Bernard-Jou Iwaku – Episodes 2 & 3

Episode 2

This episode introduces us to the school’s librarian, Sumika Hasegawa, and we learn she has a crush on Endou . There’s an imaginary sequence in her head where she imagines Endou asking her some random Sherlock trivia, and that’s cute. Bad puns are always fun.

Meanwhile Shiwaku asks Shiori to lend her a book, and Shiori gets lost in her head with trying to find a book for her to read that’s been properly translated. Shiwaku asks her for another recommendation, one she can read easily and sound like an expert on, and Shiori gets carried away thinking of possible titles.

In the end Shiori ends up flipping out on Shiwaku again when Shiwaku ends up quoting something called Sturgeon’s law to her. ^^;;

The next day, Endou and Sumika have a conversation about Sherlock Holmes for real. He kindly lends her a book starring a character called Shuulock Holmes (ha ha). It’s a book about food mysteries. Sumika smiles and thanks him greatly, even though she’s obviously not super pleased with the book, and Endou wonders if the book is highly prized among Sherlock Holmes fans or something odd like that; the real reason for her happiness never enters his mind.

Episode 3

This episode centres around the science fiction genre, and the author Haruki Murakami in particlar. I finished reading 1Q84 earlier this year and it was… interesting… so I was curious to see how the characters would react to an author of this calibre.

Endou-san tries talking to Shiwaku about Murakami, but she turns the conversation into a lecture about the true nature of books and he apologizes. A few days later Endou asks Shiwaku about whether she’d read any of the books Murakami had translated yet, as was her original plan, and she admits that she forgot about reading because she was up all night practicing her Haruki Murakami impressions. ….Ok?

Meanwhile Shiori and Sumika agree to lend each other books that they’d been thinking of. The next day they bring their intended book to the library to give to the other, and they’re surprised to discover that they’d both brought a copy of Sherlock Holmes’ War of the Worlds, a crossover sci-fi novel by Manly Wade Wellman and his son Wade Wellman. Yes you read that right.

Shiwaku catches them fangirling with each other and records their conversation on her phone. She asks if she can upload the video online, but Shiori firmly rejects her idea.

My thoughts:  Shiwaku’s reaction about having books on a to-read list in the second episode made me laugh, because it’s so true! I definitely have a to-read list myself, but because so many books are on it it’s kinda tiered. There’re the books I really want to read at the top, with a layer of “meh” books underneath that I still want to read, but am not as enthusiastic about. I also had to laugh at Shiwaku’s thoughts about the book always being better than the movie when it comes to movie adaptions of books, because myself and most people I know share that same opinion.

I love that this series uses real books and real authors!  For example, I was tickled to see an animated copy of Murakami-san’s 1Q84 in the third episode.

I think at this point, Shiori’s my favourite character. All of the characters are pretty fanatical about books and reading, but Shiori’s ability to get lost in massive tangents when discussing books reminds me a lot of myself when I get talking about a favourite series or genre.