the weight watchers chapter

“I love you from the back of my knee navel of my belly spaces between my toes tips of my fingers fat of my belly… GET IN MAH BELLY!”

Another month, another KatanagaAmagami SS post. The fifth heroine, Rihoko Sakurai, is, quite frankly, the oddball. Whereas the previous four heroines all fell desperately in love with Junichi on high elevation on Christmas thus helping him overcome his Christmas-phobia, she doesn’t! In fact, she evades capturing all together. What the heck? Can we have a “let’s awkwardly be friends” ending right after bonking with Ai in a hot spring or filming a threesome with Sae and Miya?

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Speaking of Sae and Ai… the guy has routes for both of his sister’s friends plus his sister. Junichi is the poor man’s Keima. Whereas Keima takes about a week to complete his captures, Junichi takes much longer, but he still gets the job done and the same way as Keima– by filling in the gaps of the hearts of the girls. Let’s see… Sae needed confidence and self-esteem… Ai needed to get over her swimming (which was almost exactly like Minami’s arc for TWGOK)… Kaoru needed to overcome her family problems… and Haruka needed the back of her knees licked like a puppy.

(If there’s anything anime has taught me, it’s that filling in gaps of the heart is an effective technique. That’ll be the name of the self-help book I’m writing, “Filing in the Gaps of the Hearts, Strategies for Life Learned Through Watching Too Much Anime.”)

(Damn, this show needed an Elsee. A clumsy bug demon who has a name no one can agree to a spelling to. I like the fansubs where it flips from “Elsie” to “Elsee” to “Elsea” during a single episode. At least it’s better than the original manga translations that named her “Erushi”.)

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Rihoko’s needs? To be loved by Junichi. And to stop eating. We spend 80% of this arc about Rihoko’s constant fail diet. I was hoping for Junichi to capture Rihoko at the end just so we can get the ten year time skip (a la Haruka’s ending) to see if Rihoko passed three bills by that point and screams “GET IN MAH BELLY!” at every donut, mochi, melon-shaped bread, eclair, and cakii she comes across. Sigh.

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But never fear. I have a radical weight loss plan. Guaranteed to lose 90% of your body weight overnight. Just involves eating a lot of crab…

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Also like Rihoko trying to justify eating cakii by saying that she’ll work it off later but gives up working out five minutes into it. Good job. Five minutes of low impact exercise… maybe one calorie vs. a slice of 400 calorie cakii. She has to run for an hour to burn it off.

(If I were meaner, I would type something like, “No wonder Junichi didn’t confess to her like the other haremettes. He knows at this rate she’s going to weigh more than Oprah in a few years.”)

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Enjoyed the scene where she got stuck in the fence. That has to be tremendously embarrassing for a high school girl. Best part about the scene was that after she gets stuck, she heads straight for the tea club and chows down on snacks.

(I shouldn’t be making fun of eating disorders, but only harem anime can try to turn eating disorders into a moe mode.)

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Also this arc featured not one, not two, but three of Rihoko’s friends trying to set her up with Junichi. This arc also seemed to want to tell the story from Rihoko’s perspective rather than Junichi’s (like TWGOK‘s Minami and Yui arcs), and this story might have benefited from it. Except they still talk about Junichi getting stood up on Christmas Eve and completely forget about that storyline two episodes in.

(I like snow scenes. I dunno why. Maybe I’m missing my old pre-California life. Sigh.)

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Wait, the Tea Club sits around, goofs off, and eat snacks? I thought that was the Light Music Club! I thought the Tea Club was supposed to play instruments and make boooootiful music.

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俺の妹がこんなに可愛いわけがない.

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Junichi’s friend, Umehara, keeps calling him up and asking him if he wants to watch pr0n together. Uh, isn’t that awkward?

(Cliches in anime complete obsolete today: watching pr0n with your buddies. With the huge stock of easy-to-find pr0n on the interwebs, why would you want to watch dusty VHS takes with your friends? Even if you do a back-to-back rule, it’s still awkward. Come on anime, keep up with the times. You’d think if there was any genre that was tech savvy, it would be one from Japan.)

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“Don’t worry! We’ll save the earth from the Zentradi!”

*planet blows up*

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Was there any doubt Junichi would join the Tea Club and save it? Was there any doubt Ui and Bad Friend Jun would do the same for Azu-nyan?

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And, of course, couldn’t be Amagami if body parts weren’t sucked, but we already did finger sucking! Gah, quite re-using material. It’s not like Enterbrain had to reuse the childhood friend stereotype. Oh wait…

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Since we’re almost done with the series, in terms of arc rankings (rather than haremette, which I’ll get to with Tsukasa’s wrap up post)… I’ll go with…

6. Rihoko’s Arc… bored me the most. Most of the dialogue featured her talking about cakii and dieting and pining for Junichi. I would give it a better score if she pined for Junichi with a table or a pillow or something.

5. Kaoru’s Arc… such a disappointment at the end. You’d think we’d get better resolution out of Wild Animal Sex Hair.

4. Sae’s arc… only because it was becoming clear that Junichi and Sae’s destiny were to become Dirk Diggler and Rollergirl.

3. Haruka’s arc… got me hooked on this show. You had me to “back of the knee”. Sadly, I hoped for more inappropriate body parts to be sucked and/or licked, but sigh. Disappointed we haven’t had an elbow, ear, or nipple involved yet.

2. Tsukasa’s arc (projected)… it’s like the decaf, non-fat soy latte version of Koyomi and Tsubasa. Best case scenario.

1. Ai’s arc… she won me over with the hot springs scene and her witty dialogue.

10 Responses to “the weight watchers chapter”

  1. Yeah. I kept watching it, and felt like I was watching the same three episodes over and over. I was all like thinking: “Oh man, they are running out of time to wrap this up!” Then…nothing happened.

    I watched it three days ago, and I am still flabbergasted. At least the new arc looks promising.

  2. And.. no capture of Junichi. She failed so badly, it wasn’t funny. As for Sae’s arc… the costly ending felt… well, that will be awkward for the kids.

  3. Cosplay, even. And I thought the Miya ‘arc’ wasn’t exactly one at all?

    P.S.: Maria+Holic v05 manga out. Natsuru in a camisole…!

  4. Nobuharu… I feel your pain. I thought there would be a climax but all we got was an implication that they’d remain platonic friends forever, and Rihoko was satisfied with that.

    I agree with Jason’s rankings except I would rank Haruka better than Ai. Most suprising arc? Ai. Didn’t expect to like her at all.

  5. Someone should tell her that sex burns a helluva lot of calories. That might have made this arc a bit more interesting.

  6. Also, am I the only one making a link between Umehara calling him “boss” and constantly inviting him over for gaming and pr0n reading/watching?”

  7. Erufen, you’re right on all accounts, something for the viewers and the writers to keep in mind definitely.
    I agree with the rankings, but I’m torn between the placement of Sae and Haruka, simply because that cocktease outfit that Sae wore at the theatre was just FABULOUS.

  8. It was a bit cute, but still pretty uneventful. Love Miya’s revenge on Junichi by making him get out of his bath just before his date with Rihoko. And her smirk when he ended up flashing them both – exquisite.

    My rankings would go:

    6. Haruka: Creepy.
    5. Kaoru: Meh.
    4. Rihoko : Cute, but still meh.
    3. Ai: I was very pleased to find out she was snarky. Plus Miya content.
    2. Tsukasa – Hopefully. It shows more promise for conflict than all of the other arcs at least, and that’s what this show sorely lacks.
    1. Sai – Mikuru clone + Miya = :3 If they’d replaced the creepy narrator with Miya there’s no way this arc could be topped. With less Miya it would be on a level similar to Ai’s.
    0. Miya – her episode will probably disappoint, but she steals the show for me every time she’s on screen since she’s not just a doormat for Junichi to walk over like all the other girls. That’s the main difference between Keima and Junichi is that Keima has to work for his victories, where Junichi can act however he likes, and they get handed to him.

  9. 1.- No real ending for Rihoko = RAGE.
    2.- Haruka and Ai, best arcs.
    3- Sae arc, worst arc ever. Her voice was unbearable, and the seiyuu for the narrator used the same voice he used for the okama in Shangri-la, which not only was annoying, but made me remember how awful that series was.
    4.- I have great expectations for Tsukasa’s arc. My body is ready.
    5.- Kaoru’s arc, dissapoint.jpg
    6.- Miya’s episode will deliver, if only because of her awesomeness and HHHNNNGGG-inducing skills. Such powerful skills.
    7.- Please, Hibiki episode and Rihoko’s friend episode. PLEASE.
    8.- CRAB IS DELICIOUS. No exceptions.

  10. Rihoko’s gap is the gap in her stomach, and even though she knew that Junichi could fill it, she just didn’t have the courage or the guile to pull it off. Poor girl.

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