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Now in Japan
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Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:00 |
 While Yamada was getting things going with Saori, a few other members of the message-board were dealing with problems in their own love lives - usually involving being fleeced by women of a more mercenary nature. Densha Otoko: Another Ending tells their stories...
Before Densha Otoko, there was Guitar Otoko (aka Yamada's friend Matsunaga) - another member of the message-board who was having problems with his love life. Having finally met his online 'girlfriend' in the real world - and been fleeced for 3m yen in the process - he gave up the online dating business. Until he met Yuuko at the matching party Yamada hauled him along to and fell in love all over again. Shame she was only interested in his money. Meanwhile, Densha's Osakan encourager, aka Ushijima-san, had just been fleeced to the tune of 2m yen himself, by a girl named 'Tiffany' - but rather than follow Guitar Otoko's example, he took inspriation from Yamada's exploits and set about getting his beloved 'Tiffany' back. But first there's the little detail of paying off the gangsters he borrowed the 2m from in the first place...
'Tiffany' is in quote marks as it's fairly obviously a made-up name - she's a Korean migrant who had been working as a hostess in a Korean restaurant before appropriating Ushijima's 2m yen and disappearing. She's not the money-grabber you'd think from how she's presented in the first half of the episode, though, and it's good to see a happy ending on this side of the story.
Matsunaga's story is the main event here, though - there were a few scenes in the series proper that hinted at what was going on between him and Yuuko, more as a comic interlude, so in one way it's good to see it fleshed out here. On the downside, he's even more of an otaku that Yamada, which makes his scenes even more painful to watch. Don't ever mention "turtle laying eggs" to me again. Yuuko's initially just interested in his money - noble motive - but the Gods of Happy Endings are shining and by the end of the episode she's beginning to see him in a generally good light. Don't ask me why.
Throughout all this, there are "recap" scenes from the original series dropped in to give an indication of where these events feature in the overall story. On the one hand it's good to have the points of reference, but the downside of that it that there's an awful lot of recap / filler here - the episode would have been much shorter, and much better paced, without those scenes, and it wouldn't really have affected the story much.
In amongst the romance, there are some good pure comedy moments. Every 5mins Matsunaga & friend read the board, see things they've just done with Yamada, and begin to wonder: "Maybe Yamada is Densha Otoko..? Nah...". You wonder what it would take for them to draw the connection. Add in the story behind Sakurai's plaster-cast and what happened between him and Jinkama, and an end-of-episode scene where Yamada tries to figure out what to do when Saori asks him to join her in the mixed-sex section of the hot spring they're staying at, and there are some good laughs to be had.
There's nothing here that's essential viewing - Densha Otoko's story is done & dusted and this is just omake, really - but it is fun to watch and gives a slightly different perspective on events. No need to go out of your way to see it, but if you can get hold of it easily enough it's worth a look. |
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