10 Second Anime - Ore Monogatari!! - Episode 4



Takeo and Rinko, like every successful couple, plan a mixer for their single friends. An emergency becomes an opportunity to show Rinko's skeptical friends why she likes Takeo so much.

Meh.

Life and death emergencies seem to happen a lot in this city. I can appreciate that the audience needs some kind of crisis to show off Takeo's strengths, but this is too random and contrived. A falling girder two episodes ago and now a fire in a restaurant complex makes the characters appear to be in some other kind show. Granted, the shoujo romance genre is full of these crises to maximize emotional displays, but this is feeling too clichéd. If this were a darker kind of story, I would start to think an obsessed stalker from Suna's past is targeting him or his potential girlfriends. But I don't want to watch that psychological thriller. I want to watch Takeo and Rinko make cutesy faces at each other.

 

 

Heh.

I'm digging these little vignettes that happen to Takeo and Suna. I'm hoping there's a pattern to them, because there was definitely a theme running through all of them in this episode tied to the main story of the group date.

 

All the girls love Suna. All the guys admire Takeo. Both groups are surprised they're friends. We saw that on the train ride prologue. The little adventure with Takeo carrying the baby and stroller up the stairs, only to have the mother thank Suna for his help echoed later when Takeo fixed a bunch of wrong stuff happening in the halls of that restaurant mall, but the girls were only impressed by Suna's helpful tip in contacting management. This stuff happens to Takeo and Suna so often, they no longer get upset by the misperceptions of their efforts. Now that Rinko is part of their little trio, she's going to see that happen a lot too.

 

Enough of that stuff. This is the springtime of their youth, after all.

We need to see Takeo going bonkers over Rinko's cooking.

We need to see Takeo and Rinko getting bashful over comments on their compatibility.

Suna is enjoying all this lovey dovey stuff too. Takeo and Rinko's small talk about how great each of the seasons are made him see they could easily be talking like this as an elderly couple. Awwww!

Rinko has never had a boyfriend before either, so it's nice to see her getting flustered by the little things like getting close enough to fit into a selfie. That's only made harder by Takeo's hugeness.

 

Of course. Rinko just had to be smallest girl in her group of friends. Who else would go out with a giant like Takeo?

 

Takeo never lacked for male friends. I had forgotten that. When Rinko asked if he could get five boys together for their group date, I was worried that he didn't know enough people. But from what we saw at his junior high graduation, plus the prologue with boys from another school wanting to be his friend, Takeo's problem was going to be whittling them down to four plus Suna.

I was touched by the boys' reaction to Takeo's announcement that he was in a relationship. No jealousy, no hard feelings, just unbridled joy for their big brother. Boys Takeo's age don't have this misperception problem. It's only girls and adults.

They're an established couple already. They couldn't make googly eyes at each other like this in public if they weren't.

 

Ha! Rinko and her friends go to an all-girl school, so that's their reason for not having opportunities to meet boys. However, the dudes go to a coed school, but all the girls there only have eyes for the popular guys. All of them were looking straight at Suna as they said this. Ha again!

 

Suna made an important point about friends of nice people. They're not necessarily nice themselves, but are friends with the nice person because that person happens to be nice. Takeo said that was a complicated thing. Yup.

 

Hulk smash! through a third story window and make a power landing.

I suppose it wasn't that surprising a fire broke out in a row of restaurants which were negligent about buckets, boxes and shelves blocking exit doors in the hallway.

 

I liked Suna's way of motivating Takeo to get out from under some rubble - 1) Rinko was going to run into a burning building if he didn't and 2) his own life would be boring if he didn't have his friend around. It's up for debate on which one motivated Takeo more, but I'll just note that the bros have known each other since they were three years old.

Nice tan and afro there, Takeo. Looking good! Even with your hair still on fire...

 

I think Rinko's friends figured out why she likes him so much.

Takeo may be socially awkward around girls and adults, but the boys see his cool side and there's no time for awkwardness when lives are on the line. Also, Takeo added another call to action - make sure Rinko doesn't cry.

 

Takeo is already good at physically protecting Rinko's smile (Japanese cliché, gotta love it), but he's going to have to learn to be quicker with expressing his feelings to do so emotionally. He's not good with words, like Suna, so I'm hoping he figures out how to do that with his actions.