My bad — I didn’t notice that the first episode was actually an hour long. Well, here’s the belated impressions of the second half.
We obviously continue where the anime last left off: without so much as a struggle, Narumi is unceremoniously included in the NEET Detective Team’s search for Shoko. Narumi’s going to grate on me if he continues to bitch and moan about his involvement with these guys. I know he’s supposed to be the everyday man, the one relatively normal character that the audience can identify with. Nevertheless, either he toughens up and leaves or stays and shut up about his “predicament.” Right now, Narumi is content with having his cake and eating it too: moaning about his involvement with the group, but at the same time, he’s following along like a lackey. All I’m saying is… don’t turn into another Kyon.
Narumi proves his usefulness by doing the reasonable thing and talking to Miku. Through their conversation, he finds out that Shoko wasn’t using an alias at all when prostituting herself. This alone seems to clue Alice in on Shoko’s whereabouts. But before we get to that, let’s talk a little more about our missing girl. It turns out Shoko dabbled in enjo kosai because people had high expectations of her and it was unbearable or something. She had two sides to her: (1) a model to other students and (2) OH EM GEE, a ~sexhaver~
Miku has this, in my opinion, unnatural admiration of Shoko. When they were out together one day, Miku found out that Shoko had a boyfriend. Out of nowhere, Miku asked her friend whether or not she’s had sex. When Shoko answered in the affirmative, Miku got all condescending, claiming that what Shoko’s saying couldn’t be true because a model student like her wouldn’t have sex! Excuse me, but what is wrong with sex? Naturally, this angered Shoko and she was never seen again by Miku. Still in denial, Miku entered the world of enjo kosai in a vain search for her friend.
In the end, it turns out Shoko committed suicide and her boyfriend knew about it all along. He just didn’t know what to do with her dead body. So the first mystery wasn’t brilliant, but it also wasn’t bad for starters; making Shoko a suicide victim is a bit of a cop-out though. I wouldn’t have minded delving into the seedy underbelly of enjo kosai a little more either. Let’s just take solace, however, that there is a touch of humanity in the first story. It ended somewhat tragically, but this is a refreshing change of pace from the happy-go-lucky anime series you find everywhere these days.
I will admit that the scenes without Alice are kind of dull. On the other hand, when Alice takes over, the anime becomes polarizing: either interesting or cringe-inducing.
Why cringe-inducing? The only problem with KamiMemo is that it just can’t resist being a TV anime. It just had to go and ruin a decent showing with pandering shit like Ayaka storming into Alice’s apartment and stripping her down for a bath.
Or Alice crying over the torn ear on one of her many stuffed animals. When Alice was getting ready to leave her place to confront Miku, I didn’t even mind the ritualistic fashion in which she donned her clothing. This is at least an interesting quirk about her personality.
Who turned on the fan?
Everything else is just embarrassing.
It’s too late, he already looks like Kyon, the merging is complete!!
DUNDUNDUUUUN.
Miku was almost like a stalker, but it seems her disapproval was what pushed Shoko over the edge — after all, she did send her the phone. Still, I didn’t like the way Shoko was antagonized at times, since I considered her to be the real victim (which in the end she was).
Ultimately, although Alice had given me the impression of being pretentious and self-righteous, her logorrhea ended up making some sense. Perhaps is was a bit too convenient for the plot to vindicate her, but at least it made my second viewing of her introduction a little less dizzying.
Let’s just hope the writers don’t go overboard showing off her ‘fragile’ emotions and childish body.
In the end, I just disliked the fact that Shoko was self-destructive just because people had high expectations of her. I kinda wanted at least one character in an anime to have a healthy attitude toward sex.
Alice might be long-winded and self-important, but whenever she was offscreen, the anime was just dull, dull, dull. Narumi needs to step it up. He’s too much of a passive bystander for now despite the fact that he has to carry all the scenes that don’t include Alice.
I forgot to mention it, but it slightly cheeses me that the detective always gets to make that “explain-it-all” speech, but it’s a mystery convention at this point.
Haha, no chance. Unfortunately, it’s their one selling point.