adorably small hands.
Onwards to episode 10! Seems like Rikka is in permanent blushing mode this entire episode. Nice touch.
With 12 episodes total, though, I was pretty surprised to find they saved up so many episodes to deal with aftermath-type stuff. I mean, you can only go so far with things following “they lived happily ever after,” right? There are only so many adorable Yuuta/Rikka moments I can handle, after all!
Alright, so a kink in plans has Rikka’s sister being relocated to Italy because her cooking is just that good. I can accept this and the fact that they’re using this plot point as a means to have Yuuta be used as Tooka’s way to get Rikka to snap out of her chuunibyou-ness, but three episodes? At this point I’m reminded of the final couple episodes in Baccano (Don’t get me wrong, though; would kill for another Baccano season). We already have a resolution, so just wrap things up at this point!
Seeing Nibutani’s frienemies from back when was a nice touch to go alongside her fallout with the cheerleaders. I honestly feel like out of all the side characters, she’d be the most likely to get a spinoff. At least have some kind of movie follow-up that retells the series from her perspective. There’s already a good amount of things established for her that have only been mentioned in passing, so it would be nice to see an actual playing out of said things.
Couple pose! For a sec I wondered how they were able to make costumes so quickly, but then I remembered the two were syndrome-d out and realized. Funny how an explanation wasn’t even bothered with. At this point, the series has started to take a more “yeah, this is happening; just deal with it and I swear we’ll deliver in the end” sort of mentality.
… I mean, building up everything to the flash-mob (“flash-fight?”) only to have Deko and Nibutani switch out last second, and even then not show it? I literally stopped typing in the middle of that last sentence because I thought I jumped the gun and reviewed episode 11 instead of 10. This series…
Nibutani was introduced as the type of perfect girl that every guy in high school would obsess over, so to have her in such a solemn scene at the end of the episode where she took on the responsibilities of others was very… wow. Yes, she has her own selfish motives but you never get the feeling that she’s in it for herself, and her concern in this scene really showed how selfless she could be. May her and her ponytail in this scene return in some kind of iteration!
And end things out with a Rikka character song. Iunno, things are starting to get a bit rocky near the end of this series, but 1) I’m too invested to stop, and 2) it’s not too bad that I’d want to stop. May the final two episodes give the closure the series deserves!