“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

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Oh Anshin’in-san…

Summary

[…It’s All Fiction!]

Impression

Pi818o.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.”

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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.

Pi829Far 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].

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This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. dainsleaf

    its a bit spoilerish but I will explain a bit about All Fiction

    [spoiler]All Fiction is not Kumagawa’s main Minus, or at least not his original. Its kind of true that it is the minus that he used the most but it is actually not his minus or at least not originally his minus.
    Kumagawa’s true minus is something called Book Maker, it is very powerful minus which took the form of a giant screw with minus sign on it, anyone who stabbed by this screw will have their mental and physical capabilities reduced to Kumagawa’s level (effectively transforming them into loser and sealing any abilities that they have).
    However, at the time when he was featured in Good Loser Kumagawa he didn’t have that minus, and it also never mentioned during his battle against Medaka in the middle school… why???
    Because Kumagawa lose it…
    in the past Kumagawa shows interest in Anshin’in-san and at that time started to think that he is falling for her. However, as Kumagawa worried that he might only love Anshin’in-san because she is cute, Kumagawa decided to rip Anshin’in-san’s face something that enrage Medaka and got her into a fight with Kumagawa. At the same time (not sure whether it is truly the same time or might be later after or before Medaka’s fight against Kumagawa) Kumagawa realize the true nature and Identity of Anshin’in-san. He fought against Anshin’in-san and while he managed to defeat her he unable to kill her and only managed to seal her with his Book Maker…
    The result of this fight is that Kumagawa managed to defeat and seal Anshin’in-san… problem is at that time he also lose the power of Book Maker because Anshin’in-san managed to took it from him, however he also managed to stole one of Anshin’in-san’s skill… The Hundred Gauntlets.
    However Hundred Gauntlets is Anshin’in-san’s skill not Kumagawa’s which means he is unable to use it…
    having no minus at that time he was easily defeted by enraged Medaka…
    At later point… Kumagawa managed to modify Anshin’in-san’s Hundred Gauntlets and created a new minus which existence is directly linked to Hundred Gauntlets: All Fiction…
    using All Fiction Kumagawa Erased Anshin’in-san from this world… something that causes all people to forgot about her existence…
    However, Anshin’in-san being a Godlike existence can’t be erased completely and Kumagawa knows that one day when the power of All Fiction weakens and The seal of Book Makers wears off… Anshin’in-san will return…
    so in order to stop his beloved Anshin’in-san.. he must find someone who possess powerful skill to defeat her…[/spoiler]

    1. Vantage

      Added spoiler tags – some anime-only watchers may not be happy with having such a massive spoiler bomb dropped. It does make sense now though, so thank you for that 🙂

  2. dainsleaf

    sorry for the spoiler, I don’t know hot to use the spoiler tags…
    and for some clarification…

    Kumagawa attends Suisou Gakuen before he transferred to Hakoniwa, probably in the same year after a certain battle with no winner resulted in the closure of Suisou Gakuen. This means he attends Suisou (High School) after his fight with Medaka (in middle school) and before he transferred to Hakoniwa(High School).

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