Whatever the Amagami writers are on lately is a hell of a drug.
With the arc now 3/4 of the way to completion, things took a turn for the surreal this week as some sort of hallucinogenic agent appears to have been released at a local amusement park. Authorities remain tight-lipped about whether this was an intentional terrorist attack by the disgruntled Movement for the Restoration of Plot in Amagami (MRPA) or an accidental chemical spill. But while the cause remains under investigation, the effects were clear: Both J4 and Ai experienced an intense bout of logic deprivation and reality mismatch leading to several flags being activated for unknown reasons.
Recent Developments
- In preparation for her planned arc transition, Rihoko has been observed conducting culinary research and meeting with Miya and Sae to seek their assistance. While we already know that Rihoko has quite a sweet tooth, we now have confirmation that she is a childhood friend of at least Miya, if not both of the Tachibana siblings. This could indicate a second childhood friend, a surprise in this post Kaoru-arc world. Also of note was that Miya appeared to be fielding an advanced version of the Otogi Ginko, GmbH ‘Neko Neko Nakuru’ personal defense system. This new system appears both smaller and without the need for a cable-link to its power source, indicating an advanced level of engineering. The image may be that of a dog with an eyepatch, indicating possible use of transferred Dogisian technology.
CCTV image capturing the Rihoko-Miya-Sae meeting and new model NNK.
- Conveniently supplied with free tickets, J4 and Ai proceeded to a newly opened amusement park for a date. The rides were mostly uneventful, but the haunted house was the site of the aforementioned incident. Utilizing two of the animatronic mummies, large quantities of an as yet undetermined hallucinogenic agent were introduced into the environs causing intense hallucinations and ‘Plot Nonsense Syndrome.’ J4 reported seeing a Kaoru X Keiko OTP, a very young Ayatsuji Tsukasa, and then appeared to view Ai as a bowl of miso ramen. (This miso ramen appears unconnected to that shared by J1 and Haruka.) This led to the first of three flags being triggered as Junichi attempted to eat ramen-Ai.
- The second flag incident occurred at the playground where the two originally met when Ai pressured J4 to ride the swings together. After swinging for a time and including the obligatory and overused “you looked up my skirt, didn’t you?” line, Ai leaned forwards to kiss J4. Reports also indicate the presence of low quality innuendo utilizing the swing chains. Romantic effect was negligible.
Flag scene #2.
- The third flag incident was at the pool when Ai appeared upset when team leader Hibiki didn’t choose her for a spot in the upcoming tournament. Running from Hibiki, she went past J4 before diving into the pool. Despite the fact that she had nowhere to run to in the enclosed pool area, J4 inexplicably jumped into the pool fully clothed to catch up with her. Such actions appear in line with the increasing decline in logic in regards to J4′s actions, and the arc as a whole.
The pace of flag events increased dramatically in the past episode.
Analysis
While it’s not yet certain if the writers were in a Purple Haze or perhaps using cocaine as of late, the mummy’s tomb haunted house scene was beyond bizarre. I suppose you could give them credit for being creative in introducing their fanservice, but it really ran into the nonsensical. What the hell did I just watch? When I complained about the Kaoru arc bellybutton kiss coming out of nowhere, I obviously had no idea exactly how out-of-nowhere this show was going to get. While that scene was the peak WTF moment, the last flag moment was also on pretty shaky ground. Credit where credit is due, the one on the swings wasn’t so bad, even though there really hasn’t been too great of a foundation built for why exactly Ai likes Junichi. But it had a fair level of believability to it, which is more than can be said for the other two. The last one worked as a vehicle for expressing Ai’s distress about not making the tournament roster, though Junichi jumping in the pool and going after her was another break with the required suspension of disbelief. I wish I had more to say, but more often than not this episode just left me asking “what the hell did I just watch?”
Opinion (guidance for interpretation beyond our analysis)
This is ExecutiveOtaku, and I endorse this pairing.
Mindcrush!
23 Comments
Once again: Ai is cute, but her arc sucks. That whole haunted house scene was just bizarre, like Junichi and Ai walked onto the set of a stoner flick and Junichi got the munchies. wtf
I can’t say it any better than this. Ai is so cute but what the hell is this I don’t even.
I don’t believe I’ve actually ever seen an anime just throw something so bizarre out there without even a half-assed attempt at explaining what happened. No dream, no weird symbolism, no ‘world ending as interpreted by Shinji’s internal emotional conflict’, nothing.
So…that was…something. This arc has honestly started to do no more than aggravate me. If the horror house scene had gone any longer I was just going to forward through it. I actually ended up going out to find the “Love Goes On” manga version. I could care less about any series following the manga or not; as long as it’s entertaining and has some semblance of continuity, but the TV version doesn’t and the story I found in the manga actually manages to make a lot of sense. So I’m having trouble why they decided to ditch many of the most meaningful scenes. I liked the pool jumping scene on its own (as with others), but due to other previous events not being there, it didn’t make sense in the TV version…Now I’m very curious about the 4th episode, as the preview showed there will be more manga inspired scenes, but how they’re getting to them…I don’t know…Anyway, thanks for another entertaining post! Have you looked at that manga? The Junichi actually has a reason to be liked by Ai (unlike J4), and the plot has some continuity…it’s pretty amazing the difference it makes.
I kept watching the horror house scene because I was expecting some great, wacky explanation for what was going on…and one never came.
It sounds like the manga makes more sense, and from what you say I, too, am puzzled over the creators’ choices in which scenes they’ve omitted and which they’ve adapted. Though I’m not as much of a manga person as I am an anime one, so I’ll probably not get to the manga.
Umm…yea.
The manga did a much better job handling this arc. What is going on with the writers? All was lost after that horrendous haunted house scene. The only good thing to come out of that was McHottie Hot Man Kaoru.
Thank the gods for short haired Kaoru, at least. But yeah, it’s just inexplicable how the writing has degenerated. And to think that the show started off in such great fashion with the Haruka arc. Did they just start laying off writers as the show’s gone along or something?
The haunted house was one of those “you played the game here’s something for you” scenes. All those (ramen, kid-with-dog, and Boy Kaoru) were from the game when Junichi goes to the park with those girls, and they go through a fun-house. This arc has a lot of that sort of stuff (starting right with the black cat, which is part of the Miya sub-arc). I bet the writers thought this arc was boring in itself, so they decided to put all that kind of stuff in here. And I can see where they’re coming from if that’s the case – a lot of us, including myself, had low expectations for this arc going in. Not saying that excuses nonsense, but it’s a possible explanation.
And say what you will about the writing, at least it’s consistent and knows it’s characters. The whole thing with the pool is definitely something J4 would do. And I bet he ruined his tie doing it, if not his whole suit. As far as I’m concerned, this episode was one of the best so far, if not the very best, up until the drama with the pool. And the animation for that sequence was just horrible. I bet they used their whole animation budget for the episode in the haunted house.
Ah, I haven’t played the game. Thanks for the explanation of where some of this stuff is coming from…still…I find it pretty weak to just throw random materials around from different sources and expect it to make a coherent show for anyone who hasn’t read/watched/played all the related media…Is the game good? Worth buying? I’ve never played any of these kind of games.
It angers me to no end when an anime is lazy and essentially requires that you’ve played the game or read the manga that it’s based on. Having a combined media campaign is fine and all, but when it gets so sloppy and badly coordinated that it reminds you of a WWII Italian offensive I take major issue with it. The show should include all the context one needs to follow a coherent story, and if they want to throw in little hints to people who’ve played the game, that’s all well and good. But this was just a mess.
All those events might have made sense in the game, but if the show doesn’t provide the context then they don’t mean much.
This is why it is not recommended to have high expectations… they will never be satisfied. Sae’s arc was great because we did not expect much from it!
For me Ai’s arc was the third most expected (Kaoru was first and Ayatsuji is the second).
The manga had much better plot, it is not the “Buuuhhh the manga is better wah wah wah” no:
SPOILERS
In the manga/game Ai was saved by Junichi from a stray dog and that’s why she started developing feelings for him and because of that love Ai lost concentration in her swimming practices; Junichi confronted her and she jumped into the pool because she did not want him to see her crying, Junichi then jumped and reached her and there we have the kissing scene, NOW THAT makes sense huh!?
END OF SPOILERS
Well.. at least we are having kinky Hot Springs… snif*
Thank you for your review Mr. ExecutiveOtaku
Going into this arc I didn’t have especially high expectations, but I do expect a minimum level of coherent storytelling. It sounds like the manga had the story done right, but for whatever unknown reason the anime’s writers got lazy or off track and just threw together some random scenes from the manga/game material without any logical connection. I’d have enjoyed seeing the scenes you mentioned animated, but alas not.
Also, I hope this doesn’t continue, as I’m really looking forward to the next two arcs. At the start of the series the three arcs I was anticipating most were Tsukasa, Kaoru, and Rihoko, so I’d like to see the last ones (especially Tsukasa) done right.
Thank as always for reading and commenting.
What the hell with that haunted mansion?? I dont know if Scarecrow send his poison to junichi lol, there is nothing wrong with nanasaki but J4 Personality sucks and Seriously i cant wait for Rihoko Arc, i bet next arc will be fun.
Let us hope that the next Junichi is a much more interesting character. He’s unfortunately seemed to lose personality as he goes along. I really, really hope that this arc is getting all the bad stuff out of the way, because I’m very much looking forward to the final two arcs.
The little boy arc wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I’m looking forward to next week. I’m dreading the fat girl arc though. Good god, what were they thinking? Bring back Morishima Senapai!
While the Haruka arc was the best one yet in my opinion, don’t look down on Rihoko. For one she’s pretty far from being fat, and from her appearances in other arcs she seems like she might provide a good mix of romance and comedy for the next arc. Of course, that is if the writers wise up after the debacle of the Ai arc…
As much as I love Ai, I can’t disagree with your opinions on the arc so far. The pool scene indeed seem random, because the anime showed no reason why Junichi would jump in after her. That’s not the case in the manga. Ai’s sudden shift to ‘dere’ was also random because the anime omitted a couple of scenes that Ai used to judge Junichi’s character in the manga. So I’m kind of let down with the anime so far. All I can say is, don’t use just the anime to pass judgment on Ai. She really is a gem of a character, but the anime doesn’t seem to be doing a good job of selling that.
Although, I do like how they devoted more time to her brother situation in the anime.
My wrath is reserved wholly for the writing staff of this arc. Ai seems like a nice character, one that’s gotten the short end of the stick in the adaptation of her original material. I just can’t fathom what’s going on with the writing staff for this arc, as all the others at least kept there story coherent and moving, while this one is just a mess.
The pool scene was definitely the most contrived, artificially raised flag in the story so far. It seemed rushed and totally unnatural, not to mention not executed very clearly. A more complicated story would probably fail in the hands of this writing/directing team.
This is all a shame because I think Ai is great, and Amagami is still succeeding strongly in simple dialog based scenes. She’s easily one of the best so far, and I think you could say that Amagami deserves some points for making her so appealing despite the ridiculousness of this episode. Once again, she seems like a girl you might meet rather than a collection of checked-off traits or an anime archetype. Their conversations are cute and satisfying, and she seems real enough. Of course, that makes the bad parts even more inexcusable, though.
Yes, the ramen thing was ridiculous– I’m gonna go ahead and say that starting with knee-licking right off the bat for the erotic hook might have been a bad move. Nowhere to go but down from there.
The writing team did a great job with the Haruka arc though, and showed some talent for being unorthodox and comedy-oriented with the Sae arc. Even the Kaoru arc, flawed though it sometimes was, managed to tell a coherent story. So the writers have shown an ability to handle something more. Unless of course the writing staff is changing with every arc or something weird.
Agreed on Ai and the strengths of the series. The dialog scenes have had a lot more impact than the more outlandish ones, and the characters don’t feel like artificial assemblies of certain traits. And all this is what’s so annoying about how they’re screwing up the Ai arc: they’ve shown that they can do better and have a solid base to work with via their characters.
The knee-licking at the start was a concern for me too; I was afraid that it would make something similar a mandatory part of later arcs, something that seems to have happened in different forms. It fit the relationship in the Haruka arc perfectly, but since then it’s mostly felt out of place.
The many uses of crack and booze. :Not for directors under 21 years of age:
Judging on how degenerative this series has become, I have finally given up on this series. What it shows from the very beginning is fetish, fetish and fetish, and a strange one at that. Knee-kissing, belly-button kissing o_O. And now this haunted house nonsense. Maybe the producer are inhaling cracks when they produce the shows. Ai arc is my most anticipated arc and yet it turns out to be a very disappointing one. J4 is the most hated character. He has nothing memorable, except for his bizzare fetish and somehow able to hit every girl in only 4 episodes. Can you do that in real life, J4!!
High expectations always met with high disappointment.
Just watched this episode and knew I had to read your post.
The haunted mansion/ramen thing was bizarre! Glad I’m not the only
one who thought so. Curious to see where this arc ends up and what
lies ahead for J5.