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Now in Japan
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Wednesday, 03 January 2007 00:00 |
 Yamada's roller-coaster ride with Saori continues, from the highs of shopping in Akiba and gaining some sort of approval from her mother, to the lows of more interference by Sakurai and realising he'd better tell her about his message board posts. Will realising she's been the unwitting subject of a very public romance ruin Yamada's chances yet again..?
Saori's holding Yamada to his promise to help her shop for a new PC - but rather than just shop at any old computer store, she wants him to take her to somewhere where he would normally go himself. That means a visit to the centre of the otaku shopping world, Akihabara - just as soon as he can get visions of Saori in a maid uniform and twin-tails out of his head. The trip starts off well enough - computer bought, purikura photos taken, Street Fighter 2 played - but things start going a bit awry when they run into some of Yamada's friends. Later, Yamada pays a visit to Saori's home to install her new computer, and finally meets her mother, who isn't entirely pleased by her first impressions - but decides to give him a chance to impress by inviting him to dinner with the rest of the family. Could anything be more terrifying for an otaku to deal with? Well, yes - like Saori finding out he's written pretty much everything about their relationship on a public message board...
The usual mix of comedy and tragedy in this episode, really, with Jinkama again providing the best of the laughs. There's a scene where Yamada's trying out his compliments on her - according to the folks on the board, this will really cheer a woman up - but every compliment is met with a slap, punch, or kick to the gut. But Jinkama leaves the room feeling much better about life, so in a way it's mission accomplished - just not in the way Yamada intended.
Sakurai's efforts to throw a spanner in Yamada's good works also continue to go humourously awry - this time, his efforts to replace the real Yamada with a "lookalike" who bears only a passsing resemblance. For all his efforts, it's hard to really see Sakurai being a threat in the long term.
Yamada makes steady progress throughout the episode, from finally seeing the inside of Saori's bedroom (just looking, no action), earning some form of approval from her mother after a particularly difficult dinner, and getting to the point where Saori's sending him photos of her in her bedclothes (alas, she wears pyjamas). It all builds up to the point where he's finally ready to confess his feelings to her - until one of the board members points out that if she ever finds out about the board, he's going to be in trouble. By inconvenient coincidence, this is at just the time where Saori's little brother finally puts two and two together (after reading about their family dinner) - so while Yamada quickly decides to tell Saori about the board, her brother gets there first. Cue cliffhanger, but the look on her face and the next episode preview would kinda indicate she's not at all happy.
Of course, we know there's going to be a happy ending and there are now only two episodes to go, so it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's going to be some extensive repair work done by Yamada over the remaining episodes - we're just waiting to see how he goes about it. I still get the urge to cringe when I see him go into otaku / apologetic mode - it's probably the one aspect of the series I don't really like, and I suspect we'll be seeing a fair amount of it yet, but for the most part I'm really enjoying Densha Otoko. There's nothing quite like cheering on the underdog, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this one finally has his day... |
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