Maybe if you dyed your hair red, but probably not

Without actually counting the seconds, I would say about half of this episode is in “English.” Or at least, the best English three seiyuu could manage, which wasn’t bad considering. As the episode’s title suggests, a couple of Ohno’s friend’s from the States come for a surprise visit and interaction with Genshiken.

The episode starts off with an awkward conversation between Sasahara, Ohno, and Ogiue about their plans for the upcoming Comic Fest, where they plan to sell Ogiue’s yaoi doujinshi. Ogiue is ahead of the game and has already sent out her manuscript to the printers and won’t let anyone else read it until it is in book form. She also tells Sasahara that he can never read it since a female wouldn’t want a man to read her yaoi, Ohno seemingly realizing she means she doesn’t want the guy she likes to read her dirty, dirty yaoi. Sasahara continues to belittle himself due to his depression over his inability to find a job, I guess going for the pity angle here. On their way home Ohno thinks on how lucky she was to have Tanaka, who wasn’t as weak as Sasahara when it came to women, and ponders whether or not the timing is right for Sasa x Ogiue. In the clubroom Madarame waits alone when a blonde girl shows up and starts speaking in English, and he freaks. It gets even worse when she goes over and glomp hugs him, eventually being saved when Ohno walks in and reprimands Angela. Another blonde girl comes in, this one much shorter and called Sue or Suzy, looking at Madarame staring at her and doing her best Asuka.

Ogiue and Sasahara also show up and are similarly accosted by her anime catchphrase library. When everything gets setttled, Ohno reveals that her two friends showed up at the airport all of a sudden, wanting to see Comic Fest. Ohno, Angela, and Suzy later go over to Tanaka’s, where Angela tries to convince him to make her a cosplay costume to wear to Comic Fest, and he agrees to try and see if it can be made in time. After a conversation with Ohno about how Japanese males would be intimidated by her forceful behavior, Angela tries a more subtle approach alone with Madarame at the clubroom. She invites him to read together with her, which turns out pretty pleasantly for the both of them for the most part. Although she can’t help herself in the end, and holds onto his hand while longingly looking into his eyes, but this time he is saved by the arrival of Kohsaka and Kasukabe, the latter of which speaks English. In the epilogue, Kuchiki is sneaking outside the clubroom and hears the girls talking in English and appears to get really excited and runs off, crashing into a wall outside.

Next Episode:

The next episode is another Comic Fest episode, although the second half of the preview shows Suzy chasing Ogiue around the bath and eventually flashing her a full frontal, haha.

Impressions:

I was half expecting a couple of American’s who sound like Kate from Sketchbook, but the two visiting otaku barely used any Japanese at all. There was a ton of English in this episode, and the seiyuu that did Angela actually did a pretty good job speaking English, even if she spoke it kinda slow. Ohno and Kasukabe’s VAs didn’t sound quite as good, with a much heavier Japanese accent on their English. The show obviously had someone with a decent grasp of English actually write the script, as there were no real glaring grammatical errors that plague much of the attempts in anime. The one weird part was pointed out by Hinano, where they kept using the word sensible instead of sensitive. I mean, both words would kinda work most of the time, but sensitive would fit better. And I don’t know what the on-screen kanji said so maybe it said sensitive. There were a couple of other odds and ends that didn’t quite match up, but once again, they were not too glaring. It was kind of awkward to listen to, although they did the best job of any anime I can remember of having decent grammar and well spoken English almost throughout.

The other thing I wanted to comment on about them was the fact that they are blonde and blue eyed. I don’t know where the Japanese get this impression of Americans, the blonde/blue eyed combination is a fairly small minority. Maybe they have to do that to give the characters a unique trait to separate them from the locals. I mean factually speaking dark hair colors like black and brown dominate American hair colors, but I suppose that wouldn’t make them look different enough to be foreign in an anime. If I remember my genetics from back in high school blue eyes and I think blonde hair are recessive genes. Their character types weren’t wildly out of place though, I know people that are aggressive and flirtatious, as well as pop culture addict irritating. So Angela’s character was fine with me, but Suzy was on the annoying side. That didn’t keep me from laughing when she said “anta baka” or “okaeri nasai, goushoujin-sama” in the middle of the street however.

The first 1/3 of the episode about Ogiue and Sasahara’s tensions is the most contributive plot wise, but it kinda gets buried by the overpowering Americans. The sexual tension between the two is pretty obvious, and Ohno is trying her best to moderate it, but hasn’t succeeded in working out a solution yet. It isn’t realistic to expect Sasahara to come out and ask her out at this point in time with his depression over the job situation, he is already shy as it is without that type of problem. I’m sure he feels that Ogiue doesn’t like him at all and that he is a worthless individual who can’t even find a job. However, I’m sure it will turn out well in the end, I don’t see Genshiken as the type of show that produces a lot of melodrama and a rejection ending. Now if only Kasukabe would dump that idiot Kousaka and get it on with Madarame we would have a perfect ending in the works….

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