Otherside Picnic Episode 7 – Holiday!

Oh boy, it’s been a looooong day. I couldn’t wait to get it over with and watch some anime and chat with a friend. It’s really what I needed tonight. But I do have this huge sense of accomplishment for unknown reasons! 

How are you K? Good Monday. Are you back at work/school/leading the cult/the astronaut program? Have you spoken to Jared Leto lately or are you guys still doin’ that thing?

I’m glad you feel accomplished, I’m sure it’s well earned. I’m getting by that’s for sure… you know Jared, always talking about “society” and what have you. Glad to be back doing this with you.

Honestly guys, if you’re not following K at the Movies, what are you even doing? 

I gotta say, Otherside Picnic surprised me this week and I wasn’t expecting to be surprised. OK, so you never expect to be surprised but you know what I mean. The show had sort of settled into a groove and I didn’t think that groove would include a swimsuit, I mean a beach episode. 

And I have mixed feelings about that. Any first impressions K?

I was interested in going into this one, as it was set up by the mystery of what was going to happen and I guess they paid it off. I feel like this show has sold me on the fact that I want to hang out with these gals. They seem like a fun time, and the plot barges in and always disrupts that. 

It’s starting to feel like the show is at war with itself. It’s like half the staff really loves yuri romance but hates horror, and the other half is horror people who despise that they have to do a goofy romance angle. I don’t know I feel like the two don’t co-exist well here. 

Even last episode, when they are shooting the monster there’s no tension, so they just sort of drop it so they can do cute yuri moments. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me but it seems like a show of moments rather than a story or plot. The connective tissue isn’t necessarily this shows strength, I wonder how it would work with a sketch format like Kaguya-sama. Just jump into their creepy encounters or cute things they do in their downtime. Can’t say that would be better but would be interesting.

OK, I lied, my feelings aren’t so much mixed as separated. I liked the first half of the episode. I enjoy slice of life content and I like seeing people go shopping for some reason. I find that I often really enjoy shopping montages in anime. Don’t ask, cause I got no answer. 

And the first half was in fact pretty awesome for me. There was some implied yuriness but nothing overt. Some fun times. Smiles and drinks and sunshine all around. And yet, it was odd.

Like until they went to the abandoned house, for instance, there were no background noises except for the ocean and no soundtrack. And the waves were perfectly rhythmic. No wind, no people or animals and no birds in the sky. It was so quiet it became just a little suffocating. Then the music picked up in the house they were searching but disappeared as soon as they were out. And it only picked up again in the second half. Not to mention that the music itself, both times, was extremely weird.

This was some fantastic atmosphere and I would say that up until the halfway point, and even a bit past that, this was my favourite episode of Otherside Picnic so far. Or at least, in a while.

Yeah it was fun getting to spend a beach episode with the girls. It was enjoyable getting to see them yearn for a normal beach day, but being able to make it work even in the Other World. Yeah, the show is an interesting production, part of it feels like limitations but they do make it unsettling and offputting which does effectively put you on edge. 

And I really wanted to find the Urban Legend referenced in this episode because it sounded cool but I didn’t really follow but I couldn’t find it. And Twitter let me down. Curse you Twitter! Do you know, K?

I did my due diligence in trying to research it, and I found not what I was looking for. I was trying to find whether it was an urban legend first. So like maybe the Umibōzu which is a Yokai/creature that likes to sink ships. But it didn’t fit the trash motif or the appearance of the creatures.

When I tried to determine if it could be more a creepypasta… I found Wattpad fan-fiction. May I interest you in some “Creepypasta Boyfriend Scenarios” especially the “When you go to the beach with him” chapter. Have you ever imagined what it would be like to take Jeff the Killer, Slender Man, or Sonic.EXE on a date at the beach? Well now I know and I’m starting to think that Oedipus had some decent ideas. 

However, as much as this is a silly aside, I can’t ignore the fact that I guess I gotta respect the grind. Because you know… the beach chapter of Creepypasta Boyfriend Scenarios has 90.2K reads. That’s like more than my entire site combined, so obviously I’ve been doing it wrong. Jeez.

So I was having a grand old time with Otherside Picnic episode 7, but then the little nitpicks started to pile up. I had started wondering which side they were on pretty early one but then, they went to a convenience store and bought some snacks from an actual clerk. They paid with their card. So I was lulled into thinking it’s our world or potentially an inbetween place.

When they revealed that it was filled with monsters and the girls weren’t freaked out about it, I guessed it was the otherside. I was fine with that. I thought it was a decent bait and switch but a bit cheap. Nothing up to this point would lead us to believe that the otherside could be a perfect replica of the this side. But fine, I still liked the episode and I thought this week’s ghoulies were the best in the show. 

I agree they were definitely rather spooky. However, I might disagree with you only because they lacked any real presence or iconography. This is probably the biggest threat and one that had multiple eerie tricks up their sleeves but, I think I’d find them forgettable and overshadowed by the first half of the episode.

They probably could have done something, to better foreshadow the events later in the episode. It was definitely and interesting reveal to have Sorawo straight up murder 4 dudes in self-defense. 

I kind of always felt they were in the Otherside and they were going for one of those mirage or dream world sort of traps. A paradise you won’t ever want to leave that’s really insidious. 

And then the girls went full blown action hero shooting spree. O.k., still good. And that handgun must have fired like 30 rounds. 

You know, I’m not a person that has an issue with unrealistic guns. I’m perfectly happy to accept that the otherside has a weird side effect on weapons and all guns have unlimited ammo there. Heck, I’m perfectly happy with guns just having unlimited ammo for no reason. But I feel like you have to pick one. If you want to go with unlimited ammo because you don’t want to bother counting rounds and stopping the action every 5 minutes to have characters reload, then you can’t just arbitrarily have someone declare themselves out of ammo now to add some tension. That’s just not fair.

Am I making too much of fictional ammo rules? Do I sound crazy? You’d tell me if I did, right, K?

Surprising that I didn’t think too much about that, but I think it’s fair. There was a lot happening in that scene with creatures coming out of the ocean, and that building and being really tall of a sudden, it was kind of over-stimulating. 

For me my nitpick or complaint I guess would be more about the portal ritual. How did Sorawo know how to do that? Also they didn’t necessarily escape so it was kind of nice of everything on the beach to stop chasing them I guess? It’s not like Toriko was shooting a lot while she performed or they really found a safe distance away. The tension is there but I feel the peril is really poor in its portrayal.

Before we knew it, the girls were back home one big sun hat short. And that was it. I somehow never quite managed to grasp either the import nor the implications of their beachside adventure. They did look good in their swimsuits and that’s not something to be taken for granted but otherwise, I’m stumped.

I think what’s getting to me is that Otherside Picnic is refusing to establish clear rules for its universe. Or at least, it’s not sticking by them. Which makes it difficult for me to gauge how to interact with the events happening. 

So after it was all said and done, episode 7 left me with this. I like Otherside Picnic best when it’s understated. When the weirdness is heavily contrasted by normalcy in order to truly let it shine. How about you K, any takeaways?

Otherside Picnic, is a weird show. Admittedly I almost feel that I have to use it’s own scale. That was a good Otherside Picnic episode, that was a bad Otherside Picnic Episode but when I open that compared with other shows, I have a hard time judging it comparatively to other series.

I saw your tweets, Lita asked you if you’d recommend the series and you didn’t exactly give a shining endorsement. Neither would I, but I wouldn’t call it a horrible show either. I don’t know, I almost kind of want to say that it comes across as a show made for a paycheck. It’s a show with decent marketability and some fun concepts, but I don’t feel the passion behind it. It doesn’t come across that the people really love Creepypastas and urban legends they’re using and are trying get you to share their interest in these kind of stories.

I thought that would be the case maybe, because it would be so yuri heavy but it’s really subdued in that department too. It’s letting their relationship develop really naturally, except for really on the nose hand holding or eye contact scenes.

Otherside Picnic is kind of how I feel about Charlotte. I acknowledge that the show is flawed and does a lot of things wrong and I kind of have to call it a bad show… but you recognize enough of a good show in it that it hurts you to admit that. Funny thing about that is that Charlotte is too ambitious, and tries doing too much. Otherside Picnic is the opposite. I keep waiting for it to have a point or try a little harder… and maybe that day will come.

I’m not one for numbers but it flirts with being 7/10 but my gut keeps saying 5/10. Competent but rather empty, but the highlights and the good moments it’s fighting for that higher rating. I am enjoying getting to do this alongside you, so I hope we and the readers, and fans of the show can all enjoy the 2nd half of the show and seeing were it goes.

Previous posts

• Otherside Picnic Episode 1 – Well I’m Piqued
• Otherside Picnic Episode 2 – Close Encounters of the 4th Kind
• Otherside Picnic Episode 3 – Love Shack
• Otherside Picnic Episode 4: This TIME It’s Personal
• Otherside Picnic Episode 5 – The great grey beast February
• Episode 6: A Call From Danger, Before Boarding The Ghost Train