I was unsettled reading the summary for this show, and I was unsettled watching this episode. And that’s exactly what a horror should do.
Satou Matsuzaka is a girl, like the summary said, is a girl that used to be easy and sleep around with guys all the time. We see her get asked out by a guy in the beginning, but she rejects him and says “her heart is with someone else”. We see her then go to work at some animal-theme cafe and she talks to her friend a bit who seemed to also have been part of their man-hungry escapades. They have light banter and get straight to work. Satou talks about love and warmth, not feeling like she ever found love in her life, until now. We see that source of love when she arrives home in the little form of Shio. Every day she greets Satou home from work with an embrace and we see them live their “normal” happy life as they take a bath together, sleep in the same bed, and have…a mock wedding, sealing it off with a kiss on the forehead. That’s creepy, and Satou’s inner monologue of her love for Shio, comparing their love to a jar of those star candies made it even more strange. But, even though they were both happy, the conflict of having enough money for food, clothes, energy, etc. weighs on her mind and the next morning she starts a new waitress job.
She’s popular with everyone because of how cute and sweet she is and she even catches the attention of one of the cute waiters there, Mitsuboshi. He asks her out but she gives the same response she gave the first guy and walks off. One of the waitresses sees this and snitches on her to the boss, and with all the attention Satou’s been getting, the boss gets real hard on her. Before Satou goes home, she sees the boss lead Mitsuboshi into her office. The next day, Mitsuboshi is nowhere to be seen and the boss makes Satou work overtime for awhile, making her come home to Shio really late. When payday arrives, Satou notices she’s been way underpaid and speaks with the manager in her office. The manager then goes off by saying that her restaurant is her kingdom of love and stuff like that, hating on Satou because she’s so cute and people love her when all their love should be on her only. She’s basically an egotistical creep. This makes Satou snap and she talks back to the boss and mentions Mitsuboshi and how she shouldn’t mess with kids. The manager replies that she needed to teach him to love her, so she had sex with him. Satou goes on to insult her and repeat that she shouldn’t mess with kids, it’s disgusting and terrible, and all the overtime made her spend less time with Shio (which was the main reason she snapped), and I found it really ironic that Satou didn’t realize the irony in all of this. Satou records their conversation and basically blackmails the manager to pay her what she deserves.
Mitsuboshi had disappeared, and when they had pointed at the big closet in the manager’s office, I thought the manager had killed him but he’s actually still alive, bound naked in the closet for who knows how long. But what was really messed up was that Satou didn’t even save him or call the police. Because she didn’t care. If something is disgusting to her, she’ll get rid of it, but she admitted to not caring what the manager does and what happens in the restaurant. She just wanted her money, and so she left Mitsuboshi in the closet, gagged and bound (to be raped multiple times more?) Which was probably the most fucked up thing that happened this episode.
Satou is obviously not a good person. She comes home happily to find a Shio who’s actually awake to greet her so late at night and she takes Shio to bed. Yes, this is the love she wants to keep forever. Shio is her rock, who keeps her sane when she’s about to snap. But Shio is also her source of mania as she will do anything to have her. Yes, Satou is NOT a good person. We see someone outside putting up missing child posters of Shio while Satou happily envisions a great future with her “love”. She’ll even kill, which she’s already done. Turns out, the apartment they’re living in isn’t even theirs! She enters a closet with multiple locks, steps inside, and thanks the bloody garbage bags for the nice home. Who were the people she killed and why did she even kill them I wonder?
The first minute of the episode gave us a hint on what’s going to happen later and unsurprisingly it won’t be good. What an interesting premiere! I already knew Satou wasn’t a good person (yanderes are not good people), but I thought she would at least help Mitsuboshi! All that matters to her is her future with Shio, and anything else is just an obstacle. She’ll blackmail and kill just to have a wonderful future.
Satou seems to have had a pretty abusive past as we saw with a torn teddy bear. Her abusive mother must have shaped who she came to be and made Satou seek love because she probably didn’t have it growing up. So it ended up with her sleeping with boys left and right, until she found Shio and her “love” transformed into something else. Shio is probably the innocence and warmth she’s also wanted. Of course, what she’s doing and has done isn’t right.
I just have so many questions, though. Who is Shio and how did she and Satou meet? Why do they share this bond? Shio doesn’t seemed concerned for anything like her parents, or school, even though she wears a uniform. I can’t tell how old Shio is but she seems kind of naive, as Satou said that Shio doesn’t know many things. Elementary school kids in Japan don’t wear uniforms so that’s why it’s throwing me off. But so far, Shio seems like a normal kid, but at the same time she’s not normal. I don’t understand their situation or their relationship, and all I really want to know is the how and why this is the way it is.
The show is creepy, that’s for sure. The OP switches from fluffy cuteness to dark messed up images which reminds me of Gakkou Gurashi’s OP. The art is very soft and cute, which of course juxtaposes the many creepy moments of the show. So far, I really like this show. It’s strange and unsettling and I want to know what kinds of obstacles Satou is going to face that might mess with her happy future with Shio, and of course I want answers to my questions.
Possibility of watching: Guaranteed
Possibility of blogging: Guaranteed
I tried reading the manga, but seeing as how this was horror in a yandere-like way…I just couldn’t bring myself to watch it. That’s outside of my comfort zone.
On a side note, if you don’t mind me pitching Asobi Asobase, it’s not so much cute girls doing cute things….it seems more like 3 students who are trying to take advantage of each other somehow ended up in a group. Wow, the way I wrote this reminds me of Sunny in Philadelphia. May not be worth your time, but I’d say give the first episode a go to see how surreal it is.
I’m willing to check out Asobi Asobase because I’ve also heard how bizarre it is. But I can’t promise I’d blog about it since comedies in general are tough to do.