Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo suru

[Ryllharu]

By Her Holiness Hayase Nagatoro's will, they've entered the flirt-teasing-backfire phase of their relationship…

I'm impressed that Gojo learned to make an overbust corset for Marin's costume, and has upgraded his skills from straight cloth Japanese clothes to goth lolita and now actual tailoring. He's really thorough in upgrading his trade craft. There's professional youtube seamstresses who fuck up making corsets the first time.

I also like the experienced cosplayer (tape, makeup shades) vs zero hesitation dedication cosplayer (reminder that she shaved her eyebrows off totally) dynamic between Marin and Juju. It's like they're trading skill tips and secrets with each other, and while Marin is obviously the less experienced, they both sort of make the other jealous in a healthy way.

Shinju and Wakana really are alike in so many ways. It's endearing how perfectly they get along.

[Kraco]

Episode 10


- - - - - -



The shirt selection of that fashionable store was seriously such that I'd only wear them at a BBQ party.

It really does look like all the cosplayer girls are falling for Gojou. Even the tsundere Juju can't help but confess aloud she had fun in his company, their first meeting notwithstanding. But then again, he's a dude with high cloth making skills, even higher dedication to the craft, and an exceedingly understanding attitude and respect for other people's hobbies, so it's natural they would appreciate him.

[Ryllharu]

An all-around heart-warming episode.

Not really much more to say about it, other than Marin is getting less intelligible every episode.

[KrayZ33]

It's actually amazing how they keep drawing the gal in the most beautiful way in every single episode.

And it's weird that a show can somehow be about 2 people doing stuff they like and remain normal, while still be entertaining to watch.
It just works without all the unnecessary drama around it when a girl hangs out with a boy.

The usual super timid-guy-trope aside of course.

[David75]

He's not timid, he's protecting Marin from himself :-)

[KrayZ33]

Episode 11:



nice. hot.

[Kraco]

It was a love hotel, so at least that much had to happen. It was pretty good progress as well for their relationship, although Gojou obviously will still not even dream of asking Marin to become his girlfriend.

[shinta|hikari]

Does Gojo even like Marin in a romantic sense? Sure he is sexually attracted to her, but he doesn't seem to harbor any feelings beyond close friendship.

[Kraco]

Does Gojo even like Marin in a romantic sense? Sure he is sexually attracted to her, but he doesn't seem to harbor any feelings beyond close friendship.

Would he need to put it into words? We already know he considers her beautiful and attractive (which is a big deal for him, due to personal reasons), he admires her personality, energy, and social skills, he fully shares her respect for other people's varied hobbies and interests, he has a whole lot of fun just being in her company and doing mundane stuf with her, and, like you said, he's sexually attracted to her. He has more going on for a love than great many characters in myriad series. If he doesn't seem to be clearly in love with her, I'd say it's because he's really shy and wouldn't dare to dream of making a girlfriend out of the popular class beauty, as he considers himself almost an outcast or at the very least an invisible loner.

[shinta|hikari]

I mean, he also blushes and feels sexual attraction to the imouto character, or even Juju. Actual romantic interest requires realization of your own feelings, or if not, hints of it being specifically romantic attraction, like jealousy and what not. He doesn't even know he has or express such interest in her and behaves pretty much the same as with the other girls.

[Ryllharu]

He didn't think he "was worthy" of being her friend until she set him straight, what makes you think he is in any mental position to believe that she loves him?

The signs of genuine affection (i.e. beyond lust) he has for Marin have been there, like the quiet beach moments, watching anime on the couch together, and so on. But every time he has a lust-filled desire, like the end of this episode, he doubts himself again and it resets.

It is gonna be Marin's struggle to convince him of his own worthiness before he'll admit to allowing himself to love her back.

Sajuna has no chance, because she very prominently has zero experience with men of any kind. Wakana spent the last...however many years isolating himself. It's going to take some time for Marin to pry him back open.

[KrayZ33]

In every other show we would have accepted him as madly im love.
Why do we start questioning it this time around?

It's pretty obvious to me that he loves her.
Being sexually attracted towards each other is also part of it.

Whether he realizes it himself is another question of course. After all, anime-characters have to be dumb. Otherwise a story like this one wouldn't work.

[shinta|hikari]

Because with the introduction of the other girls who like him, this has become a harem show, and in most harem shows, the MC doesn't really fall in love with a specific girl until the end, or he gets together with all the girls. There are outliers like Monogatari and Bunny-senpai, though, but both of those established a couple very early on.

[Ryllharu]

What.

In no way is this show a harem, just like the claims that Marin is a Manic-Pixie Dream Girl.

They've set it up very clearly from the start to be the main single pairing. Sajuna has no chance. Her blushing interest in Wakana is set up and used as a gag. Shinju and Wakana have a weird admiration for each other in terms of technical skills, but also not romantic interest in any form, despite Wakana being a boob guy. The only mutual romantic interest is between Wakana and Marin.

It lacks the other mainstay of the harem genre, the male lead being a self-insert for the audience. Wakana might have social anxiety about his hobby that is prevalent in the anime community, but his skilled artisan talents are rather unsupportive of audience insert. They make it relatable by framing it in the guise of how into their hobbies everyone in the cast is.

Most critically, the girls all have lives outside of the view of the protagonist, as discussed in the post where I went off on this not being a Manic-Pixie Dream Girl series. The only girl with low self-esteem is Shinju, which they've somewhat resolved, and Marin very specifically (and quite peculiarly) self-conscious about how she'd look in half-pigtails. None of them are strictly archetypes, in fact, the series goes out of its way to subvert that expectation each time. The girls have goals, and Wakana furthers those goals, but they don't express romantic gratitude because of it.
- Sajuna wanted to cosplay the characters she loves, and what she actually got out of it was a closer relationship with her own sister in their mutual hobbies.
- Ditto for Shinju.
- Marin's romantic trigger was pulled after a significant amount of personal back and forth (i.e. developing a relationship) where she learned about his preferred and limited use of the word "beautiful" and he called her it invertedly in his sleep. Their interactions get all the nuance and depth.

Wakana's entire window in all this is Marin, solely and completely. He would have never met Sajuna, and then by extension Shinju, without Marin driving the entire interactions.

Will the series stall out, pause on their relationship like Monogatari and Bunny-senpai to recode itself as a harem series? I don't know. But it sure isn't one now. That's like saying Horimiya or Kimi no Todoke are harem series.

[shinta|hikari]

I'll bet 5 bucks this is going the harem route, just because.

[Kraco]

I'll still keep believing this won't end up as a harem, even if it has a bunch of female characters and a single male MC. Of course you can never trust a manga/anime and especially the intended target audience of Japanese otaku. If this became a stale harem show, it would certainly hurt all the effort it invested into depicting cosplaying as a hobby. Of course the romance plot would be destroyed. It would seem counterproductive to drop everything making the show unique, just to make it the random harem show number 25639659, but like I said, you can never trust the Japanese entertainment industry in this particular matter. On the other hand, not every single successful story in Japan has been a harem one, so the otaku aren't totally obsessed with harem.

[neflight86]

One thing/trope this show has employed perhaps more than any other in my memory, is the "so caught up in the passion of our hobby that I/we forget just how compromising a position we are putting ourselves in". For both of the leads. I understand it serves a purpose to get these two mounted on a bed, and the scene was well directed, animated, and appropriately awkward/cute, but come on. Gojo was super conscious of how inappropriate and lewd this could be, but still, like a switch, forgot his inhibitions... At least Marin was already an airhead when it comes to cosplay, but she was so unguarded that it suggests she has never had any significant contact with a member of the opposite sex. Maybe she hasn't, but I thought she was supposed to be mega popular?

Okay, enough griping. This was a good episode and they main couple is still cute.

'Harem' is a difficult term to define (in anime, anyway). Yes, pretty much all of the female leads are 'interested' in Gojo, but only one of them are framed as having even the slightest chance of being with him. I think that ultimately makes the difference in a harem versus a pseudo harem, which is what I think we have here.

[KrayZ33]

END

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Well.

That was a sweet ending.
Not sure if I want more though.

The animation was great and I could probably watch that kind of thing forever but I wonder how a second season would even entertain me.

Their hobbies aren't really something I can get behind as an interesting plot point.
Unless they go "professional".

[Kraco]

Yeah, this felt like it was meant to be an end of a season episode, or the end of the whole anime. In a certain sense the most crucial points of the series have already been made. The manga is ongoing, and I'm looking forward to every chapter (it's not even that far ahead), but I'd say after this point, more or less, the author will face a whole lot bigger challenge in keeping the story interesting. The main characters are firmly established and the novelty of the core setting has worn off. One fundamental factor of increased difficulty is that the story didn't set any bigger goal(s) far into the future, so the long road to such a point is not present. That's what keeps many sports or other competition heavy series going.

This was best series of the season for me. But then again, I was only watching three series.

[DarthEnderX]

So...these series basically always end season 1 at the fireworks festival, huh?

Like, I'm relatively new to this genre, and I think I've seen this exact episode done, like, 5 times already.