Monthly Archives: October 2019

Bandai Namco Festival 2019

It was a thing.

In a bid to stave off jet lag and fatigue, and partly motivated by procrastination, I want to tackle the two-day festival taken place last weekend at Tokyo Dome now rather than later. I tweeted it enough, but in summary:

  • Bannam has a lot of stuff! But IM@s is where it’s at, for this show.
  • All the idols in under one roof is all one.
  • While it was short on the collab department, there were still some great ones.
Continue reading

Araoto Is Like Pouring for Your Boss, “Araoto to to…”

Thanks to reading to yet another outrageous but understandable take, I remembered that I had some blog posts to write. Instead of dwelling on those unfinished businesses, here’s a non-sequitur of sorts. Very light spoilers ahead.

Araoto, short for “Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo.” (…and complete with the period), is a manga-turned-anime written by Okada Mari. The story and the way the story is told, both in the manga and anime, are extremely signature Okada. Even the subject matter is a standard fare for her. The way Araoto blends in elements from her prior works, (borrowing the climatic pivot from Tari Tari, and basically condensing the emotional whiplash from Nagiasa, I don’t know, among many other things) it feels very much functional rather than meaningful so that the anime is about sex and teenage girls at all.

That being said, Araoto’s topic of sexuality is as a salacious of a topic as you would expect, given that this is entertainment for virgins? I don’t know how else to put it. It might seem both outrageous (funny) and exaggerated (lame), especially when it comes to Mr. Milk-substitute and his charge, the internet-sext-artist. Then there is the very cute story between Rika and her pairing. And the delicious drama bomb-polygon for the rest of them that makes this show even worth watching till the finish. (“Teenage girls and sex”? This is a dog whistle if I’ve ever seen one. Also sign me up already.)

I had to admit I read up on the wiki summary before going in, because seeing a bunch of comedically chaste girls talk about sex can only go so far. (I also wanted to know what dirty phrases Mocho got to say, it helps.) There needs to be that money shot, so to speak, in this emotional porn exercise. It is not an indictment of the show–it’s more just recognizing when you open a bowl of instant noodles, you’re gonna get instant noodles, even if it’s labeled Ichiran ramen or something fancy. Short of going into spoiler territory, let’s just say I’m all for a good student rebellion, and as always I am disappointed.

Looking back to this Okada formula that Araoto walked, it is clear that Okada has really crystalized that formula to a tee and is able to tweak it at will. She knows what will bring the squeal and how to poke us in our most sensitive moments. Now she just needs to go deeper.