DAKAICHI -I’m being harassed by the sexiest man of the year ep 6 – All’s Well That Ends Well

I use to let you guys know who’s who in these posts but I’ve gotten really lazy lately. I think most of you guys know us well enough to tell me and Matt apart but still, for the record I’m in blod….Just kidding….or am I???? Maybe this is Matt. I’m a jerk, I’m in regular font and also not Matt. Have you been drinking again, Irina? Besides if anyone’s the jerk here it’s me. Whoever I am… now I’m confused.

I’m just going to get straight to the point here, this is going to be very hard for me to review because I ended up having no feelings about this episode. It was just kinda there. Didn’t love it, or hate it and nothing stood out that much. Man I hope Matt is better at this reviewing thing than I am because, boy, I’m starting to bore myself a little and I’m two paragraphs in. I totally get what you’re saying but I’ll expand upon it later as I’ve read ahead so I know what you’re going to say and will jump in with my thoughts then.

Actually I lie, one thing did stand out. Takato should probably stop going out to drink after work. How has he not learned his lesson yet? In his business you’d think this would come up more often. Is that even an option in Japan? They’re a nation of pretty heavy drinkers if anime has taught me anything. I imagine there’s an element of peer pressure too—but yeah Takato could probably do with reigning it in and stopping before getting black out drunk.

All things considered the not a rape scene was handled pretty well. It was properly misleading and the midnight call from Junta created some fantastic tension. That was my favourite part of the episode, I thought Junta was about to Hulk out and run back to Tokyo then and there to smash that guys face in.

During the worst of it, I felt a bit uncomfortable with Takato and Junta’s strained relationship. However, once it was all said and done, I must say that Junta actually handled it pretty well. A lot better than I expected him to, that’s for sure. There was definitely a line that I’m glad they didn’t cross—like for a second I thought Junta was going to blame Takato for being ‘taken advantage of’ and nobody likes victim blaming but yeah he did good for once. I liked that he said “if you want me to leave and never come back, I will”. He was giving him space, at least that’s how I saw it anyway.

We actually got to see Junta by himself a bit more but we still haven’t gotten to know him at all. All his actions and thoughts are really only framed in the context of his relationship to Takato. If they developed him a bit more as his own character, I really believe it would go a long way to making their relationship seem more balanced. It would also make me care more about them as a couple because for now I really only care about Takato. Or rather, I care about Junta only because Takato cares about him, if that makes sense. They’re at a ‘make or break’ stage with Junta, this is episode 6 and still no decent backstory, it’s got to happen soon or else it’ll seem too late of an addition to the narrative—unless they’ve got a really good excuse as to why they’ve waited… like he’s secret a serial killer.

That little kid actor is becoming a recurring comic relief. Any thoughts on that? Unnecessary. Not comic relief in general but this character specifically, he’s almost there just to fill out a quota. This is a switch – I like him. He has that campy over the top silly thing going that fits in with what I want this show to be. He’s the goofball comedy element I tend to like. Not a very good one granted but the only one we got…

Before I give out my opinion what did you think of Ayagi as a character? As a character, he’s fine but less intimidating than the previous episode set him up to be. I really enjoyed that they ended up not villainizing him at all really. That was an honest surprise on the part of the narrative and the only unexpected choice they’ve made so far.

I’m a little surprised they smoothed out this misunderstanding this quickly. A lot of shows would have milked it for 3 or 4 episodes, languishing in the drama of it all. So was I, and that ties into my overall opinion of the episode, I too neither liked or disliked it (I mean I probably liked it more than you but that’s more because my overall opinion on the series is more positive). I think it was too tidy of a resolution, I expected this character to mess things up a bit more not bring Takato and Junta closer together. Also I expected an actual fight between Junta and Ayagi—though I guess the line Junta had about “not wanting to hit him” because it’d make trouble for Takato’s stage show addresses that enough. But yeah not my favourite episode. You think? I liked that they didn’t drag it out. This is probably my favourite show we’ve reviewed together. The worse I can say about it is uneven but not unpleasant characterization and a bit boring. It’s actually getting better and a lot more interesting than I thought it would be.

I guess, what we have to look forward to now is a cat and mouse game with the paparazzi. Are they actually going to go into how a homosexual relationship could affect their careers? That’s a pretty heavy subject. I’m curious to see where it leads. My guess is they’re just going to get into a lot of crazy hijinks to avoid getting discovered and we’ll never get into any serious questions but we’ll see. Who knows maybe they’ll wrap up that story in a single episode too! I hope for some sort of social commentary on the difficulty of being a gay male actor in Japan but you’re probably right and it’ll just be covered superficially!

Well look at that, I guess once I sat down and thought about it a little, I actually did have a few things to say about this episode. Like I mentioned, I was pretty neutral about it, which isn’t a bad thing.

I got some more screencaps for you. A lot in fact…Yay?