I hate stereotypes. Mostly because they’re just the viewpoints of people lazy enough to not make the effort to know better. And from personal experience, I can safely say that women bear the burden of facing this almost all the time. Unjustified and stupid as it may be. If you’re a blonde, you must be dumb. If you wear short skirts, you’re loose. If you’re Asian, you must suck at the Queen’s vernacular. And the most preposterous of them all: If you’re a woman, sex must not cross your mind or may even disgust you. And that, is the main theme of this week’s episode of O Maidens in Your Savage Season.
In the previous episode, it was revealed that Hongo-san is aspiring to be a novelist specializing in erotica. She even visits sex chat rooms online for inspiration. This week, she and Sonezaki-san visit a book store where she finds a novel published by a teenage girl under her agent’s publishing label. Hongo-san contacts him about this to which he casually points out that adults always keep a failsafe for such situations. A Plan B. Just in case things go south. Her book was never going to be published as the agent calls it comically bad and a fat old man’s wet dream. This angers her to no end. Now, granted that her work would not have been of the highest quality, but she did put time and effort into it. To have it all be ridiculed like this can dishearten anyone. So, she turns all her fury and frustration to the online sex chat. And in her moment of frenzy, she texts the person on the other end to come meet her so they can have sex in real life. Now, I always feared that something like this might happen. That this show might take a turn for something so dark, it would be uncomfortable to watch. If this plot-point went in another direction, it would have made the viewers very uneasy. But thankfully, it led to some surprising and rather convenient revelations later on.
Meanwhile, Izumi finds himself troubled by the fact that Kazusa thinks of him as some sex-crazed maniac. So, to clarify and most importantly get the video of him getting asked out deleted, he takes Sugawara-san by her hand and rushes out the classroom, Shoujo-manga style. She instead asks him what he feels about sex. And who is the one person he would want to have sex with? Which naturally leaves him flabbergasted because God forbid a girl talk about sex this openly. He says that he hasn’t ever thought about any specific person that way. To which Sugawara-san replies that he should. Because girls think about it too.
Elsewhere, Kazusa and the rest try and find an advisor for the Literature club but get turned down by everyone. Well, not exactly, one teacher actually gets rejected by Hongo-san herself as she just doesn’t consider him fit for the job. Later that day, she goes to her IRL Sex-chat-room date wearing matching bra and panties. Because that’s what men your dad’s age on TV tell you they find attractive, so you better do as told. She sees a guy matching the description standing at the meeting spot but is shocked to see that he’s actually not an old man who hasn’t bathed for half a year but is instead the teacher she rejected earlier. She blackmails him into becoming their club advisor. And nicknames him Milo, after his online screen-name.
Later that day, Kazusa is invited to have dinner by Izumi’s mother at their home. Kazusa tries to turn her down but she is really persistent and Izumi is away, so Kazusa agrees. She asks Kazusa to go up to Izumi’s room and get the ketchup, who reluctantly heads upstairs and is relieved to find the room empty. She snoops around a little. (Big mistake. Never do that in a boy’s empty room behind his back) She discovers that Izumi has hidden the porn movie inside a cover of My Neighbor Poporo (That’s messed up, Izumi). Kazusa takes the movie home, watches it and returns at a later time when no one’s home to place it back where it belongs. She even goes through the plot of the movie inside her head and is happy at how it was about bus gropers and not train ones as Izumi has always loved trains and didn’t want to dirty them. So nice and thoughtful of him. (Yup. Girls in love can be this blind). Her train of thought is cut short by Izumi’s sudden entrance into the room. And the boy does not take a hint from his conversation with Sugawara-san and says it to Kazusa’s face that he doesn’t think of having sex with anyone. Even her. As if that would make her jump with joy (Yup. Teenage boys can be this dumb). She rushes out of the room and Izumi runs after her. They both tumble and fall down the stairs and share an uncomfortably intimate moment. Will it have any effect on their relationship? We will find out soon enough.
Right. So, to summarize, another stellar 24 minutes of this show which I can’t help but admire more with every subsequent episode. I love how each of the characters is getting their time in the spotlight. I feel that even the advisor, Milo-sensei will be fleshed out in the coming weeks. All in all, this is really shaping up to be a shoe-in for AOTS. Will it get there uncontested, or will it stumble and fall along the way? We will have a better idea next week. See you, then!
I’ll be marathoning most of these shows after they finished, largely having recently read the source material.
Going by your reviews it seems the anime is going at a faster pace, I think Okada may intend to tell a complete story with the adaptation.
I’ve heard about/seen raws for the manga and I have some worries in regards that it might go overly dark.
I share your frustrations about the stereotyping greatly, and it bothers me that the one about women and not supposed to be into sex thing is especially damaging, it always annoyed me growing up seeing that people felt that they weren’t meant to be interested in anything.
I don’t know what age you are, but me being a middle aged man, even knowing that I probably talked about certain stuff as a kid, watching kids talk about it seriously as an older viewer does sort of make me feel slightly uncomfortable! In the best possible way!
Yes, I think this will be a complete adaptation of the manga, given that it is ending in a couple of chapters. The story does seem very planned out and I am unfamiliar with the manga but I feel that the show isn’t being paced too fast.
I am a final year college student, for the record 🙂
But I understand what you mean. I too sometimes feel that way for even my juniors or the kids in school. How they talk about mature topics with relative ease these days. Part of it, I feel, is because of the fact that everything is readily accessible to them. The internet and mainly social media is this big endless sea to have them be exposed to deeper issues and be even be vocal about it. If they feel like. It’s a good thing in the long run, I guess.