The Chibi style for the gameplay is so FREAKING ADORABLE. And I just love how the show had to let the audience know that no, you’re watching the right anime. I’m not sure if it was in the previous episode, but this was the first time I noticed that Nao was edited into the opening (albeit briefly) and it was a nice little surprise. I was wondering if he would be incorporated into the opening and I got my answer.
The fact that Narumi turned out to be an assassin class yet looking like an adorable elf pretty much sums up her personality very well. Considering she often portrays herself as this cute woman but in reality she’s this closet otaku who spends her time drawing up Yaoi porn lol. As opposed to Kabakura who is very straight forward just like the warrior class. An interesting tidbit that Kabakura brings up is how Hanako just suddenly wanted to play an online game with everyone despite her usual indifference towards them. It definitely pops the question of whether Hanako wanted to play because it was with friends or she wanted some sort of similar interests with Kabakura. Especially since Hirotaka and Narumi game a lot together (as seen on Christmas lol). Speaking of Hanako, she shows up as a sorceress in a “paid-only” outfit. Hanako please…
We also get a little more insight on Hirotaka as despite being an avid gamer otaku, he dislikes onlines games because it forces you to interact with others, to which Hirotaka tends to avoid for the most part. Though it’s cute that he’ll always oblige if Narumi asks him. I can’t even imagine how it feels to not have any friends growing up, so I’m glad Hirotaka has this band of misfits to hang out with now. Before Hirotaka can show up, a rare and powerful enemy shows up and I just had to laugh really hard by how Narumi is just completely blinded by the prospect of money and rare drops she’d get if they defeat it.
And usually I can understand why Hanako argues with Kabakura at times, but this was definitely not one of them. FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE PERSON WHO HAS MORE EXPERIENCE SO YOU ALL DON’T DIE AND DON’T ATTACK YOUR PARTY MEMBERS. “Hirotaka” shows up in a joke outfit which also shows who he is as a character. Despite his lack of emoting, he is actually quite goofy. Turns out it was Nao at the controls for the time being as Hirotaka was busy recording an anime. I think the main reason why Nao is so bad at games is that no one bothers to actually teach the boy how to do things so he just resorts to button mashing. However, never fear, the real Hirotaka comes in and literally one shots the enemy in the most glorious and anime fashion possible.
The second half of the episode is essentially boy and girl separate bonding time with Kabakura taking out his juniors for dinner and drinks while Narumi and Hanako go have dinner together. Now, what Hanako did is what I wish my friends would do lol (Though I am also guilty of not immediately watching something I am recommended heh…). Narumi suggested an anime to her and she immediately caught up so she could talk about it with her. What a great otaku friend T^T. However, the moment is ruined when they end up shipping opposite things. Oh, how that happens a lot in real life… That honestly happens a lot with one of my friends where we just end up shipping the opposite. It makes sense you’d want to ship similar things with your friends so you can talk about them. However, because of how touchy shipping is, it’s very difficult when you just flat out don’t ship the thing your friend does.
We then move over to guy talk with Hirotaka and Kabakura’s coworkers talking about how cute Narumi is, much to Hirotaka’s initial disdain. Though it was really cute how touched Hirotaka was to be referred to as Narumi’s boyfriend. He wasn’t even mad anymore that his coworkers were talking about her lol. What a cute~ We then get into a discussion with the girls about how they can’t really talk about their ships to their boyfriends for different reasons. Narumi can’t have fun discussing it with Hirotaka. While he is fine with the content, he’s not really into it and doesn’t have a strong preference. Which is actually very nice of him to be able to talk about it despite not having interest, but I can see where the annoyance lies. When discussing ships, you always want to have a passionate talk about them. Kabakura on the other hand outright shuts everything yaoi and BL down (despite ironically liking yuri) and Hanako just resorts to reading it in front of him where he can see. And thus we get a little bit of Kiss Him Not Me into it with Hanako and Narumi shipping their boyfriends together but have different tops and bottoms.
I just love how while their coworkers are talking about Hanako’s qualities, Kabakura just kind of snickers in his head saying how she really is. Though he only talks about her negative qualities… Kabakura come on. Though when they start talking about her chest in such an obnoxious fashion, he goes scarily quiet. But before we get more into that (sheesh this episode sure likes to switch back and forth a lot), we come back to Narumi and Hanako’s top and bottom argument. And thankfully, unlike Kae and Nishina from Kiss Him Not Me, while they are passionate, they don’t end up not talking to each other like the adults that they are. Though I do think it’s funny how they both want their man on top, heh. Despite Kabakura’s rather scary, intense look at his coworkers, he handles the situation in a mature way of suggesting they should talk about girls that don’t have boyfriends. Way to defuse the tension, Kabakura. Have a gold star. But I do think the thing to take away that despite how different you are to someone, that doesn’t make it any less possible to be really close friends, which Narumi and Hanako displayed. Despite their difference in preferences of ships, the things that they eat, or how their personalities are, at the end of the day, they’re still really good friends.
Though I think one of the funniest parts of the episode was Nao overhearing Hanako and Narumi at the restaurant and thinks they’re talking praises about their boyfriends. And Nao being the absolute treasure that he is, is super happy and touched by it. Though Hirotaka being the realist, knows his girlfriend well enough that he knew she was probably talking about something different. Hirotaka certainly is a sharp one after all.
This episode felt a little weaker than the others, but probably because I didn’t really like the content in these stories as much as I did the others. But it was still just as enjoyable as ever with the chibis and the absolute absurdity that goes into these stories. Still waiting on this one character to appear. I wonder when that will be…
