©pom・JOYNET/LINE Digital Frontier・ 「先輩はおとこのこ」製作委員会
I shouldn't be the one writing a review of this episode. That's all that's running through my head as I sit here, trying to put words on metaphorical paper, but I also know that I have to try. I can't fill Nick's shoes, but I'll do my best, wishing I didn't have to.
That's probably no different from what Makoto's mother is thinking for most of this episode. As it turns out, there's really no reason why she's so interested in the gender binary, although if pressed, she'd probably say it's because she's so disgusted with her father dressing opposite sex when she was young. But the problem is almost certainly not that simple. We see that she was disgusted with cross-dressing men long before she saw her father among them, and it seems to stem from simple arrogance: she's cute, therefore she deserves cute things. They don't, so they don't, and by trying to use things that were never meant for them, they're essentially stealing from her. And her father's meddling in her domain was just a bridge too far. She acts not out of fear but out of disgust, and it comes entirely from her own beliefs about who “deserves” what.
Her rejection of Makoto's love for so-called “girly” things comes from that anger. In her mind, somehow her father had betrayed her, and she couldn't realize that it never really had anything to do with her. Her father just did what he wanted, and probably with his wife's knowledge. Makoto, fond of colors and cute looks, does not deny what his mother believes in. He is simply being honest with himself. The only one who makes a big deal of it, the only one who takes it personally, is her—and that's the real forgery in someone else's domain.
Are things resolved too clearly? I think so, yes. But the important thing is that she is forcing herself to try to meet Makoto halfway. Her child is reaching out to her in a way she never did with her father, and the biggest sign that she herself is onto something as an adult is the way she resists the knee-jerk reaction. his knee. This time she didn't cut off all her hair. She doesn't tell Makoto that she never wants to see him again. Instead, she tries. The artwork shows this notably in her crouched, frightened pose as they enter the shopping mall. It contrasted nicely with Makoto's confident stance, the way he held his head high even when a child pointed out that he was tall. And when she realized that pink was just a color, I thought the first step had actually been taken.
As you may have heard, this movie is getting a sequel, and that makes lack of determination go down easier. Saki's storyline feels left out, we don't know anything more about what caused her mother to leave and abandon her daughter, and Saki can't quite come to terms with her lack of romantic attraction and/ or your sexuality towards others. But I think the ending with Saki running to her friends was fine. Ryuji and Makoto fully accept her for who she is, even if she herself doesn't yet realize it. Saki has the room to grow that Makoto has found and there's something nice about that.
At the end of the final review, Nick said that he was not entirely sure that the finale would live up to his confidence in it. I agree with you that it's not perfect, but I think the best thing is to maintain our faith in the franchise. As Jane Austen said in Mansfield Park, it allows “everyone, no fault of their own, to live in tolerable comfort.” Even though she doesn't mean it that way, the classic spelling of “everyone” with two separate parts is important here. Makoto, Ryuji, and Saki are all moving to a place that is comfortable with who they are and the body they live in. I'm so glad we went on this journey with them and I wish Nick was here to finish it with us.
Rating:
Senpai is an Otokonoko currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
