Kannawa worries that maybe she’s not being a good enough friend to Kamegawa. She also adds that her kouhai — the employee she’s supposed to mentor — also happens to be her first friend. She makes it sound like he’s her only friend. Uh, is Kankaiji not her friend? And Hotta as well? They can barely hold in their laughter as they listen to her, but if it were me, I’d be thinking, What am I? Chopped liver? What have we been doing this whole time? Why did I invite you to a spa resort if we weren’t friends? But hey, those two are nicer than I am. I know I’m petty.
I’m always flabbergasted when I see commercials for AI, because they always seem to feature the most pathetic adult I’ve ever seen. This is a parody, but you get the gist:
I’m thinking, Who are these helpless losers? Well, she’s right in front of me. Apparently, Kamegawa’s birthday is coming up, but Kannawa goes, “But I’ve never celebrated someone’s birthday before, so I don’t know what to do.” Have we collectively lost the ability to do even the most cursory research? Look stuff up on a search engine? Here, lemme do it for you. Type in “birthday celebration ideas” and then just go hog wild. Or go onto any social media platform, look up “birthday celebration,” and copy the examples you see in front of you. Monkey see, monkey do.
Kankaiji suggests that they lump Kamegawa’s birthday in with the group birthday party that the company throws at the start of every month. Uh, sure, I guess you could do that. And if we were keeping things strictly professional, that would be a fine plan. But I thought Kannawa and Kamegawa were friends. We literally just went over this. It’s also painfully obvious that Kannawa likes Kamegawa, so why do something so impersonal? You could simply bring a cake over to his apartment, light some candles, and give him a gift. It’s not rocket science.
Kannawa wants to get Kamegawa a gift, but again, she’s helpless. She thus tries the whole “Uh, my brother’s sister’s, friend’s cousin confided in me and wanted to know what a man might like for a present….” This bugs me a bit. I mean, what have we been doing for the past two months’ worth of episodes? Hanging out with Kamegawa, getting to know him. We know he likes to play video games, especially Final Fantasy. We also know he has model toys. He literally skimps out on his food budget in order to fund his hobbies. C’mon, I’m not even his friend, and I know this. But instead, we go shopping for gloves. Yawn. Well, he did literally tell her what he would want.
Kannawa is helping with the group birthday party, but she also wants to hide this fact from Kamegawa. Eh, I don’t really get it. It’s not like it’s a surprise. She literally invited him to the party. And it’s not like she’s painting a personal sign for him. It’s just this… ugly thing with bold red letters on a piss yellow background. Not only that, it’s a generic birthday message for everyone. I’m surprised neither Hotta nor Kankaiji have anything to say about the design. Welp, our awkward senpai still manages to screw it up somehow. Twice, actually. With both the sign and keeping the prep work a secret from her kouhai. Kamegawa ends up having to pull a Bob Ross and help turn his senpai’s mistake into something a little more palatable.
The other employees are always so surprised when they hear that Kannawa is helping out with the celebrations. They keep saying over and over that this is “out of character” for her. And sure, I get it. They don’t know her like Kamegawa does. They distanced themselves from her from the start, and have made no efforts whatsoever to bridge the gap. Kannawa isn’t innocent either. She has admitted to keeping others at arm’s length in order to avoid socializing with them. Nevertheless, I think it is a shame that thawing out her frosty relationship with her coworkers never became a side plot.
This series has been almost nothing but the Kannawa and Kamegawa show from start to finish, Fine, they’re the main characters, so they deserve the spotlight. But I honestly think we could’ve sacrificed a couple of episodes to develop the side characters. For instance, I would love to ditch the one where Kannawa and Kamegawa work through a typhoon. I’d rather see Kannawa make an attempt to befriend a coworker or two and thus grow as a person than what we got instead, which was our two not-quite-lovebirds sharing an umbrella in a freaking typhoon.
During the party, some lady fails to correct others when they give her all the credit for Kannawa’s hard work. Sure, that’s horrible, but I’m not sure that the story really needs this tiny bit of drama. I know Kamegawa wants everyone to know that his senpai is actually super nice. I just don’t know if it’s necessary to suddenly have a mini-villain out of nowhere to demonstrate that. I mean, I don’t even know this woman’s name. It feels like half-baked and shoehorned in at the last second.
We then get a ridiculous scene where Kannawa has to dive onto the mean woman in order to protect her from a stack of falling boxes. This then prompts Kamegawa to scold his senpai for pushing herself too hard. I mean, he’s got a point. But we could’ve had this same conversation without all the silly drama with that other woman. After all, Kannawa isn’t even spending time with the birthday boy. She’s been passing out drinks and whatnot. You know what I like to do on a friend’s birthday? Hang out with my friend. Yeah, yeah, she’s awkward, so she doesn’t even know something this basic. This would then lead to the conversation where Kamegawa scolds her. So like I’ve said, we don’t need this other woman.
In the end, Kamegawa loves Kannawa’s gift, and they sort of have a moment as they stare into each other’s eyes. He then summons up the courage to confess his feelings to her. All this says to me, however, is that this scene would’ve been better in a private setting and not an office group birthday party.
Stray thoughts & observations:
- That’s actually a really good lunch. It’s just drawn super poorly.
- W-what…? You’ve never given your own family a gift?
- I guess Kamegawa is quite popular with the women in the office.
