Work is picking up, and Futami is forced to be the emotional rock for once.
What They Say:
Futami, a novice shojo manga artist, is finally publishing her beloved shogi manga, Dear Subaru. But…the stress makes her stomach hurt, she’s forced to push the deadline for her first chapter, and she isn’t making any progress on the storyboards. To top it off, she’s gaining weight from midnight snacking and starts having wild delusions! Will Futami be able to enjoy life as a manga artist?!
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After more stellar work is submitted, Futami and Hazama realize that they have only ever interacted with Nekonote via email, and they are very curious to meet her. So they arrange a video conference and are surprised to find that the super professional and doggedly efficient Nekonote is, in reality, a very shy sixteen-year-old high school dropout. While surprised, neither are bothered by it, but they do realize they need to rethink the workflow so that they aren’t violating any child labor laws. Then, Futami is surprised by an unannounced visit from Toko, who is looking to hang out and have a little fun. As the most recent chapter is completed, Futami does not mind, as they have a little downtime, but it quickly becomes clear that Toko isn’t visiting just out of friendliness. Finally, Futami is invited to lunch with Sato to celebrate the finish of the chapter, but are unfortunately joined by Setouchi and Asakura, who immediately begin to pester Futami about taking on another project, once again setting off Sato’s closely guarded jealousy.
As a slice-of-life series, it’s normal for episodes to cover a handful of small storylines, but that has not been the norm so far for A Mangaka’s Weirdly Wonderful Workplace. To this point in the story, though there has not been a real overarching story, each episode has generally been focused on a single concept. This is really the first one where we dive into three different concepts. However, they all work together in an interesting way, because each of the three feature Futami having to suppress her own anxieties in order to support a friend/colleague who is having their own. Nekonote is not comfortable with meeting people, is perfectly happy to interact with Futami via email, and has convinced herself that the reason Futami wants to meet is because Futami is unhappy with her work. Toko comes to visit because she has just lost a professional shogi match, and she does not like to be alone at those times. And then Sato is having difficulty maintaining her professionalism in the face of Setouchi’s and Asakura’s determination to get Futami on board another project. In each case, Futami has to be the rock the other can lean on for support, and it was a fun flipping of the script. I’m sure by next week, Futami will be back to needing to be propped up by the others, but this made for a nice change of pace.
In Summary:
This episode features some real growth for Futami, as the efforts of everybody else to help her seems to bear some fruit here. I doubt it will stick for long, but it made for an interesting shift in the tone of the series for an episode. As I think I’ve said for a few weeks, this series seems to surprise me pretty regularly, and I appreciate it for that. Recommended.
Grade: B+
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
