Medaka Box Abnormal Episode 12 [Final]: Good Loser Kumagawa

“At the moment, we need to come up with an episode’s worth of material since the writers didn’t plan accurately. Of course, I could continue talking for 30 minutes, but we really should tell his story.” – Anshin’in-san

Summary

[…It’s All Fiction!]

Impression

o.O What? Why is Anshin’in-san here? And in her school uniform as well – oh god, Gainax you tease. It definitely wasn’t…necessary to include her in this arc (much less the OP) but I greatly appreciate it nonetheless, as she’s one of my favourite characters in the manga, as is Kumagawa. She’s going to constantly be breaking the fourth wall during her arc, which is after the Class Minus 13 one, so you might as well get used to it now. Helpfully, she’s also revealed lots of info about herself and some later plot points, including the mentality of the Not Equal – if Medaka is an Abnormal with a Plus mentality, and Kumagawa is a Minus, then Anshin’in-san would be a Not Equal. It’d be awkward to explain right now, so let’s just ignore it xD To be honest, I wouldn’t have minded listening to her talk for 30 minutes instead…

“A Minus among Minuses, a Kafka among Kafkas, a Crawling Minus among Crawling Chaos. This is a story about Kumagawa Misogi-kun.”

Personally, I think the decision to animate the “Good Loser Kumagawa” side story that appeared as a one-shot in Jump NEXT serves to introduce us to Kumagawa, some of the tendencies he has and just generally give us some insight into the way he does things, as he’ll be the chief antagonist of the next arc in the story. With Kumagawa, references to Shounen Jump will make themselves clear, and this show will become more satirical than ever – because with any shounen, the ideals of friendship, effort and victory (as well as plot armour) always make themselves present, and therefore the protagonists, Medaka and Zenkichi will always prevail in the end. As an antagonist, Kumagawa is forever on the losing side no matter how powerful his skills may be, hence why he’s a “good loser”. I was actually quite surprised at how he managed to find a friend in the presumably-Normal Sukinasaki Saki, until her personality completely flipped over and I began to suspect that she has to be an Abnormal at least, if not a Minus.

Far too much info that will be revealed later ended up being revealed anyway, and the term Minus was thrown around quite a lot – the mentality of a Minus will always be negative, dark and pessimistic, usually arising from childhood trauma or a past incident that resulted in the person always thinking of negative and perverse thoughts. People like Kumagawa who are Minuses don’t possess Abnormalities; instead they possess a “Minus” which is born out of constant negativity, and is sometimes uncontrollable. They generally have bad effects as well, but not all of them are like that – it depends on the circumstances. Anyway, I was surprised to see Kumagawa’s main Minus, All Fiction being used – from my knowledge, Medaka destroyed Kumagawa once in middle school (as shown through various flashbacks) and it’s been mentioned that he never had All Fiction then, and that he developed it between that battle and arriving at Hakoniwa Academy – so why would he have it while being the Student Council President at Suisou Academy? Anyway, it’s a very fitting skill for an antagonist to have – it can undo existence, and literally make anything [become nothing].

Things that exist, like clothes or wounds can just be undone, which is why Kumagawa could easily undo the damage he received from Ezumachi. With Ezumachi’s Abnormality “Colour of Beauty”, the fact that the blue bruises he sustained were only simulated injuries meant they were non-existent, and so he was easily defeated, and presumably killed – as another fact they decided to showcase was All Fiction’s ability to make Kumagawa’s death [become nothing], and instead every time he dies he meets Anshin’in-san in a classroom, whom he wants to beat for a certain reason. As Anshin’in-san has both Plus and Minus abilities, she’s transcended the mentality of both types of people and become a Not Equal, with 12,858,051,967,633,865 skills in total. That’s ridiculous – but they’ll develop it properly in the future.

How very Kumagawa-like to oppose Ezumachi because he wants girls to be able to choose the colour of their own panties sighs But yeah, that rematch just goes to show that All Fiction’s power is nearly unlimited – because he can make the existence of age-old concepts disappear as well, to the point that the whole world can be robbed of its colour, just like in a manga xD And that’s why Kumagawa is so dangerous as an antagonist – in addition to his Minus mentality, he’s got this skill has to be controlled, because if he’s not careful, even the whole world could [become nothing].