THAT Animeblog

Well I’ve decided that the second show I wanted to blog here at T.H.A.T. was Genshiken, whose first season is one of my all-time favorites. But hoooo-boy was this quite the episode to start blogging. The episode title is “Are They Going Out?” and it’s quite appropriate when considering Tanaka and Ohno. And so this episode aims at resolving that question and what the future of the two will be.

So will they get it over with and make out? Will there be a season full of awkwardness between them? Will Tanaka make a costume for some other girl and piss her off leading to mass drama? Is this really Genshiken?

The episode opens with Tanaka and Ohno working on cosplay material as Tanaka finishes sewing up the latest outfit. Ohno goes into the other room to change and both get that funny feeling inside, so much that Tanaka has to turn the TV on to calm himself down. Later on they run into Sasahara at the station when Tanaka invites him to come along for some cosplay shopping which he turns down, noticing the situation. The scene shifts to the clubroom where Sasahara and Madarame discuss the prospective couple with Oguie listening in. After a discussion on the status of the large breasted ero game market, Madarame notes that Ohno doesn’t cosplay as any characters from ero games.

They opine that Tanaka and Ohno must be going out after all of this, but Oguie finally speaks up and says that she doesn’t believe so. Kousaka and Kasukabe join them in the club room later, and she agrees with Oguie’s feminine instincts on the couple situation. When the discussed duo finally come in, Kuchiki drops the question “are you going out?” and Kasukabe proceeds to beat the crap out of him and Ohno eventually adds a shot of her own after he adds on some retarded but damn hilarious comments. Before the start of class Kasukabe and Ohno have a woman to woman chat and Kasukabe encourages her to make a move on Tanaka while cosplaying an ero game character. There are then a couple of different scenes with Oguie, Madarame, and Sasahara commenting on what’s been happening.

We eventually get to Tanaka hanging out with Kugayama, the most unlikely source of relationship advice. He tells Tanaka that he should just be a man and get it over with, while Tanaka laments that he’s just a loser Otaku with nothing else to offer but cosplaying. Kugayama says he’s just being a chicken. While walking home Tanaka gets a call from Ohno and they get together at Tanaka’s house. Ohno asks him if he plays ero games and if she can see the covers of some of the newest ones, and Tanaka meekly agrees. When she finds one with a character that looks like her she declares she wants to cosplay as her and insists he play the game in front of her. He understandably is both surprised and mortified and the prospect of playing an ero game with her, but she convinces him to do it.

After some time playing it they get to an h-scene and Tanaka finally can’t do it anymore. He tells her that he really likes her, but he doesn’t have the confidence to go out with her because he thinks after offering her cosplay that’s all he has. Ohno responds by saying that he’s crazy, she likes him for more than just his cosplay assistance and says that she will go out with him if he won’t make anyone else costumes without asking her first. He quietly agrees with her, and she then proceeds to give him “confidence,” which entails turning off the light and starting a hot makeout session. She tells him that if he needs more confidence she is always willing to have sex with him while cosplaying (no I’m not making that up) and they shift the scene away, with some auditory suggestions that they proceeded to do the deed. The epilogue shows Ohno cosplaying as the aforementioned ero game character, to the surprise of the rest of the clubroom when Kuchiki walks into the room with the same costume, to everyone’s amusement.

Next Episode:

Not totally sure what’s going on for the next episode, looks like some yaoi so maybe it’s an Oguie episode. The next episode is titled “Madarame Full Uke,” and uke is the submissive partner in a relationship according to DB, so who the hell knows. Guess we will have to watch and find out~

Impressions:

I really enjoyed this episode, despite the fact that it was short on comedy and more focused on development. The first season of Genshiken was heavy on introducing the characters and providing insight into otaku culture through mostly humor. The shift in the second season toward less comedy and more development is fine with me, as this season so far has brought more depth to the characters and how they relate to one another. If I want more pure comedy I can always put in my DVDs of the first season. And after the first season and OVAs the characters we’re kind of at an impasse development wise, so something new had to come along.

Now Ohno has not been my favorite character in Genshiken, mainly because of her jealousy streak everytime Tanaka makes a costume for someone else. I mean, I kind of understand that she wants him for herself but that’s gone a little too far in the past. However, the two characters are pretty much ordained to be a couple from the start, their interests and personalities match extremely well. So in the end I’m satisfied that they finally got it over with, so to speak. That being said I was surprised at how few punches they pulled in describing first off how little experience either had with relationships, apparently neither of them had even kissed anyone before. In addition, Tanaka admitted that he had been imagining or practicing scenarios in his head modeled on his experiences in ero games for when he finally had a chance to act on them. They didn’t portray it in a funny light like “haha what losers,” instead portraying the situation realistically, as I’m sure there are people out there like Tanaka who really don’t know what else to do. I will admit the makeout scene was pretty hot, and the transition from their moaning/grunting to Sasahara’s emphatic drinking of his tea made me laugh. It was quite the impressive end to the episode.

However! Despite all of that seriousness and relationship material there was some funny to be had! Kuchiki being an ass and asking the obvious questions bluntly like how is there no way you guys aren’t banging all night while cosplaying was pretty hilarious. The other funny scene was when Ohno was forcing Tanaka to play an ero game with her. I felt for the man, the amount of awkwardness I would feel playing an ero game with a girl I liked would be astronomical. In the end she makes it up to him though. I mean, if I had a dime for every time an attractive, big breasted girl said she would have sex with me while cosplaying I’d have…..nothing, and that makes me sad.