What They Say:
Everyone tries to help Madarame cheer up after his grueling confession (for certain small values of “cheering up”). Ohno tries to figure out what will happen to her, and her cosplay, when she graduates.
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This episode starts up right where the last left off. Madarame and Kasukabe walk out of the clubroom to meet with Hato and the others with him. Sasahara’s sister of course wants the details on the matter, but given that it was such a personal confession, Kasukabe says that she wouldn’t understand how it happened. When they get back to Genshiken’s room for the festival, everyone admits they knew about Madarame’s unrequited love all along. Everyone cosplays to try and cheer up Madarame, even Kasukabe, who I suspect is doing it partly to cheer Madarame up and partly to please Ohno. In the end, the boys head to Madarame’s place where the nerd party is really going to get started. I imagine their hanging out is much like me and my own friends, minus the anime and eroge. But we play games and do all that other nerd stuff like Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering.
The next day, we’re back to business as usual with all the girls in the clubroom. Ohno’s having a few troubles with her schoolwork and work-work. She’s having trouble writing her graduation essay as well as finding a job. I find it weird that we’re back on Ohno after her relative absence up until this point. She’s one of the old club members, sure, but the focus has been on Madarame and the fujoshi club members. I wouldn’t say it’s a complete change in tone, but it’s jarring enough to make me wonder why it’s suddenly Ohno. Yajima even tells Tanaka that Ohno’s been on edge lately, but we haven’t seen her be on edge up until this episode. This kind of behavior should be rising up until this boiling point.
When everyone gets back to the clubroom, Madarame’s there with his bag of goodies from Akihabara. He’s quit his job, which he sees as rather freeing. Madarame is back with Hato in his apartment and says that Hato can use the apartment as normal. Hato gets changed and runs to Madarame, asking if he’ll still hang out at the clubroom. The episode ends here.
In Summary:
While I’ve enjoyed revisiting the old clubmembers, this is called Genshiken Second Season for a reason. It’s the second generation of Genshiken members, the fujoshi girls. The focus has gone completely off of them in the last two episodes and while it’s been fun, it hasn’t been Genshiken Second Season. It’s been Genshiken First Season. Visiting old club members in an Animal House sort of way, where we learn where they are now, is fine, but we can’t continue to have complete episodes focused on them. Madarame was fine, since his relationship with Hato grew to the point where his love of Kasukabe had to be resolved. But everything else has been largely superfluous in the greater context of Genshiken Second Season.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: Radeon 7850, 24 in. Vizio 1080p HDTV, Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II
