Sakamoto Desu Ga Episode 9 [ Someone stop Nobuta’s mom ]

Sakamoto is back to its standard fair of skits in episode 9, and this episode once again reminded viewers that Sakamoto is probably only in love with community and birds. The first skit recounts how several girls in his class first met him and how considerate he was towards them. One of them has a rain story and I hate to break it to her, but after he jumped through a tornado to save a bird her story was far from romantic. They really need to make Hatoful Girlfriend for Sakamoto, in my opinion. Then again the girls have slight competition because afterwards Nobuto recounts his story of their first meeting: Sakamoto romantically put a bandaid ring back on Nobuta’s finger. All the girls remark that this was the most romantic meeting. Okay, despite the fact that I preferred the serious episode, seeing jokes like that made me legitimately laugh out loud. Because of that, I can say the return to formula doesn’t hurt the show at all!

That being said, Nobuta’s creepy mom is back in skit two. Now, I won’t say I didn’t see it coming because she has reappeared in other episodes and he has done his best to avoid her. Still, the way she is thirsty for this high school kid kind of makes me wince. Japan is pretty alright with toying with this trope, but Nobuta’s mom is definitely meant to be creepy. What’s the logic behind it? Well. . . I guess for Japan girls liking older guys is fine, and usually they are the ones pursuing. In a sense it’s never right but at least in the opposing trope you have the consent of the girls involved. If Sakamoto was the one pursuing, would it be so creepy? Probably still yeah, because this has some consistent layers of creep smothering it. But hey, it’s funny right?!

Nothing in this show might ever beat the line “Damn that Sakamoto, he’s running in the style of Darwin’s evolutionary theory again!” though. I think a lot of the western style jokes this episode really helped hit it home with

me, but it’s definitely still got the flavor of traditional Japanese humor with its miso soup jokes. The way Nobuta’s mom tried to actively resist being a total pervert was kind of admirable but she is still creeping so I can’t give her too much credit. She creeps so hard on Sakamoto she can even keep up with his Darwin style running even with her really terrible disguise boobs included. The more I watched it the more creeped out I got, and I’m really starting to hit the ‘creep’ word limit of any given post. The Lonely Island guys are going to sue me if I keep going. So she really skeeves me out, and her stalker behavior is unacceptable!

Jokes aside, Sakamoto is never cruel and never makes anyone the butt of a joke for long. Her behavior reminds her to be the one thing she is good at: a mom. She shows her sweet side and hopefully she’ll never, this really happens, impersonate Nobuta at school again. Please. Seriously. I never want to see her boobs move like that again, I don’t care what the ‘morons’ say! Sakamoto keeps Nobuta’s mom in the ‘acceptable’ range like all characters (sans the true villain) and next week it seems we’re in for karaoke. The real question is: will we actually be hearing Sakamoto sing? Follow up question: Can his actor sing in English? Sakamoto remains fresh and fun and reminds us everyone has something they’re good at, and that everyone is redeemable. Mostly.

Oki