Kannawa’s still struggling to ask Kamegawa out to lunch. In my head, I would just send my mentee a Slack message along the lines of, “Hey, wanna grab lunch. We can discuss your role, current project, and answer any questions and concerns you might have.” Sure, this doesn’t have the personal touch of a face-to-face request, but uh, why does a work lunch between team members need a personal touch anyway? The only reason why she’s having so much trouble with this is because she’s ironically not being professional about it. If it’s a boy-girl thing, i.e. a date, sure, asking him out is awkward. But between a mentor and a mentee, what’s the problem? If they were both the same gender, would this still be difficult for her?

I guess I’ll keep blogging this show, because I’m not sure what I want out of it. On the one hand, sure, it would be nice to watch a cute romance series. On the other hand, however, this is so unprofessional. Kannawa worries so much about Kamegawa’s first lunch being stolen away by their coworkers that she fails to hear what her boss is telling her. His first lunch, bro. We’re talking about lunch. What? Is there lunch virginity that she has to claim before anyone else snatches it? Who on earth worries about this shit? For me, this is the first awkward thing about Kannawa. Will I ever get to the point where I start rooting for these two to hook up? That’s what I’m mostly curious about.

Again, Kamegawa eats ramen, so she uses that as a pretense to drag him out to lunch. Yeah, it would be super bad and unhealthy to eat that junk, so lemme buy you something! Finally! …right? But of course, now that they’re finally out on their little lunch date, she suddenly can’t come up with anything to talk about. Uh, how about work? Or just ask the guy if he has any hobbies. Or do that boring HR thing where you ask him to say say three interesting facts about himself. Jesus, I’m an awkward person, and I know this shit.

Kamegawa confesses that he’s spent too much money on his hobbies, and this is why he has to temporarily limit himself to cheap ramen. Sheesh, I guess he’s not mature enough to stick to a budget. At the moment, he’s not exactly a candidate for a longterm partner. Kannawa has to give him a mini-lecture as if she’s a mom scolding a child, and that’s precisely the problem. I know some people think they can fix their partners, but it’s not worth it. Don’t be his second mommy. Plus, it doesn’t help that she can’t practice what she preaches. Immediately after nagging him, we get a scene where she goes through her own fridge and finds it practically empty. She also has to resort to eating cup noodles. She then pulls another all-nighter playing games. You know what? Maybe these two would make the perfect couple. She stays up all night playing games, and he blows the grocery bill on toys.

The next day, Kannawa sees Kamegawa struggling at his desk, so she tells him to ask her anything if he needs help. That’s fine. But it’s not the best she could do. I mean, like I said, she saw him struggling. Why not just ask him outright what the problem is? But instead, her passive approach allows him to continue struggling on his own. She then hovers over him like a helicopter parent, fretting and worrying instead of taking the active approach. She starts overthinking and spiraling as a result. She feels insecure because he won’t reach out for help. Christ, you’re the mentor. Just take the initiative.

Kamegawa ends up working overtime in order to finish up his proposal. When Kannawa sees this, she feels as though she can’t go home either. After all, this would reflect badly on her as a mentor. Yeah, you’d never see me burn the midnight oil for any job. It’s not just a Japan thing, though. We have our own nightmare companies and industries to deal with. Even though I’ve always wanted to make games, I’ve never considered using my programming skills to apply to a video game company. The thought of crunching for 80 hours a week just to make a middling game that was designed by committee sounds like a nightmare.

In any case, Kamegawa was “moved” when he looked over Kannawa’s previous proposals, so he decides that now would be a good time to praise her — probably because he saw her take a work call while she was lunching alone. His kind words are enough to bring the poor woman to tears. He’s also determined to impress her… and this is why he hasn’t asked for help? Is this like when Okarun tried to work out on his own, because he wanted to surprise Momo? Bro, c’mon. We’re talking about work, not flirting. You can’t just not ask questions. But I guess all’s well that ends well… except for Kannawa blurting out that she wanted to have lunch with him for him and not work. Way to go, professional mentor…

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Stray thoughts & observations:

• The episode opens with Kamegawa being awestruck by Kannawa’s latest presentation. Basically, they plan on doing a maid cafe collaboration for one of the company’s games. Is that really impressive, though? A maid cafe collaboration seems pretty old hat to me.
• When Kannawa speaks to her mentee, it’s… it’s not as extreme as say a drill sergeant, but she doesn’t feel relaxed. She doesn’t come across as approachable. Almost every sentence feels like she’s barking out an order. But again, I don’t really find this particularly awkward. I guess your mileage may vary. When I think awkward, the most recent character that comes to mind is Monica from Secrets of the Silent Witch. On the other hand, I look at Kannawa and I just see someone who isn’t naturally affable. Are unfriendly people awkward? Or are they just plain unfriendly?
• Apparently, Kannawa is a gamer and Kamegawa is not. Tsk tsk. We all know gamers get all the hottest girls. Dude needs to step it up.
• Dang, she’s a leaner when she games. Also, she’s struggling because she’s not used to playing on a phone. Same. I can’t stand putting my fingers all over the phone screen or any screen for that matter. Even with my iPad, I mount it like a second monitor and just use a mouse to operate it.
• The banquettes look kinda tacky here.

• As someone who doesn’t want the gross, heavy feeling of a big meal weighing me down at work, I’d probably get a salad for lunch too. Actually, I don’t like to eat lunch at work. I prefer one big meal when I get home so I can relax and take my time. I usually just have a snack to tide me over until then.
• Kannawa tells herself that she needs to stop pulling all-nighters whenever a new release comes out. We all make mistakes once in a while. I’ve had this exact thing happen once in the past few years: I got stuck on prepatched Promised Consort Radahn in Shadow of the Erdtree, because I refused to respec my character into a cheesy build. Had to hop onto a work call literally ten mins after I turned off my PS5. That wasn’t a great day.
• When their coworkers invite Kamegawa out to lunch, he suggests bringing Kannawa along as well. But they say there’s no point, because she never takes them up on their offer. That might be true, but I think it’s weird (and honestly impolite) not to invite her out anyway. I’ve come across a few coworkers like Kannawa, and even though they’ll never join you, it never hurts to ask. Unless, of course, they tell you to stop asking.