Well we’re back to the part 2 of the “Girl who’s going to marry against her will” story arc, and guess what? They wrap it up today! I know. Crazy concept that we’re not taking four episodes to wrap something up. (Yes i’m still pissed about that) Now last week I was really excited to see this week’s episode. Now the question is, did it live up to my expectations? Well let’s start it up and i’ll let you know.
So the episode begins with Kagami coming up with a plan to deal with the arranged marriage of the girl from last episode with the CEO of the American gaming company.
Meanwhile, the guy they’re speaking of, just beat a really hard game in an arcade to the accolades of people around him. Okay, so his company made ‘King Halo’ and he’s from the US. Let’s see. What name did they give him?
PFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Hell Gates? Really really subtle guys. Hell Gates….from the company that owns Halo, aka the game that runs on the Microsoft Xbox. Nice. They even SAY that he’s the son of the founder of Microsoft. So Bill, say hello to your son.
Anyway, just like you’d expect, he’s kind of an egotistical jerk. But he’s American, so you know, par for the course.
Okay, I have to have a side commentary here. How come nearly every show I watch whenever there’s an American, no matter what their age has them speaking perfect Japanese? This guy, the president of the USA from Gate, Patty from Lucky Star, actually, so far the only show that i’ve seen that has gotten it right in recent times was “Punch Line” and that’s pretty sad.
If you’re going to have an American be in this show guys, have them have at least some bad Japanese, like…not saying expressions correctly or using fragmented sentences. Honestly I would say hire some foreigners that are in your area. I’m certain there are some foreigners in Tokyo you could hire. I didn’t even know this guy was American until they told me. Come on guys, throw me a bone here.
Anyway, one rant later, Hells Gate shows up at Kagami’s house and tells Madoka (the girl) that he wants her to come with him to America now. To which Kagami breaks it up by pouring water on the guy’s head.
Kagami then tells Hells Gate that he is her fiance and they’re going to get married. Annoyed by this, they decide on her hand by a video game duel. Kagami vs Hells Gate on the new, unreleased game King Halo 3. If Kagami wins, he has to give up on this corporate takeover. If Hells Gate wins, not only does he get Madoka, but Kagami can never play another video game as long as he lives. The stage is set and they leave.
During the interim he asks both the maid girl and ‘anime voice’ (Who were fighting over him outside the door) to help him out by asking them to play King Halo 2 with him.
They, having never played the game are of course terrible, doing noob things like walking into walls and shooting each other. However this is apparently what Kagami wanted.
So the time comes for the big duel. Hells Gate has his hubris, but Kagami begins to recreate the same actions that the two girls did. Because of this, it causes a game breaking glitch that causes everyone in the playable area to lose their weapons.
Using this advantage, Kagami defeats Hell Gates and wins back Madoka.
However, unable to take this loss sitting down, he challenges Kagami again to Kings Halo 2 with no glitches or cheats. Kagami refuses at first, but finally relents and then beats Hell Gates into the ground.
However after his loss, Gates does relent on the corporate takeover thing, but still won’t give up on Madoka, stating that he loves her even more.
See, this is where I would get annoyed with the episode IF Madoka realized that he wasn’t that bad of a guy and wanted to be with him.
BUUUTTTT shocking I have to say, they don’t do that. INSTEAD what they do, is reveal that Madoka really DOES love Kagami, and wants him to propose to her in the future.
And that’s where the episode ends.
Now I know that this is rare of people to hear me say, but I really really liked this episode. I don’t know what it was. The fact that everything went right in this episode, the fact that the comedy was cute, that I liked the characters, the jerk got his comeuppance, and the fact that they inverted what I call “The Yukiko Trope”.
You see, the Yukiko Trope is a trope of when a character who fiercely does not want something to happen, fights to have it not happen, only after receiving the freedom to not do that thing, decides in fact that they do want that thing now that they have the option.” The name of course comes from the game Persona 4 where Yukiko is fiercely opposed to running her family’s inn, only at the end to decide “well I do want to, I just wanted the option not to” which is fucking retarded and I hate it. Luckily, where I thought this episode would do that, instead revealed that not only does she still not like him, but loves Kagami. That’s pretty awesome.
This episode, despite it’s silly nods to Microsoft, was in all a pretty damn good episode. I enjoyed it from start to finish. The great thing about Denpa Kyoushi is that the arcs are pretty episodic so you can skip certain arcs (cough cough) and not be lost. I highly recommend these two episodes and think that they’re one of the best of the series.
Overall, this was a great episode, and the only thing that keeps it from being perfect is I don’t know if anything will come of any romances in this show. Actually I would be okay if he was either paired with Anime voice, maid, or even Madoka. Yeah, i’d be fine with all three. Hopefully one of those 3 does become his romantic interest…if there ever is one.
Episode 8.5/10
-Hideki