Does anyone understand the meaning of the word “suspension?” It appears not.
What They Say:
Episode 6: “I’ll Protect You”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
It’s an idiot plot that snowballs completely out of control, but you know what? This is a good example of how you can make such a situation work without alienating the audience and leaving everyone feeling frustrated and angry. Instead, you’ll probably walk away with a smile.
All the members of K4 are supposed to serve an in-home suspension from work because of what Aoi and Naoto did last time, though this doesn’t stop them from sneaking out of the house to do things. Naoto initially sits in his little train otaku room playing with his toy trains, though he has Sessho there to talk to, apologizing to her for messing up their trip and promising to make it up to her. If you ask me, being stuck at home with a pretty girl visiting you doesn’t sound that bad at all.
The idiot plot gets set in motion when Takayama sees Sessho off and checks his mail. Among the pile of letters, there is one that catches his attention. Elsewhere, we see Haruka exercising hard on the treadmill at work. Technically, she shouldn’t be there, but she desperately wants to improve her athletic abilities so that she can stay part of K4 and be with Naoto. Why such an obsession with Naoto, something we’ve noticed from the start of this show? An explanation will follow in due course, finally. For the moment, we get fanservicey angles of Haruka as expected. And then when we hear her thoughts…they’re hard scientific facts about energy usage and fat burning. So when it comes to stamina, she thinks, she should be well suited as she has all this stored fat that can be converted into energy. All this…while showing her taking a shower.
It’s the little things like this that can make the odd juxtaposition of smart and dumb that characterizes the writing work of Masashi Suzuki (series composition director and script writer for the series so far, who also did Yusibu, which was similarly marked by dumb fanservice being balanced by smart writing) hard to judge at times. The smart monologue is balanced by the rather obvious fanservice. Is it an attempt to neutralize the lowbrow fanservice with highbrow learning? Probably not. On balance, I would say it’s just having your (cheese)cake and eating it too.
Okay…so they’ve decided to tackle the Romantic Snake Pit this episode. For Takayama is your usual dense lead male who has no idea that both Haruka and Aoi are starting to develop some feelings for him (on top of Sessho). When Takayama calls Haruka out to meet him at Akihabara Station (why do I get the feeling this is a station most animators know all too well and can draw from memory?), Aoi notices her and wonders what’s up. When Naoto and Haruka have a private meeting out of the way (in response to a letter he received in the mail that alarmed him), they’re suddenly assaulted…by Tsubatettsu the railway mascot. There’s something rather…suspicious about that mascot.
We’re getting fed the information about the letter in small bits: it appears to be a threat of some sort. Could it be from yet another accomplice of the Ashio Line bomber whom Aoi and Naoto foiled? Is it a prank or real? Is Aoi in danger too? When Haruka calls Aoi…a comical misunderstanding leads them to believe something has happened to their feisty co-worker (actually, she just dropped and broke her phone by accident). The misunderstandings begin to pile up as Aoi walks out of a mobile phone shop, having just gotten a replacement, and sees Haruka and Naoto holding hands and running along. While she can’t quite voice her jealousy aloud, she feels this urge to “punish” Takayama and takes out her gun to shoot him (perhaps just to imagine shooting him to make herself feel better). However, Tsubatettsu bumps Aoi’s hand so she fires but misses, hitting a small toy on a table near where Naoto and Haruka are running. So…yeah, we know where this is headed.
This all devolves into classic farce, as each rather innocent incident is blown all out of proportion to become high drama. Haruka and Naoto start running away from an unknown assailant…who is Aoi who is now herself running away…as she’s being pursued by a policewoman who saw Aoi jumping a sidewalk barrier to cross the street. The chase ends with Haruka and Naoto climbing a fence poorly as neither is very athletic, winding up in a pile of boxes. Not that many would complain about winding up in Haruka’s arms. The ridiculous “you’re being hunted” plot continues as a chance falling flowerpot puts Haruka and Naoto back into a paranoid panic, Haruka now believing that Naoto’s phone is being used to track him. Of course, they had originally been planning to call Nana for help…but Nana, naturally, had her phone turned off (in her defense, it needed to be recharged) while having a coffee break with her friend Hitomi.
The upshot, however, is that Haruka and Naoto are being pushed to their physical limits. A brief moment of rest is ended when they are suddenly surrounded by cats (the boxes they fell into after the fence were filled with catnip, so…we knew this would be coming). Now we have The Chase, Part II, with cats running them ragged. Worse, Haruka apparently read in a book once that dogs have been trained to be used in assassinations, so she thinks maybe these cats have been put to similar use. As for how they’re tracking them, it’s their scent. Her ludicrous theory is “confirmed” when she takes off her uniform jacket (she’s wearing her high school uniform) and throws it away, immediately drawing the cats to it (since it smells like catnip).
We turn back briefly to Aoi, who has escaped the police officer and comes to the fence that Haruka and Naoto had trouble with (she gets over it with ease) and there makes an important discovery: Naoto’s abandoned cellphone. All the while, Haruka and Naoto continue onwards. Aoi continues the pursuit, now finding Haruka’s abandoned uniform jacket. As Haruka’s skirt keeps on getting ripped (geez, how many sharp, projecting objects are there on Tokyo’s streets?), they need to find a place to hide (as her clothing is becoming a bit too…bold). Naturally, they wind up at the Transportation Museum, though it’s closed for the day. They sneak in, even though they might get in trouble for it. However, they’re not safe, as Haruka now has more cats attacking her (funny how Takayama seems to have had zero catnip stain his clothing), forcing her to abandon most of her uniform.
Their inexperience continues to lead them to false conclusions, as now Haruka theorizes that the cats were a trap to lead them to the closed museum, which conveniently had a broken door through which they could enter. Naoto tries to reassure her that she’s over-thinking it. The action now turns briefly from chase to date, at least it seems that way, as Naoto eagerly leads Haruka around the museum.
Of course, there’s a silent alarm at the museum, which gets Hitomi in on things as she’s called in to investigate. At this point, she and Nana come across Aoi, and we know who would be most raring to go after criminals. Back at the museum, the nerd date continues. The reverie seems to lead somewhere more serious, however, when Haruka suddenly pulls out “Do you remember what happened eight years, three months, and fifteen days ago?” Before we find out, however, a couple of thugs in masks appear (and now we know why the door to the museum was broken). Fortunately for Naoto and Haruka, while they are being chased by the criminals, Hitomi, Nana, and Aoi have come to the museum too and spot them through a window.
The farce continues to spiral out of control as Haruka is relieved of nearly her last bit of clothing, her shirt, by one of the crooks. Naoto allows her to hide in a storage room while he will try to draw the criminals off (since, you know, hiding in a storage room with a nearly-naked woman is just not allowed). Now Hitomi, Nana, and Aoi appear to subdue the masked intruders…though Aoi subdues Naoto. While Haruka…we get the story behind why she loves Naoto. Apparently, eight years, three months, and fifteen days ago (her and her perfect memory), she got lost in a storage room at the Transportation Museum, which her grandfather had taken her to. Of course, it’s Takayama who saved her back then. And in a farcical replay, he “saves” her again at the Museum.
It was a ridiculously stupid plot that hinged upon misunderstandings and ridiculous escalations…but it all fit together pretty well. It may be because we’ve seen enough of this show to know that nothing should be taken that seriously. It may be because it was a well planned, well timed, and well executed farce. What I can say is that it left me both a little more knowledgeable about the characters (the romantic triangle of Haruka-Naoto-Aoi is forming very strongly, with the line out to Sessho still existing) and answered the question of why Haruka seems so intent on Naoto, a guy who otherwise seems rather unremarkable beyond being a train otaku.
In Summary:
It’s utterly ridiculous, but this story about a potential death threat against Naoto spirals completely out of control as Naoto and Haruka are chased by unknown snipers, flowerpot throwers, and trained cat assassins (the cats are trained assassins…yeah…okay, not really). But, it was funny. You can’t really ask for more than that, and the humor was delivered well with this episode.
Episode Grade: A-
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
