Oh boy, it’s Thursday already? That must mean that it’s time for another episode of Saenai. And i’m so damn excited for it. I mean I had to choose to either watch this or have a root canal performed and, since this isn’t Vanadis, this won out.
Anyhoozle, let’s get started. So the plot starts up with Summer Comiket about to start in a few days and Eriri has to finish her doujin for it. Tomoya’s helping, but of course he’s being a whiny complainer about it. Because, you know, that’s what he does.
Since they’re all stuck there, in the meantime Kato decides she’s going to try the dating sim that Tomoya likes (which we find out was originally Eriri’s that Tomoya never returned) And she’s going to go after the childhood friend (aka the same character that Eriri likes.)
After a while of working on her doujin, Eriri finishes and decides to play the game herself.
We then cut to the Comiket As Tomoya is there to help his friend from last episode Izumi sell her doujins.
It’s at this point that Tomoya reads the doujin and realizes that it’s really good. He then decides everyone has to know and blows up a page and makes a giant sign and calls people over to buy it.
And with his help, they sell all of the issues.
See, this would ALMOST be considered nice of him. ALMOST considered like he did something good. And then you realize exactly what him doing this means.
Eriri had come to the Comiket and saw this. She is upset and Tomoya confronts her about it. She responds with being understandably upset about how despite all the years of them knowing each other, Tomoya had never once gotten that excited over one of her releases. He never put forth that same amount of effort into showing how much he appreciated her art.
It really seems to her that he’s just using her, and he doesn’t even think she’s the best artist he knows. And really…I can understand her feelings on that.
He gives excuses such as “oh, your doujins are different then hers” or “you don’t need my help to sell your doujins.” But he never gives her a straight answer. In fact, when she asks him point blank if he thinks her doujins are better than Izumi’s, he can’t even answer her.
Extremely upset, she runs away.
Honestly, this show. Even when the show thinks it’s giving Tomoya something to do that is nice, he’s actually STILL being a douchebag.
I…I don’t know what this show wants me to think of this guy. Does it WANT me to like him? Because I can’t. I’ve tried..and I just can’t. Even when he’ll do something that can be construed as nice, he’ll have another scene where he’s calling people who buy manga trash.
When it comes to this show, I do like the girls. They’re all kind of growing on me, but this guy. I just…I can’t with this guy. He really really rubs me the wrong way. It would be one thing if he were an anti-social nerd who doesn’t know how to act around people, but this guy knows better. He is an elitist asshole. He thinks he knows better, and he treats people’s opinions other than his own like dirt and ignores them. Even when he’s doing something “nice” it’s for his own agenda for what he deems worthy.
He does not care for other people in the way you should and is a selfish jerk.
I don’t care what they’re trying to do with this guy. I don’t care if they want to make him “grow”. I’m too disgusted with him to care. The only reason I want to keep watching this is for the girls, and I want him to fail. He bothers me on so many levels.
Eriri is completely in her right to be pissed off. I would be too. All these girls deserve so much better. they deserve to be happy. All this guy is doing is stringing them along with his oblivious stance on his relationship status and using that as emotional blackmail to have them work on his project.
You see at this point there’s 2 options. 1. he KNOWS they have a crush on him and he’s using this as emotional blackmail. Or 2. He doesn’t realize it and is JUST THAT CLUELESS. And it’s to the point that it’s so obvious that it’s unbelievable. And that’s not good writing.
I hope he gets his just desserts. I really do.
Episode 5/10 (because Eriri had some scenes)
-Hideki
They… really built up Tomoya and showed once again that despite his over-developed Otaku nature he can come through where it counts, and then they tore him down in that last sequence.
Except… not really. I mean, selling 18+ doujinshi is a whole other story especially if you’re going to post it on your blog/are known for running one. It’d change the nature of it all, along with the people who visit it.
She and Tomoya need to spend more time together, like they were doing before Kato was done cooking, it’s not about the doujins. This is unless Eriri didn’t always sell 18+ doujins and didn’t always have her parents doing the selling. It’s a little hard to get past that last part even if you didn’t mind selling 18+ doujins.
I guess a few other things are, well, why is Hashima still hiding like that from his sister – is he working his way up as a surprise? Is really not supposed to be an antagonist, but the other side of the same coin as Tomoya?
Sure he has more success, but he’s not actually a creator. I wonder if that’s his plight and his shame – so that’s why he hasn’t told Izumi. He just markets. Sure, charisma is a skill, but he’s also just naturally good-looking. At least Tomoya had to put in work, rather than doing more than just favours (or so it seems that’s all Hashima did).
If that’s all true, hopefully he can be shown the joys of being a creator if that’s what he really wants to be and stop being stuck as a serviceman.